Thursday News: Facebook to host articles directly, technology and art, Harper Lee’s new book cover, and Fifty Shades director quits sequels

JanetPublishing NewsArt / book cover / director / Facebook / Fifty Shades / Film / Harper Lee / news / technology5 Comments

Facebook May Host News Sites’ Content – I think I reported on this a while ago, but since then the plan seems to have taken a substantial step forward. Facebook, in its quest to take over the world, will be partnering with news providers and hosting their content right on Facebook, rather than through a link to the original site. Apparently the New York Times, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic are the inaugural partners, although no one has yet confirmed. Facebook is selling this as a way for news organizations to make their content available to users at a much faster speed, although there does appear to be some balking:

Like Facebook, media companies also want improved user experiences. Still, they are treading carefully. While BuzzFeed has an overt policy of spreading its content outside of its own site, The Times uses a subscription model that provides a growing portion of the company’s revenue. It would have to weigh the benefits of reaching Facebook’s users — and the ad revenue that comes with them — against the prospect of giving away its content and losing the clicks on its own site that would instead stay within Facebook.

Some news organizations have reacted coolly to the proposal. Several employees of The Guardian, for example, have informally suggested to colleagues at other publications that publishers should band together to negotiate deals that work for the whole industry, and should retain control of their own advertising, whether content is hosted on Facebook or not, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. –New York Times

Reader, I Muted Him: The Narrative Possibilities of Networked Life – An interesting piece by Steve Himmer about the nostalgic trend in literary fiction too deny the existence of certain technologies realities through a kind of retro setting. He gives an example of a Lukas Kmit, whose viola performance was interrupted by a cell phone ring, using the interruption to create a melodic reply to the disruptive cell phone, making it a part of the show rather than allowing the moment to throw things off track. Zimmer talks about his own ambivalence toward technology’s place in our lives, but at the same time wishes that artistic representations more readily incorporated it, not only as a way to demonstrate connection to the present moment, but also to offer future generations a glance into the way we understood ourselves relative to all of these devices and technologies.

I don’t mean to praise disruption or dismiss the challenges of networked life, and I wouldn’t take a proscriptive stand on “what fiction should do.” I am not, frankly, an enthusiast of cell phones or even landlines, which I have been known to unplug for days at a time, to the annoyance of housemates. I find it ever more disorienting, though, to read novels set in this “nostalgic present,” ambiguously atemporal as if they could take place any time between the 1950s and early-1990s. Or, more disorienting still, set very clearly in the present but without its technological trappings. These avoidances make the art seem less vital, less able to speak to the present, and like a choice more concerned with making things easy on writers than with offering something to readers. I’ve had some surprisingly heated arguments with other writers, making me an unintentional champion of cell phones and search engines in fiction, but what it comes down to is that I don’t see these elements of contemporary life as destructive of narrative possibilities, but as sources for new possibilities. I’ve become something of a collector of fictional moments in which networked life matters. Not the simple inclusion of emails and other “found texts” in a novel, nor casual mentions of characters owning phones and computers, but scenes in which these technologies allow writers to show something distinctly now, for better or worse, as unexpected yet instantly familiar as a ringtone played on a viola or sung by a bird. –The Millions

Cover Reveal: Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ – So it’s really happening, people: Harper Lee’s “new” book is arriving, and the train on the cover may be an apt symbol.

Morrison added that the cover, which features a train forging ahead from the distance, touches literally and figuratively on the book’s content. “Go Set a Watchman begins with Scout’s train ride home,” he said, “but more profoundly, it is about the journey Harper Lee’s beloved characters have taken in the subsequent 20 years of their lives.” –Publishers Weekly

Sam Taylor-Johnson Will Not Be Directing Sequel Fifty Shades Darker After ”Intense” Fifty Shades of Grey Journey – Although many rumors about the Fifty Shades film sequels have been swirling, apparently it’s official that Sam Taylor-Johnson will not stay on as director. Does this mean the second and third films won’t be made? No word on that, yet.

Well, Taylor-Johnson is hardly the first director to helm only one or a portion of the films in a planned series.

Catherine Hardwicke memorably directed just the first Twilight movie before handing the reins to Chris Weitz (who just did New Moon and David Slade just did Eclipse). Gary Ross was one and done with The Hunger Games, and Chris Columbus directed the first two of what turned out to be eight Harry Potter movies. –E! Online

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

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