The pre-post- era of publishing
Craig Mod announces PRE/POST Editions:
We’re in the pre- era of publishing and media. Some consider it the era of pre- digital dominance or pre- death of printed matter. …. Whatever we consider this pre- era to be, it’s undeniably post- many things that defined publishing until about ten years ago. It’s post- having to bend to big distributors. It’s post- ignoring the screen as a viable reading space. And we’re rapidly closing in on post- printing mass-market throwaway books (they’ll work great digitally).
We’re witnessing a return to a different way of telling stories. Be it congruent to the oral tradition, a time we told stories without being anchored to text, be it something else, there is a return while we move ahead. Of course, we can’t name it, we can’t see it. I’ve been talking about it — eloquently of course — as the “pre-XX society.” I haven’t been able to name that “XX.” And here comes Craig with the wonderfully sensible PRE/POST label. It’s typically only in looking back that we can see things as “pre.” It takes a certain objectivity to see ourselves as pre and post, to be the past and the future.
