The Anti-Christ is not so Evil or Scary

Andrew Keen has been anointed the Anti-Christ of Web 2.0 ever since his provocative book, The Cult of the Amateur, offended bloggers’ all over the world. The subtitle of the book, “How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture and Assaulting our Economy” says it all, really. As a blogger myself, I found his book combative and polemical in many places. Reading the heated diatribes against him and his equally vigorous defence of his position online, I imagined an angry, aggressive and offensive man who might be ready to destroy anything I might say about the joys of blogging and social media when we sat on the panel on Digital Spaces at The Bookseller’s Digitise or Die Conference last week.

Instead, I found a witty, amusing man who could laugh at himself while not pulling his punches when you talk with him. (His business card bears the tagline “the anti-christ of silicon valley”!) His real passion is defending the rights of creatives such as writers and artists and of knowledge professionals such as journalists and other experts. The central thesis of The Cult of the Amateur is that the white noise of opinionated bloggers and the expectation that content delivered over the internet should be free is devaluing the knowledge economy that has till now been grounded in the expertise, knowledge and skills of experienced and highly trained/ skilled journalists, authors and other experts. If everyone and their dog can be an expert and everyone is giving away their content for free, our culture will suffer because there will be no money in being a real expert with real in-depth knowledge and we will all become the more ignorant for it. Contrast the opinions and personal views of a blogger who sounds off on Iraq with the opinions and contextualised views of a BBC journalist who has spent many years observing the Middle East crisis and is an expert on Iraq. Andrew’s take is that the while the blogger has the freedom to share his opinions, they should not be considered to have equal weight or value to the commentary offered by the journalist. I certainly agree with that.

As a professional writer, working on my third book, I found myself cheering him on as he talked to the publishers gathered in the room about the need to nurture and value “the talent” ie the writers and those who produce content that is worth paying for in the form of books. It is ironic that people are happy to pay for a physical book because they walk away with a physical object in their hands - but that is almost like they are willing to pay for the paper and glue that makes up the physical object but not the words and ideas inside ie the content. Andrew’s plea is about valuing the content and those who create that content. The call to give content away for free from some quarters (Lawrence Lessig, Chris Anderson, Cory Doctorow etc) is disingenuous, he argues, as these people can afford to give stuff away since they earn their money elsewhere - it’s not so easy for a struggling writer who does not have the same personal capital of these men who have variously made their names in academia, tech and online publishing. Andrew’s main income stream comes from his speaking engagements rather than his books, which surprised me as his book is a bestseller - in this context, what he is arguing makes sense: even a bestselling author can’t make enough to live on from the sales of his book because the book as a conduit of knowledge is so devalued in today’s knowledge economy. What people are more willing to pay for is access to him - to the knowledge source itself.

The economic model for writers is becoming one where, in order to succeed as a writer, you need to have the skills to get out there and speak for money, write articles/ columns to supplement your income, to engage in other paid gigs such as TV appearances etc. He urged publishers and literary agents to see themselves as more than distributors of book units but nurturers of talent and in this role, to help their authors get those paying gigs. For writers, you need to see yourself not as a writer of books but as knowledge source - you are no longer selling your books but yourself. The value lies in your personal brand. He said starkly that in the future those writers who do not have such skills will not be able to make it in this new creative economy.

The story that Andrew tells about how he came to be the Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley is an object lesson in itself of the smarts an author needs to thrive in the economic model that he describes. His first draft of the book was called Digital Vertigo and was more densely written with a stronger academic tone. It was turned down by a number of agents. Then one agent called him back to suggest that he rewrite is as an anti-blogging diatribe that was bound to provoke a lot of reaction. They then sent it out to some influential bloggers, some of whom rose to the bait and blogged about the book, creating a turbulent groundswell which carried the book to its current infamy, especially after the main stream press picked it up. Not everyone has the thick skin or sturdy shoulders to wear the mantle of an Anti-Christ so this way of rising from obscurity to infamy is not necessarily recommended for all writers… But the take home point is “Get yourself noticed”.

So, it looks like I met the Anti-Christ and he turned out to be not so evil or scary but rather, a great personal brand…

Photo: from Andrew Keen’s website