In general, the New York Times does not spend many words on the European editorial scene where very little of relevance happens. For example, the European book industry proudly repeats its rites with the regularity of the phases of the moon. It is rightly considered by governments and public opinion as one of the greatest cultural treasure troves of European nations. This quasi-institutional role also explains a certain conservatism that we don't find in other sectors of the cultural industry.
For this reason, European book publishing is rather impervious to the new technological wave of ebooks which in the United States and the United Kingdom is really changing the relationship between the book industry and its customers. In continental Europe the ebook, which has brought some novelties over time, barely reaches 5% of the market against 30% in the USA and 20% in the UK.
This is why it was somewhat surprising to find an article by the correspondent of the great New York newspaper in Paris, Frabrice Robinet, entitled Nonfiction takes roots in the Parisian literary landscape. And what an article: 1200 words spread over 4 columns with five large illustrations to occupy almost an entire page of the printed edition. The subtitle also creates a certain thrill. A new generation of Frenchmen shatters the narrative status quo of the capital.
The phenomenon that, according to the NYTimes, is shaking up the French capital are the mooks (magazine+book) that our Andrea Paracchini, who lives in France, described very well already a year ago on LSDI extension. Courtesy of Andrea and the masthead, whom we thank, we reproduce the article in its entirety for ebookextra readers. But not before adding our comment by translating the experience of mooks from magazines/periodicals, which Andrea talks about in the article below, to the world of books and ebooks.
Better the ebook for the mook
For mook content, the ebook can truly be the main format, as demonstrated by the experience of the USA where a sort of neologism has been coined to define it, drawing it from the world of recorded music. It's single. Given the success of singles, Amazon went so far as to open a specific store called Kindle singles. And we don't find only short fiction, stories or poems, but also non-fiction of all kinds and very, very topical both in the form of reportage, in-depth analysis and narration in The New Yorker style.
The New York weekly has certainly set the standard. His reports of around 8 words (1 hour of reading) on a topical topic just under the skin that is covered as if it were a light story, with very sophisticated storytelling techniques and with well-profiled characters is a splendid narrative format to be enjoyed in every circumstance. The French experience, which has gone far, completes the one underway in the United States by demonstrating that such content works both as an ebook and as a magazine/book to be distributed in bookstores and by subscription. The public is very open to welcoming new quality and well-made formats. An important lesson for the big publishing industry which has always snubbed this type of editorial product, even for understandable and not always very noble reasons, as they would like to believe, considering it minor.
Current, short and well narrated
The mook format responds very well to other phenomena that we tend to underestimate and which are instead crucial: the dramatic decrease in people's time to devote to reading a demanding content such as a book and, converging with this, the excessive growth of reading offer. Dedicating eight hours to reading a book (that's the amount needed for 250 pages) means taking away attention from other and even more promising activities that are now truly within reach, such as watching, listening, social conversation and writing itself . Humanity never wrote as much as now.
The classic form of the book, which is consumed without any space for other simultaneous activities since it requires total immersion for an extended time, faces fierce competition from other means of enjoyment and learning that are more rewarding and less voracious of time and Attention. A movie is 90 minutes long, a video mooc lesson is 45 minutes long, an episode of a TV series about 40 minutes, a conversation on social media after twenty minutes becomes dull unless…
Here with the mook format, born as slow journalism becomes fast book, and the ebook ends up answering this question of brevity and intensity: in just an hour we exhaust a content by learning, from an authoritative source, something we ignored and we we are also amused because the narrative structure is built on that of the best fiction, when, and not always, the mook is successful. Et alors vive le mook! Will the great publishers and great authors understand?
Attachments: http://www.ebookextra.it/la-carica-dei-mook-e-dei-single/
