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to copy the book freely and distribute it far and wide. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the book were made and distributed this way. *Hundreds* of *thousands*.
Today, I release my second novel, and my third [ http://www.argosymag.com/NextIssue.html ], a collaboration with Charlie Stross is due any day, and two [ http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?fn.preview_doctorow ] more [ http://www.craphound.com/usrbingodexcerpt.txt ] are under contract. My career as a novelist is now well underway -- in other words, I am firmly afoot on a long road that stretches into the future: my future, science fiction's future, publishing's future and the future of the world.
The future is my business, more or less. I'm a science fiction writer. One way to know the future is to look good and hard at the present. Here's a thing I've noticed about the present: MORE PEOPLE ARE READING MORE WORDS OFF OF MORE SCREENS THAN EVER BEFORE. Here's another thing I've noticed about the present: FEWER PEOPLE ARE READING FEWER WORDS OFF OF FEWER PAGES THAN EVER BEFORE. That doesn't mean that the book is *dying* -- no more than the advent of the printing press and the de-emphasis of Bible-copying monks meant that the book was dying -- but it does mean that the book is changing. I think that *literature* is alive and well: we're reading our brains out! I just think that the complex social practice of "book" -- of which a bunch of paper pages between two covers is the mere expression -- is transforming and will transform further.
I intend on figuring out what it's transforming into. I intend on figuring out the way that some writers -- that *this writer*, right here, wearing my underwear -- is going to get rich and famous from his craft. I intend on figuring out how *this writer's* words can become part of the social discourse, can be relevant in the way that literature at its best can be.
I don't know what the future of book looks like. To figure it out, I'm doing some pretty basic science. I'm peering into this