For a few years now, I have bemoaned the dearth of publishing industry professionals at the annual South by Southwest interactive conference. It's not geared specifically toward publishers; though, in many ways, it's telling that online media, the motion picture business, gaming, and the music industry have come to dominate the festival. Why is publishing left off the roster?

Publishing people should attend the interactive festival for a few reasons. The first, of course, is that it's still cutting edge (though, as the size of the crowd increases, that's waning)-- what's being talked about in panels and at parties is what you're going to be chasing after in a year or two. The second that one this is made clear by SXSW: storytelling rules.

Gamers, particularly, get this. They understand that it's not enough to have guns and dragons and scantily clad women. The underpinning of great games is story. What gamers really get is that games are defined in many ways. Sometimes games are played individually, sometimes they're played by groups of people in the same building, sometimes they're played by groups of people within the same region, and sometimes they're played by groups of people separated by geography.

Games, like reading, make people happy*. Games, like reading, invite people to share in a common world with common rules. Games, like reading, offer an alternative to the humdrumness of day-to-day life. Games are fun. Reading is fun. It's no wonder that gamers focus on the importance of storytelling.

But today's games get that participants don't exist in one space at one time. There are options for everyone, be it the solitary soul or the gregarious joiner. Books are like that too -- reading, the act of processing text on the page into brain waves, is something we do alone; but we love to share the story, the experience, the words, the nuance.

To me, the future of publishing is tied to the future of storytelling. The future of storytelling requires the realization that we started out by campfires listening to tales and we have been telling stories in all shapes and forms ever since. Books, as we like to imagine them, are relatively new in our human history. Books, if I may commit heresy, are a means to an end: one way to tell a story.

I am not much of a gamer, just ask my mother. She and my sister play Scrabble like it's a blood sport; I play for the sheer joy of the game. They hate me. I am madly in love with story. When I look back at what has engaged me through the (many) decades, story, mostly in text format, is front and center. I am happy to meander through convoluted plotlines, as long as I can trust that it's all going to come together in the end...even if I disagree with how it happens.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this over the past year, and it still feels weird to write it loud: publishing can learn a lot from the gaming industry. Hmm, maybe not learn a lot, but remember a lot. Remember that it's the story, stupid. Remember that it's the reader who matter. Remember that we're not picking up books to make ourselves miserable.

Most of all, remember that reading is supposed to be fun.


Posted by: Kassia Krozser