Fixing a Jacked-up, Unfair, Screwball Publishing Industry: The Coffee Shop Underground

Alternately: Operation: “Cyborg” Dickens

Suppose that someone simulated a Dickensian publishing climate based on these objective facts about it:

A motivated storyteller, supported by a courageous publisher, pushed the boundaries of new publishing technologies. Between them they innovated a new form of publishing that grew to be more successful — in terms of profit and proliferation — than any publishing before it had, and renewed a by-the-numbers industry into a livelier shape, setting a precedent for a hundred years.

That’s a true account, with names left out, of how Charles Dickens worked with a publisher called Chapman and Hall in the early 1800s to publish The Pickwick Papers.

They innovated “the serial!” which doesn’t sound like that amazing an idea right now, since it just means a book that’s been all split into episodes.

Except, before they invented it, it would have sounded impossible to believe. It was revolutionary. And, without it, we would not have an appetite for serialized TV shows. So there.

Suppose for a breath that an entity arose that wanted to be the Chapman and Hall of their century. Suppose that they wanted to reinvigorate an undead industry. Make a close examination of the publishing giants and tell me that they don’t look like massive zombies, slogging on after death by sheer willpower.

That would be an encouraging enterprise.