Technology Is Not The Problem has already been sighted (and bought) in the wild, not to mention a few dozen copies bought at the launch event in the British Library last week. Nevertheless, Publication Day is a milestone for any author. After years of dragging thoughts out of thin air and capturing them in words on pages, reading and interviewing in search of answers (often finding instead new questions), and the collaborative process of editing, a physical object takes flight into the hands of strangers.
So, is this a beginning or an ending?
It’s the end of a creative process, certainly, a literal binding of thoughts into a finished form, flaws and all. Unlike a live performance, which is created anew in collaboration with each new audience, a book is fixed. However much I may change my mind later about the ideas in it, or discover that an unreliable source has bequeathed me a factual error, the pages bear dumb witness to what I was once prepared to put in print.
But it’s also the beginning of new conversations, I hope. In person, certainly: I’m looking forward to talking about the book, and the ideas in it, at live events, where I always find the questions and points from the audience provoke new ideas in me. Responses in writing are also a form of conversation, though. Like any human, I am nervous about discovering what people think of my work, but as I have invited the reader to disagree with me, I will be pleased to be taken at my word by thoughtful respondents.
So – please read, think, respond, tell me where you disagree or what you would like to add to the discussion. But today, allow me a moment of gratitude to all the people whose faith in me as an author allowed this book to take corporeal form in the world beyond my own mind.