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The Drood Review Mystery's Second Century A forum on the future of the genre Original essays Our thoughts Follow-ups This site is copyright (c) 2000-3 by The Drood Review. The Drood Review
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Alan Gordon Much has been written about how the Internet will create a bifurcated country, consisting of those who have access and those who don’t. However, the costs of high-speed computing are dwindling rapidly, and every school and public library should be wired within the decade. My local Dunkin’ Donuts provides five computers for free usage, albeit without coffee-holders. Which means any aspiring author should have a minute chunk of cyberspace to make his or her wares available, whether for a price or for free. The problem becomes one of publicity. How do you make people want to read your chunk? What forces will guarantee quality? With so much choice, we may run into a situation involving Gresham’s Law, where the proliferation of the bad drives out the good. (This is not to be confused with Grisham’s Law, where the proliferation of the bad but highly-paid sucks up the available funds for the rest of us.) How to solve this? I dunno. Once again, we’ll be dependent on reviewers, although with less knowledge as to their qualifications, and word-of-mouth, which in the future will be known as e-mouth. Those who want to read will find a way around all of this, just as they have always done. I just hope people will still want to read. Alan Gordon’s first novel, Thirteenth Night, was published this year. |