WritersCast producer David Wilk, who has been creating podcasts about writing and publishing since late 2008, posted an interview about “The opportunity in abundance” that he recently conducted with me. It runs about a half hour.
This is the second time that I’ve talked with Wilk. The first podcast was released in 2009, when I was actively involved in research to establish the instance and impact of piracy.
Along with Chris Kenneally of the Copyright Clearance Center (Beyond the Book) and Ed Champion (Bat Segundo), Wilk provides a platform for discussions that amplify and extend conversations about publishing and writing.
On the web, a half hour is a lifetime, but talking with people like Wilk, Kenneally and Champion has given me a chance to strengthen my own thinking while also sharing the ideas that usually start for me in text.
Wilk and I began by covering the basic ideas that informed my thinking about abundance, but in relatively short order we were talking revolution. Wilk gets me on the record about research, the utter lack of meaningful data in publishing and the damage done when we work solely to preserve the existing order.
It is an interesting week to have this interview released. On Tuesday, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers, copyright registrar Maria Pallante said that “democracy, the economy and intellectual progress are unsustainable without the publishing industry.”
I agree, and I’m hoping that publishers who applauded Pallante’s remarks also think about abundance as a wake-up call. We have a chance to start acting in ways that sustain democracy, not just profit from it. Publishers should pick a place to begin, like libraries.
