Digital tourism

Consider this another post about Dan Brown-related tourism. The webpage freemason.org has been crippled by an influx of The Lost Symbol-inspired visitors.

Regardless of how you may feel about Brown's work, this does provide a fascinating window into the reading habits of his audience. Clearly, Brown's readers do not simply passively consume the works, but rather they research the background material by going straight to the source. Whether the readers follow up on this research or not is difficult to say, but regardless, this influx of traffic proves that his readers see the book as something to interact with.

Monetizing

Whereas many of the places featured in Dan Brown's previous two books, The da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, are not always overjoyed with the attention they've received on account of the books, Washington, DC, the subject of Brown's latest novel, is taking it in stride.

After tweeting a link to an article on The Lost Symbol on the @buchstauben Twitter account, we received a reply from @washingtondc telling us to "Be sure to check out the many places in DC that inspired the book!http://bit.ly/ZGdiN." Clearly the tourism board there has caught on that being mentioned in on Brown's quasi-historical thrillers is a good thing, so far as promotion and advertising is concerned.

Will reading The Lost Symbol be as fun without all the outrage? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Literary tourism

Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol is out now, and the locations featured in the book are already bracing themselves for the influx of tourists.

This will undoubtedly lead to a lot of complaining about the accuracy of Brown's historical "facts" and the validity of his plot, especially given that, despite being clearly marked as fiction, many readers will take good portions of the book as fact.

I wonder, though, whether we out to be encouraging a culture of book-based tourism? Perhaps, instead of scorning Brown's tourist trade, we ought to nurture a tourist trade in other books. We already have Bloomsday in Dublin, so why not encourage similar outings for other good books? Don't let Dan Brown have all the fun.

Have an idea for a book-based tour? Let us know in the comments.

An appeal to the senses

When talking to people about whether ebooks will ever become a major market force, they often mention something about the physical sensation of paper books as a major factor in the continued dominance of print. It's always something that ebooks can't replicate: the touch, the smell, the character a well-worn book develops after years of faithful service. While these are all perfectly good reasons to love print books (all reasons that I, too, love print books), they remind me of the arguments circulating when digital distribution of music first really started to take off.

Back in the early 2000s, I was working at a record store in Sherwood Park, Alberta. This, of course, was right around the time that people were seriously considering buying their music digitally. As such, customers and co-workers would often discuss with me the relative merits of albums and downloads: "Digital files are missing the beautiful artwork," some would say, while others would remark that they would "never be able to go without the liner notes." In all cases, the physical object was being fetishised.

Now this should sound somewhat familiar. When physical album sales started taking a hit, their proponents immediately began praising the physicality of the medium as one of its greatest selling points. And now, when ebooks look like they might be breaking out, these same arguments are appearing in publishing circles. This isn't to say that things will work exactly the same for the book market, but I think it's important for us to consider the fact that many, many music fans now acquire their music through digital distribution channels.

Indeed, perhaps it's time for us to stop thinking about what ebooks can't do, and to start thinking about what they can do.