Eighteen Challenges in Contemporary Literature

Ear­li­er today, Seth Har­wood wrote about a new chal­lenge for writ­ers — mak­ing sure books get dis­trib­uted through as many dig­i­tal read­ing plat­forms as pos­si­ble. His think­ing dove­tails nice­ly with Wired’s list of the “Eigh­teen Chal­lenges in Con­tem­po­rary Lit­er­a­ture.” Here are some of the Wired items that mesh or flirt with what Har­wood is talk­ing about…

2. Ver­nac­u­lar means of every­day com­mu­ni­ca­tion — cell­phones, social net­works, stream­ing video — are mov­ing into areas where print­ed text can­not fol­low.

4. Means of book pro­mo­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion and retail desta­bi­lized.

5. Ink-on-paper man­u­fac­tur­ing is an out­mod­ed, tox­ic indus­try with steeply ris­ing costs.

8. Long tail balka­nizes audi­ences, dis­rupts means of canon-build­ing and frag­ments lit­er­ary rep­u­ta­tion.

11. Bar­ri­ers to pub­li­ca­tion entry have crashed, enabling huge tor­rent of sub­lit­er­ary and/or non­lit­er­ary tex­tu­al expres­sion.

Get the full list here. Thanks to Ed Finn for giv­ing us a heads up on this list.