(Photo Credit: Denise Krebs)
Reading is such a deeply personal activity. It involves the reader and the book. Everything else is superfluous to reading. Even if a book isn’t read in solitude, reading is not an interactive endeavour. Neither sitting down in a café nor suntanning at the beach call for companionship when a book is involved.
Yet we tend to forget that reading is not just about that individual experience. Reading is larger than that. It goes beyond the reader, the book, and especially the writer. When a writer opts for the publishing route, then their book is taken out of their grasp and placed into the hands of the reader. Nonetheless, reading affects society and not just the reader. Books after all, are objects of cultural consumption.
The Commodification of Books
We can skip past the history of the printing press, technological advancement, and the rise of mass production. Fact is, books are widely available to consumers today. Take a look at the October 2012 — October 2013 Annual Report of the International Publishers Association, and you’ll be reminded that books are publishers’ commodities. In fact, the IPA estimated that the global spending on books amounts to €114 billion (approx. US$155.3 billion) per year (p.15). There’s no denying then that books are not always about the readers, the authors, or even the books.
What matters is how far-reaching books are. The more people read, the more lucrative the publishing business. At the same time, the more books are published and read, the wider ideas and stories spread. Crudely put, it all comes down to the economies of scale. Demand and supply need to coincide at high levels for books to be successful.
The Demand for Books
In order to publish a successful book, one needs to know their audience. Ryan Holiday wrote a guideline on the Huffington Post blog on how to create a bestselling book, noting that writing is essentially a marketing campaign. The book as a product needs to convince the reader to buy it. Thus it’s no surprise that Ryan Holiday insisted that marketing is intertwined with writing.
If readers are not interested in the subject matter of a book, then the demand for it will be lacking. Conversely, if a subject matter interests a multitude of readers, then there will be a great demand for the book. The greater the demand for a book, the greater the supply will be as well. I think a good example of that is the Twilight craze and all the vampire romance books that took over the teen sections of bookstores as a result. That’s where the money lay, so publishers took advantage of that.
Limit of Freedom of Choice
Technically readers have the choice about which books to read. However, that freedom of choice is finite. Readers can only choose to buy the books that are available to them. That choice is further limited if booksellers only carry popular titles, forgoing books that fall into the long tail. That means that readers are at the mercy of publishers and booksellers, which harks back to the economies of scale. Reading therefore is very much shaped by the commodification of books.
Identity through Consumption
Group Identities
Still, there are ways to set oneself apart from others through books. The tastes readers have in books can also be seen as a reflection of their identities. See, you can even identify hipsters based on the books they read. Millennials in their 20s and 30s read young adult fiction apparently because it reflects their world view about the uncertainty of the future that lies ahead of them.
Social Media
Social networking sites (SNSs) have also appropriated books. The most prolific site is Goodreads, the social networking site for book lovers. Goodreads also allows cross-posting to other SNSs such as Twitter, for users to share their reading status updates.
Not to be outdone, Facebook encourages their users to fill out information about their favourite books on their Facebook profiles. In this manner, books contribute to online identities, based upon which others can form their impressions about other people.
Social Reading Experiences
As much as reading is an individual exercise, book clubs push reading beyond the individual readers. Books clubs allow people who read the same books to discuss them. There is an agreement that the same books be read to facilitate resultant discussions. Such discussions foster social relations between readers. Picking books that garner a lot hype even support and contribute to popular culture.
Then again, readers don’t even have to be part of formally organised book clubs. They just need to talk with one another about the books they have read.
Other means through which reading becomes a social experience are blogs. Tumblr is especially rife with quotes from popular books, fan art and also GIFs based on the movie adaptions of books.
Reading thereby constitutes an entire culture.
Expanding Material Culture
Books not only expand culture through the sharing of ideas. Books also have a tangible impact as they become blueprints for material culture. Book paraphernalia is not uncommon. The design of Penguin classics, for instance, has probably reached iconic status. Mugs, notebooks, postcards, among other things can be found with the familiar Penguin Books design. Then there is the theme park of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Orlando Resort.
The media of books is not only confined to print matter either. Movie adaptions of books have been on the rise; the most recent adaptation being The Fault in Our Stars. Soundtracks for those movies are also available, consequently expanding those books to film and music. Newer editions with movie tie-in covers tend to hit the shelves as well, in a bid to boost overall sales of these books.
Based on these developments, books clearly are not meant just for individual reading pleasure alone; surely not in this modern age where capitalism is the driver of cultural consumption. Money, not stories, supports the production of books.
What do you think are the implications of readers as consumers? How does being a consumer affect your reading experiences?
Confab ˈkän-ˌfab, kən-ˈ noun an informal discussion, often about a particular topic
Discussion posts are some of my favourite posts to read. New ideas get shared that way, or old ideas are revisited and given a new spin. And of course, I get to be my opinionated self as I hoist my views upon others, while pretending to be objective. Or maybe not. I do welcome alternate views and I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
I always felt isolated when I was younger for being a reader. Not that I didn’t have friends but that so few of them shared my love for reading. Such that when I was older and a few years ago stumbled upon the extremely active and friendly book blogging community it changed my life as a reader.
I loved the points you make on it becoming social because now that is what it is for me. Yes as you said I still read alone but I have this group of other readers to reach out to who have most likely read the same book and I can have a connection with those people on a level that I was always missing in my life about one of the most important activities that I enjoyed.
What a marvelous article dear!
I’ve always had a handful of friends here and there who loved reading but rarely have I had raving conversations about books with them. Still, I must agree that the book blogging community has a way of changing you as a reader once you get involved. I’ve read more in the past year than in the years preceding that. I partially chalk it up to book blogging.
This is such a well thought-out and well-written post! I love it! :) I’m particularly interested by the section about the limit of freedom of choice:
That choice is further limited if booksellers only carry popular titles, forgoing books that fall into the long tail.
This makes it so hard to find books that I really like sometimes. It’s particularly true because I’m located in a part of the world that’s rather late to the party when it comes to book releases (at least in my opinion). Books here are quite expensive because of import costs, I guess, and libraries take a while before picking up newer titles. Furthermore, the ones that libraries choose to pick up are usually really popular books or books by local authors. So some hidden indie gems by other authors in other parts of the world hardly ever grace the shelves of the library here, which makes me sad. :(
Due to this, my reading experience would end up shaped by books that are: popular enough to get the attention of local booksellers and libraries, and books that are older (not getting the newest releases). Thanks to the internet and sites like Netgalley or Bookbub, I’ve managed to read books that are kind of indie by authors that aren’t as well-known.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Ana :) And yeah, it took me more time than usual to put this post together. My thoughts were in such a jumble, I didn’t even understand myself what I was trying to say. Thankfully clarity came to me after all. Haha.
I can definitely understand your frustration with the limited access to books. When my family first moved countries, I had difficulty adjusting to the new selection of books that had become available to me. English was a foreign language and German books at my local bookstore were limited to the very popular titles and were marked up as well. The limit of books has definitely forced me to shift towards a predominantly English reading life. I’m trying to get into reading German books again though. The Book Depository and eLibrary subscriptions have definitely opened up access to German books again.
As for English books, my library system almost always carries the latest titles I look for; often even within two weeks of publication. I’m definitely grateful for that. Though when it comes to local literature, I’ve hardly gotten into those. The support for local literature has been very much under the radar. There once was a locally published book that I wanted to purchase but I couldn’t find it. I think it’s good that you have ready access to local authors.
Whatever it is, the Internet is definitely a great contributor to the expansion of access to literature, seeing how you’ve had the chance to read books that otherwise wouldn’t have been available to you :)
Interesting post! As a publishing student, I’ve actually talked about these things in classes so it’s sort of neat to see it pop up in a blog. Publishing really is, above all else, a business. While a majority of people go into it because they love books and want to spread a love for books, their priority has to be sales. Without sales, publishing companies lose money and go under, and without publishing companies we have a harder time promoting and sharing books (though self-publishers and indie publishers are doing their best). I honestly don’t mind looking at it that way, because it’s the truth. It does lead to some unfortunate things, with publishers bandwagoning on certain trends that they see making money, but I rather something than nothing!
I think the most interesting bit about this though is your discussion about reading becoming social. It’s funny because my post last week (or the week before, I can’t remember) talked about how reading is a very private, personal experience for me where I give a little of myself to the book and it changes me in return. And that’s still true. I just find it interesting how though I’m so protective of that relationship with the physical book, I don’t mind sharing it all over the blogosphere. Am I a kiss-and-tell person? Oh no! But yeah, it is becoming social in a way. Some people actually stop reading a book to tweet about what they’re feeling or update their Goodreads status, and obviously we blog about books after. So even if it’s not a social thing right then and there, there are social experiences being built around it. I think that’s sort of neat, though I’m not sure how far I’d want it to go. I still think I prefer the act of reading itself as a private thing, with the social bit coming after.
Anyways, I’m blabbing. Great post!
Ooh! Approval from a publishing student! ;)
Well, a lot of bloggers tend to discuss reading in relation to them as individuals, so I thought it’d be interesting to consider the broader perspectives. Humans are social beings after all, so I tried to contextualize the individual reading experience and the factors that might contribute to that.
I’m with you about the not minding. At the end of the day aesthetics as a whole is being monetized: art, music, theatre, and the likes. Ideally of course, those of us who access these will be able to appreciate the aesthetic form independent of the commodities they have become. But business is what allows us to access these in the first place, so I try not to be too cynical about the consumption aspects of books and reading.
Ah yes, the social aspects of reading. I think I’ll explore more of that. I’m also like you, in that I think reading is a personal experience. Books impact our minds, emotions, and even our spirits when we read. These are things that are real to us and everyone perceives books they read differently from the next person. At the same time, I think the convergence of media and people will only continue to make things social which we previously didn’t think of as social.
Movies for example were mostly social because people visit theatres with the friends and family. Things watched in the privacy of their own homes on the TVs were of individual concern. Now with Netflix, Hulu and other content providers, we’re constantly encouraged to share the things we watch on SNSs.
Even the Kindle has all these integrated methods for readers to share what they’re up to while reading. While I like to think I update Goodreads for myself to track my own reading, at the back of my mind, I have to remember that whatever notes I take are visible to others as well.