Ubiscribe and Others

Speaking of presentation decks, here's an intriguing (and beautifully minimal) presentation on the changing nature of publishing by Jouke Kleerebezem at Jan van Eyck Academie.

And Scott Rettberg has a precis of his next talk — and the talk after that — on his view of the economics of electronic literature. Some of what he writes is write. Some is wrong.

A work of electronic literature and five dollars will buy you a Starbuck’s Latté.

The multitudinous Web, on the other hand, offered writers the opportunity to reach a potentially wider audience. The cost of this freedom was that to reach the network, most writers essentially chose to give their work away for free. At this point it simply makes more sense for authors of e-lit to distribute their work as widely and freely as possible.

I’m left wondering about whether rubbing all the edges off "free" in this way is a good idea, or just promotes Bush-Republican newspeak. I'm left wondering what would happen if Rettberg were locked in a room with Dr. Samuel “no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money” Johnson. But then, I'm a curious guy — I'm also wondering where all my browser cookies went last night.)