Eastern Standard Tribe

Cory Doctorow
Copyright 2004 Cory Doctorow
[email protected]
http://www.craphound.com/est
Tor Books, March 2004
ISBN: 0765307596
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======= Blurbs: =======
"Utterly contemporary and deeply peculiar -- a hard combination to beat (or, these days,
to find)."
- William Gibson, Author of Neuromancer
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"Cory Doctorow knocks me out. In a good way."
- Pat Cadigan, Author of Synners
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"Cory Doctorow is just far enough ahead of the game to give you that authentic chill of
the future, and close enough to home for us to know that he's talking about where we live
as well as where we're going to live; a connected world full of disconnected people. One
of whom is about to lobotomise himself through the nostril with a pencil. Funny as hell
and sharp as steel."
- Warren Ellis, Author of Transmetropolitan
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======================= A note about this book: =======================
Last year, in January 2003, my first novel [ http://craphound.com/down ] came out. I was
31 years old, and I'd been calling myself a novelist since the age of 12. It was the storied
dream-of-a-lifetime, come-true-at-last. I was and am proud as hell of that book, even
though it is just one book among many released last year, better than some, poorer than
others; and even though the print-run (which sold out very quickly!) though generous by

science fiction standards, hardly qualifies it as a work of mass entertainment.
The thing that's extraordinary about that first novel is that it was released under terms
governed by a Creative Commons [ http://creativecommons.org ] license that allowed my
readers 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 opaque, inscrutable system of publishing as it sits in
the year 2004, and I'm making a perturbation. I'm stirring the pot to see what surfaces, so
that I can see if the system reveals itself to me any more thoroughly as it roils. Once that
happens, maybe I'll be able to formulate an hypothesis and try an experiment or two and
maybe -- just maybe -- I'll get to the bottom of book-in-2004 and beat the competition to
making it work, and maybe I'll go home with all (or most) of the marbles.
It's a long shot, but I'm a pretty sharp guy, and I know as much about this stuff as anyone
out there. More to the point, trying stuff and doing research yields a non-zero chance of
success. The alternatives -- sitting pat, or worse, getting into a moral panic about "piracy"
and accusing the readers who are blazing new trail of "the moral equivalent of
shoplifting" -- have a *zero* percent chance of success.
Most artists never "succeed" in the sense of attaining fame and modest fortune. A career

in the arts is a risky long-shot kind of business. I'm doing what I