TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Interactive e-books: Heart attack inducers someday for writers? Maybe a little if you extrapolate from the blog scene

By David Rothman

Sex, violence, you name it, the skeptics love to blame the Internet and other tech. Now here’s a new one.

The New York Times has published an article headlined Some Brand-Name Bloggers Say Stress of Posting Is a Hazard to Their Health. I see a little truth here; a successful blog requires constant feeding. But Om Malik, author of the GigaOm blog, who suffered a well-publicized heart attack December 28 at age 41, apparently smoked cigars and loved fatty foods. Maybe bigger factors? This photo shows him living it up at the table with Robert Scoble, another uber-blogger; and the goodies on Om’s plate don’t exactly look as if they’re Weight Watchers-approved.

Not entirely off target

That said, the Times isn’t entirely off target in raising the issue of the health of blogging stars. Another blogger complains of being “yoked to the machines.” Perhaps the surgeon general can require the WordPress dashboard to include a health warning (humor alert). I suspect a lot of it depends on the nature of the blog. For the sake of my health and that of other members of the TeleBlog community, we frown on trolling. Honest differences of opinion and truth-seeking? Encouraged. But not personal attacks.

Luckily people Get It. In the whole history of the TeleBlog, we’ve had to ban just one poster, who actually left on his own after deciding he could not live up to our bizarre expectations that he be more civil toward other members.

Extrapolating for e-books

Now let’s do the inevitable and extrapolate. What happens in the era of interactive e-books, another form of community, if writers can’t just march on from one work to another, but must keep up with the audiences for their past writings—and maybe do news updates as well? It’s a rather theoretical problem now but might not be in the future. The publishing industry is no longer a gentleman or gentlewomn’s game, and even famous writers may not enjoy the same bargaining power they do now. Will this mean more time “yoked” to computers?

There is also the control issue. What if fewer opportunities exist for writers to work on their own, due to technological changes, and the new world requires constant interactivity with reader? Are we about to further corporatize, and in a stressful way at that, a profession which has so well suited many loners? I can see the advantages of Wikis, networked books and multimedia a number of reasons, commercial and educational, and I won’t shy away from pointing them out. But I hope that writers don’t suffer along the way.

On the positive, online interactivity in one important way can be less stressful than print media. Errors remain forever in print; online you can instantly correct them.

A speedy recovery, Om!

Meanwhile, although I don’t know Om, I’m glad to hear he’s changing his eating habits, and I wish him a speedy recovery. Health first! One New Year’s resolution for me is to do less posting and more exercising. My cardiologist says I checked out fine on the treadmill test and would be above average if I returned to my old exercise habits. I’d love to take up his challenge. You can help. The more people join me in posting to the TeleBlog, which depends on fresh content to keep its Google rankings, the less stress on me and the more exercise time. Check out our writer’s guide.

Housekeeping: The XO review will be along later today, not quite as soon as expected. Gotta keep the stress levels down.