Peer review

Thank you for your sharing! I have a clearer concept of crowdfunding after reading you essay. At the beginning of your essay, you simply bring out the relationship among the publishing,  the author and the reader. In the following paragraph, presenting the meaning of the crowdfunding, and you also mention a successful case – the Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls – to prove the crowdfunding is feasible in the future marketing. However, I think it needs to talk more about how does the current publishing work and why the crowdfunding is emerging. This explanation would help the reader realize the different operation between the tradition publishing and crowdfunding.

In the second paragraph, you emphasize the digital network, such as social media, facilitates the development of crowdfunding. As what you say, social media indeed gives more chances to the writer appeal amount of the reader to support them. It increases the interaction between the writer and the reader; meanwhile the opinion of the reader becomes more important because each comment or rating for the piece, it will directly influence the writer’s reputation on the Internet. Comparing to the traditional publishing, many good pieces are ignored if the writer is not famous or popular. Therefore, I agreed what you said, “No longer are readers simply passive consumers of cultural products that were developed from the top-down.” The reader’s voice is powerful to choose what they want to read and which writers they want to support (or crowdfunding). Goodnight Stories for the Rebel Girls was a great success. The content is special and has struck a responsive chord in the hearts of its readers, and crowdfunding provides an opportunity to some unknown writer or special topic. I think you have a deeper thought of considering how does the crowdfunding expand the publishing filed (contents). Exactly, Goodnight Stories for the Rebel Girls is not a mainstream story topic for the big publishing company as most of the publishing place the “profit” on the first rather than to consider what is the story talking about. In this situation, the emerging of crowdfunding is good to accept different topics, such as women, race, sub-culture, go into the public. The point you come out for blending the culture diversity and promoting the democratization through the crowdfunding. It breaks the routine for the traditional publishing industry that has brought more new sights and vitality in the society. No longer is a single standard to rule the content or limit the writers’ publishing.

In the last paragraph, you mention that “old” and “new” media can coexist. Comparing to the crowdfunding, I think traditional publishing is still dominant in the market and the crowdfunding has many advantages are worth learning for the old publishing. Generally, I enjoy reading your essay as you have a clear organization (such as the sub-title) to analyze the thing. You have a deep understanding of your topic about the crowdfunding and especially you can discus from the social media, new vs. old publishing and culture, etc. I do think you did a good job of your essay.

 

The Emerging of Audiobook

The evolution of the book is catching up with technology at a higher speed. Less than a decade ago, the book was the main source of academic information. It was, therefore, the effort of every reader to read a book. The conventional reading style a decade ago was buying reading a book, page by page. However, with the advancement in technology, the book has evolved to very many controversial sources of information. According to Price (2012), the possibility of the print especially the book to survive has been threatened by the new age of technology which including video transmissions, cellular phones, computers networks, fax machines, recorders and cyberpunks among others. Of all the current technology that is a good example of the book evolving is the audiobooks. This essay discusses the current publishing industry events surrounding the audiobooks.

An audiobook is merely a recorded book on either a tape, CD or digital formats. Currently, the audiobooks have become the most preferable source of information as compared to a printed book. Fitzpatrick (2009) envisioned the planned obsolescence of the book. The book has been undergoing through multiple stages of evolution. The trend at which the book is evolving, its obsolescence is almost. The audiobooks are just one form of the evolution of the printed book. In the publishing industry, audiobooks are the major focus since they are revolutionizing the reading culture. The conventional culture that was set millions of years ago by the book is reading the book page by page. However, the audiobooks have come up with a new culture of listening. The dynamics brought about by the evolution of the reading culture from reading to listening have currently become the topic of discussion. The researchers are evaluating the reasons why people have suddenly shifted from the traditional books to audiobooks.

According to Maloney (2016), the sale of the audiobooks has drastically increased for the last two years in the United States and Canada. The sales in 2015 increased to 21% from the sales made in 2014. The same trend was witnessed in the first three months of 2016 where the sales of the audiobooks increased by 35.3% while the sales of hardcover dropped by 8.5% and the E-book dropped by 21.8%. The sudden rise has attracted the attention of the industry players who are trying to unravel the truth about audiobooks. Alter (2016) has noted that the surge in audiobooks sales is because of the people`s preference shifting from reading a book to listening to a book. In actual sense, reading a book has always been a problem to many people. Some of the people who hate reading argue that it tiresome to read a book. They have always found it difficult trying to make sense of a certain text in a book. Other haters of reading the book are just scared away by the size of the book. The big sizes of the books indicate that they contain a lot of content that must be understood through reading. The idea of thinking about reading a book just wears them off. Therefore, it is understandable why people have suddenly embraced listening to reading.

In 2011, Khazan (2011) weighed on the difference between listening to an audiobook to reading a book. One of the strange thing that Khazan (2011) realized was that today, people enjoy jumping from one chapter to the other which is similar to shuffling music on an iPod. This is one of the reasons that attract people to listening to an audiobook as opposed to reading. The people living in the globe today have evolved and they always looking for the simplest things. They don’t want to be bothered while trying to read a difficult term in a textbook or connecting two sentences of paragraphs while trying to get the meaning. The people who viewed reading as a hobby have drastically dropped and read is not a hobby to many again. In addition, the nature of work that many of the people in the population are engaged into is too much such that they find it difficult understanding what they read. Listening to an audiobook gives an individual who is tired but has interest reading to get the information. Listening to an audiobook is more consistent than reading a book. In most cases, a person becomes distracted by the slightest noise or something interesting when a reading a book and automatically the reader loses the flow of reading and understanding. On the other hand, a person listening to an audiobook is least distracted since he or she can only stop listening when the audio pauses. This is an indication that listening is quite favorable to reading. It is because of this unique advantage it has gotten a huge space in the current publishing industry. The current generation lives in a world that is technologically developed. The technology has led to the development of new interesting things such as the digital media which have the ability to interfere with the readers.

This shift of preference has seen the development of new business models and opportunities currently in the publishing industry. The publishing companies have been forced to catch up with the current technology which is the production of audiobooks. A closer look at the current publishing industry, the performance of the mainstream books which include the hardcovers and children books has declined. On the other hand, the digital era has opened a new market for the audiobooks. The new technology which has refined the digital era has led to the creation of many digital platforms where the audiobooks can be sold. Two major digital platforms are in use today. Buying or subscribing for copies and later downloading them, and streaming them online. According to Maynard (2015), the new technology especially the internet has led to the e-commerce business of the audiobooks become widespread. The current business model of the audiobooks in the publishing industry is a business to customer. The publishers can now directly sell the books to the customers without going through the middlemen such as bookshops and bookstores. The audiobook customers have increased due to the accessibility of the internet technology through their many devices. Today, almost every person in the United States has a smartphone that has the ability to access the internet, download a file and even stream an audiobook. Therefore, the audiobook market will continue to increase and expand day by day as the internet is spreading globally. The future of the audiobook market is bright and it is envisioned that almost all the mainstream book publishers will automatically shift to being the audiobook publishers.

Another rather interesting perspective that has gotten people talking today, is whether listening to a book is cheating. The debate seeking to find the answer has been going round in the media currently with many contributors voicing their perspective about the matter. Rothman (2016) argues that it depends on the type of information that one is trying to understand. If the information is less complicated, it is therefore not cheating when a listener just goes through the audiobook. However, the author states that it is cheating when someone chooses to listen than to read a book that has complicated information. Dahl (2016) echoes the same sentiments that audiobooks aren`t cheating but rather a form of helping readers encode easily. It is quite true that the most difficult part in reading is encoding the information from the book. The difficulties in encoding are witnessed when a person is unable to connect the meaning of the text that he or she is reading. The basis of reading a book is to understand its content. Therefore, a poor encoding will definitely lead to the misunderstanding of the book. In this regard, listening to an audiobook enables the listener to take the advantage of a voiced text that is easy to connect and understand. Therefore, it helps the listeners encode the meaning of the book. This leads to the conclusion that listening to the audiobooks cannot be termed as cheating (Maynard, 2016).

In conclusion, it is evident from the above analysis that the evolution of the book has come a long way. It has reached the stage of the audiobook which is the current trend in the publishing industry. The immense benefits which are consistent with the current technology and lifestyle have paved its way into the market.

 

References

ALTER, A. (2016). Audiobooks Turn More Readers Into Listeners as E-Books Slip. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 31 October 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/business/media/audiobooks-turn-more-readers-into-listeners-as-e-books-slip.html?_r=0

DahI, M. (2016). Relax, readers: Audiobooks aren’t ‘cheating’. CNN. Retrieved 31 October 2016, from http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/16/health/audiobooks-brain-cheating/

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. 2009. Introduction. In Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. Media Commons Press.

Khazan, O. (2011). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 31 October 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/olgakhazan/2011/09/12/is-listening-to-audio-books-really-the-same-as-reading/2/#3507dc9526c6

Price, Leah. Dead Again. New York Times 10 Aug 2012.

Maloney, J. (2016). The Fastest-Growing Format in Publishing: Audiobooks. WSJ. Retrieved 31 October 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fastest-growing-format-in-publishing-audiobooks-1469139910

Maynard, R. (2016). Is there a Future for Audiobooks?. Digital Publishing. Retrieved 31 October 2016, from https://digitalpublishing2015.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/the-future-for-audiobooks/

Rothman, D. (2016). Audiobooks: Are you ‘cheating’ if you listen rather than read traditionally?. Teleread.org. Retrieved 31 October 2016, from https://teleread.org/2016/08/14/audiobooks-are-you-cheating-if-you-listen-rather-than-read-traditionally/

The Role of Marginalia

S.Brent Plate touched on the topic rather inconspicuous but at the same time filled with deep philosophical meaning and value. “Marginalia and Its Disruptions" which appeared on the resource Los Angeles Review of Books examines the issue of marginalia and tries to present its psychological and cognitive value and indicate the reasons why the topic is relevant in today’s public discourse. The author concludes that the margins explore significant crisis at the present stage due to advances in technology and digital age. However, at the same time, this phenomenon is not just an attempt to interact with the text, but a manifestation of the will of the body, the transfer of power from the writer to the reader, a unilateral change in the perception. Therefore, the loss of these qualities has an adverse impact on the creative aspect of the person as a whole.

Generalization of knowledge gained from the article indeed opens a new look to this seemingly trivial manifestation of the cognitive process during the reading. The author shows the level of relevance of the topic, citing a variety of work as well as the organizations and groups that in some way relate to the theme of notes in the margins. It is evident that this phenomenon originated from the beginning of writing that the author rightly notes. However, the discoveries begin to arise in another area. Some people may perceive marginalia as mere additions, annotations, or disagreement with the author’s thoughts by the reader. On the contrary, with a critical look at this process more deeply, it becomes evident that the essence of a marginalia is to change the direction of one-way information. Thus, the linear text ceases to be such, as the reader adds unique elements aimed at interaction with the opinion of the author. Consequently, the reader sets the tone of the cognitive process in spite of the writer. Also, this phenomenon allows you to preserve text so to say alive. Besides, it is worth noting a particular section among those directly involved in the book business. Some bibliophiles suppress marginalia as well as other acts of physical interaction with books that change their appearance. In turn, some people have dedicated their work collecting the literature of past times, with the aim not only to keep the text and but notes as well, because some of them carry a particular value, especially some from the Medival age. But at the same time, new media and modern technology are less and less resort to the use of notes in the margin, as well as to the use of books in general. Nevertheless, it is possible to assume that this process is altered nowadays, because blog comments, for example, could be considered as a kind of modern time projection of marginalia, albeit deprived of their traditional use. In any case, it is considerably difficult to dispute the impact of technology on the current stage and the fact that the notes lose their original meaning.

Furthermore, the author rightly argues that the second reason for the relevance of the topic rather less noticeable. An analyze of its implication indicates even a threat to all human beings to some extent. It is enough just to look at the latest trends and the prevalence of artificial intelligence in a growing number of social spheres. Thus human activity loses sensate body that moves, breathes and read (Plate, 2015). Indeed, today it is much easier to access information using only computerized methods, it is simpler to get ready material than create something unique. Therefore, that is the main disadvantage of the consumer sphere, and the issue is that this phenomenon came to an information level and thus brought significant damage to the cognitive development of the individual. The human body includes the desire to know and analyze the action, feelings and emotions, in turn, the mind perceives only fragments of text and following their strict development which blocks the path to creativity. Thus, the dominance of text over the notes corresponds to the domination of the mind over the body. From this, it is possible to derive a clear conclusion and try to put the mind in doubt. Cognitive activity is not just a strict perception but interaction that unites self-expression of the body along with the intellectual response.

Finally, the article makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the concept of marginalia as a much broader cognitive process. It allows analyzing the key points that determine a crisis of notes, which in turn has a negative impact on human activity. The author demonstrates the importance of control over the process of reading and contrasts it with the modern digital environment devoid of initiative and bodily actions. Overall, the article is reliable sample of analysis of the problems of human cognitive activity, and it suggests to put the emphasis on the development of personal initiatives rather than artificial intelligence.

 

References

Plate, B. (2015). Marginalia and Its Disruptions – Los Angeles Review of Books. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 3 October 2016, from https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/marginalia-and-its-disruptions#!