Chark Blog - Nigeria, Test Match Special, Razorlight and Spiderman

A little while ago on this blog I quoted from a memo written by an old friend working for us in Nigeria:

'A reassuring scene, though: a dusty entrance lobby with pealing lino tiles and segments of spaghetti-type wiring; battleship grey paintwork (always so encouraging I find); a receptionist reading a two-day old copy of the Daily Times plus a grubby Mills & Boon novel; a fading picture of the late Supermac hung at a rakish angle but so high up you had to positively seek him (o tempora! o mores! o winds of change! - nothing had changed in this lobby for years); the MD's ante-chamber crammed with cheap Asian wall clocks and support staff with little to do pending the arrival of the MD but read newspapers and seek soul-mates on the web; and the car park full of sound and fury, drivers and reps, but little if any sign of coordinated activity ...'

At the bottom of the email he mentioned that his stepson had become a rather successful musician with a band I'd not heard of at the time, Razorlight. On Friday this week, when tuning in to Test Match Special to get the latest score in the cricket, I found myself listening to a tea-interval interview with a cricket-loving rock star, Jonny Borrell. Usually these interviews are with former international cricketers rabbitting on about the good old days blah blah. The rock star was interesting, interested, insightful and funny. I'll bet he's a good musician too. He's also got a film-star girlfriend, Kirsten Dunst of Spiderman fame.

'By now, the Harry Potter hype machine has told you all about the pre-shipped copies, the scanned book and the spoilers. No doubt it'll sell a few copies, and no doubt the reported $20 million on security (not to mention fedex expense) was both useful and ineffective.

The interesting thing for me is how the Net changes what it means for something to be a secret. Five hundred year old technology (books) is just too slow for the Net. The act of printing, storing and shipping millions of books takes too long for a secret to ever be in a book again.

My solution? A hybrid. Publish the first edition of the book without the last three chapters. Take your time, save the $20 million. Every purchaser then gets access (hey, everyone gets access) to the last three chapters on launch day.

Books are souvenirs. No one is going to read Potter online, even if it's free. Holding and owning the book, remembering when and how you got it... that's what you're paying for. Books are great at holding memories. They're lousy at keeping secrets.'