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Monday Report
below!
This week's report by Leopold McGinnis, ULA
Google Books - your friendly neighborhood book store.
No, really! (Part Two of a Two Part Series)
Please click here to read PART ONE of this two-part report.
In the interest of brevity, point form is the best way to lay out the numerous
advantages and disadvantages the appearance of Google Books presents:
Is Google Books good for the underground?
1)The big conglomerates are scared of it. Google isn’t our friend, really, but they are
the enemy of our enemy. In our quest to bring attention and power away from
corporate literature, helping them feast off each other is to our advantage.
2)Google Books is currently an open playing field and since Google is interested in
EVERYTHING, it’s a surprisingly even playing field – particularly now, while the
ground is new and fertile. Established authors and publishers don’t want competition
from thousands of underground books. They pay good money to ensure theirs are the
only books in the store.
3)Unlike other ‘boosters’ of literature, like Amazon, Google isn’t offering to take a
cut of profits to help sell your book. In fact, it’s even cutting out OTHER bookseller
middlemen to send the buyers directly to publishers/authors.
4)Currently, finding books through Google is a lot more democratic than in any chain
bookstore or even through Amazon. Money can’t buy positioning (as far as I know)
and the ground isn’t established enough yet for Google to consider Random House a
better source of information (and thus elevate its search ranking) than, say, ULA
Press.
5)Google accepts self-published books. Google accepts Print-on-Demand books.
6)Google is powerful and open to new ideas (like the ULA) whereas other publishers,
clearly, are not. In fact, they’re suing Google over the issue. Supporting Google
Books supports change in the industry.
7)For big new media empires, Google, so far, has proven to be a fairly responsible
corporate citizen. Its ads (for ads) are unobtrusive. It provides a myriad of useful
searching resources at high speeds for no cost. It lets you see your house from space.
With Google Books, Google is clearly striving for an open, organic search system that
brings importance to public domain, out-of-print and underground books.
8)Resistance is futile: Google books is most likely to succeed. By not jumping on
authors are probably only hurting the success of their own projects. Unfortunately,
Google is already at the point where us being able to curb, control, affect or direct its
Herculean rise and impending Zues-like domination is less than possible. Yet,
considering that the alternative to Google controlling the book recommendation
industry is about as bad - actually, worse at the moment – it seems smarter to take the
corporation that’s helping over the one that’s ignoring.
Is Google Books bad for the underground?
1)Google is not our friend. It is hoping to insert itself and make money off creative
content producers without paying for it. Make no mistake, like anyone else, they want
a piece of the pie. What they can’t do in content (like a bookstore or Amazon can)
they make up for in pure bulk. They aren’t interested in democracy, particularly at
$135 a share.
2)Supporting Google is supporting a corporate, profit-generated entity working within
a system that has never supported artists are key parts of the profit stream. Google
may be, so far, fairly free from sleazy activities, but that doesn’t change the fact that
the only thing we can really do about it is ‘hope’ that they remain a good corporate
citizen.
3)Google is a company that has clearly established its attitudes towards copyright.
Most of us may see ‘copyright’ as a joke, since only the rich can pay to protect it and
violations seem to only apply to little guys, yet Google has established itself as an
organization that does not feel the need to pay or consult with content-creators to use
their work for its own profit. Google routinely stores entire webpages in its servers
without permission. It’s up to website managers to ban Google’s engines from their
sites. Sure, it’s providing a useful service, but what’s hidden behind that is the big
precedent of handing over control of our work to a giant who only has its own
interests in mind. Google is asserting its ownership over not only your work, but you
ability to control how it is sold.
4)Google has, for the most part, destroyed the ‘link.’ The vast majority of web
‘surfing’ (a term Google has also put to rest) has been taken over by Google. Sure, it
provides a great service – but one conglomerate ‘owning’ such an important aspect of
the web undermines the foundation of the Internet. Google books, to a certain degree,
will also undermine general cultural democratic principals, consolidating control of
‘what is important’ in its own hands.
5)Google only accepts books with ISBNs. Zinesters, and anyone else who doesn’t
regularly put ISBNs on their work, are out of luck. Google’s activities with the search
engine have narrowed and mainstreamed our Internet searches. Google still works and
profits within a system that promotes cultural hierarchy and it’s only a matter of time
before ‘book searches’ favour the status quo.
6)Google won’t stay a good corporate citizen forever. Diversity is what the
underground needs and is fighting for. Google is NOT diversity anymore than one
publisher publishing a thousand different books is diverse. Google Books is in its
infancy and needs support to thrive. Supporting Google means supporting, to a large
degree, the same system where a few guys make scathes of money with artists – the
very creators of the content – at the bottom, hoping that the guys up top will continue
to be benevolent in doling out measly paychecks to a lucky, privileged few.
Conclusion
It’s kind of like asking, between a rock and hard place, which side is softer? At the
moment, it’s the Google side offering up the golden apple. In all likelihood, Google
won’t make prospects for the underground any worse. The underground is used to
being ignored and whoever the master-du-jour is makes little difference. Google
Books is offering diversity at this moment. It is unlikely to make, overall, a large long-
term difference to our efforts.
Yet, the possibility that Google will be an even worse caretaker of literature is still a
possibility. Google is stamped from the mould of Microsoft. With Google finding its
strength in cover EVERYTHING, even the little guys matter. It wants in not only on
the big books that everyone buys, but all the little transactions that slip under the
radar – that are too measly for the corporate booksellers and publishers to bother
with, but are important to Google’s numbers game. Google’s business model is in
bulk. They can’t defeat the conglomo-9 on selling best sellers that generate $1 a book,
but if they can tie themselves into the profit stream of EVERY book and earn half a
cent for each sale (via advertising, and other backdoor profit initiatives) they stand to
make what economists often refer to as a ‘fuckload’. It’s probably unlikely that
Google could hurt zine review mags, distros, etc… but not impossible.
Currently, Google’s got its hand out. Who that hand is really helping is unclear. Yet,
with the only alternative being the closed fist of the conglomo-9, (and the inevitable
rise of Google) it’d probably be foolish to turn away from it. But undergrounds need
to be aware of what’s going on. This isn’t a new dawn. It’s the same dawn of the same
day. The publisher lawsuit may seem short-sighted for its attack on ‘opening up the
market’ and changing the system – which is what Google would love us to believe –
and is true to a certain extent. The conglomo-9 are only interested in keeping their
castle from Google. But make no mistake, Google wants the castle for themselves.
Conspicuously absent from this argument are the authors themselves who, as always,
are at the bottom just trying to pick over the scraps thrown to them by the
conglomerates when they have a fight. It’s a choice between two evils, really.
People want access to all sort of books, but support massive chains and corporate
publishers because they swamp out alternatives through saturation marketing and
cheap pricing. Google is not changing this model. Considering the track record of
other corporate organizations – in fact, the whole corporate model – I think we have
about as much hope as hoping Politicians will put forward progressive changes as of
Google helping out the underground.
The solution still remains woefully unanswered: a REAL alternative. An alternative to
Google and the publishers – a government funded search system or an underground
foundation of links similar to what Google’s doing, but run by the people who
actually care about it. We’re working on that, but until we succeed, it’s business as
usual. Same shit, different Titan.
Resources & References:
The main page for Google Books: http://print.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/publisher.html
To read google’s perspective on the library project, check:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/google-print-and-authors-guild.html
Information about Google’s Initial Public Offering: http://www.ipogoogle.org/
Google’s policies for Google Books: https://print.google.com/publisher/policies
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Leopold McGinnis is a Canadian author. His novel, Game Quest, about the
hostile takeover of a computer game company just before the meteoric rise of
the Internet, will be published this Spring and is currently being serialized
online at www.gamequestnovel.com.
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