Fahrenheit 416

    Ray Bradbury, author of many well loved and prophetic novels, has long had nothing but contempt for technological developments in media.  he hates the Internet, saying, "There's nothing there!" and has resisted the development of ebooks passionately.  He feels both along with television and no doubt any number of other recent inventions are taking people away from such worthwhile pursuits as reading.
     Ironically, he has h ad to bow to the inevitable.  His book Fahrenheit 451is being released by his publisher as an ebook.  I say ironically because this very fact means that in spite of his prediction, people are reading.
     I have my own perspective on this, as my regular readers (of electronic text) know. 
As a voracious reader who happens to be blind, I have long been stuck with reading what the National Library Services www.loc.gov/nls make available, certainly wonderful but slim pickin's and slow and resource intensive. Thanks to ebooks I can read and read and read. I am myself a novelist, had twice as many credits as I need for my degree in English, and have quite narrow tastes in reading, utterly unserved by NLS. So needless to say when I heard of Bradbury's attitude, it really pissed me off. I know a lot of people who confuse technology with some of its less ideal examples. Ebooks are not television or video games or Facebook. They are what any book was to start with, the product of a mind and imagination. Mr. Bradbury ought to recall that his books, each and every one of them, started out as thought.  (I recall gazing at Candace Robb's head at a Historical Novel Society conference and thinking, "My God, that's where Owen Archer was born.")
     As I tell my friends who insist that only print on paper books are really reading, just as soon as print on paper books start reading themselves aloud to me, I'm there.
     By the way, 416 degrees F is the temperature at which a Kindle or other ereader will catch fire, according to a web site that apparently has something there.

Fahrenheit 451 Kindle Edition

Publishing: No Longer Just a Popularity Contest

Nan Hawthorne

Two recent developments in book publishing  are resulting in more choices for readers.  They are, after all, the point of all this, not authors, not corporate mass market publishers.  Wit the development of ebooks and print on demand, it is no longer necessary for a book to win a sort of popularity contest in order to reach potential customers.

It is simply a business fact that traditional publishers have to keep their eyes on the bottom line.  They are not in the industry to five away books, and it takes mass runs of titles to make publishing them feasible economically.  As it is, the industry loses money on many books, so I understand.  They must appeal to the largest possible market, so taking a chance on, say, a genre novel like historical fiction is just too much of a risk.

On the down side, that means those people who want to read books that appeal to a slender slice of the market have to do without.  The up side is that there is a growing supply of books to take their place.  If, as in the case of ebooks and print on demand publications a book can come out copy by copy, it is no longer necessary for print runs at all, no less in the thousands.

That is the good news for readers who have definite tastes in reading matter.  One example I've found is books meant to appeal to gay men or lesbians.  They are a growing market, but too scattered to warrant publishing a single book in huge quantities.  Eboks "eat no bread", that is, other than space on a server they do not use up resources when they sit and wait for someone to buy and download them.  Print on demand books are similar in that they take up a minuscule electronic space until someone orders the book and it is printed and bound.  A book can reach as few as one reader or dozens, even hundreds, with no loss in initial outlay.  Yes, this is a simplification, but when compared with large print runs, valid, I think.

Historical fiction may be a genre in and of itself, but within that category there are many many specific eras, styles, and even more minute differences.  I know two different authors who are publishing with literary publishing houses who are encouraged to write historical fiction, but narrowly proscribed.  In both cases, they are expected to write first person female nobility.  What, I ask, if that is not what you personally want to read?  I know I don't have any particular fondness for this sub-sub-genre.  But I am in the minority.  I and those like me are too small a group to risk a book on.  Does that mean that people like me and those with other "outside the box" interests should have to do without?

No, but "have to" is not a value judgment.  It is a matter of economic reality.  No one is intentionally denying us.  It is simply not the purpose of a publishing company to supply books in small quantities.

All the more reason to applaud the ebook and the print on demand book.  Though many decry the poor quality of many such books, the old "vanity press" designation, if the individual reader enjoys the book, isn't that what the book was meant for?  The reader?

It's no secret I celebrate ebooks and print on demand.  I am after all a founding board member of the Independent Authors Guild.  I have my reasons, peculiar to me, but above all I love all the choices and more even than that, that those choices are mine, as a reader, to make.

Bravo to all authors, publishers, printers, ebook providers, and especially readers!

New Concepts in Book Publishing

There have been several stories of late on National Public Radio's Morning Edition about various aspects of the changing publishing world.  This morning the focus was on alternate publishing technology.

Read or listen at A Novel Approach: Free Books For Donations

The Concord Free Press was started by Stone Finch, an author with books published by traditional publishing houses who found his latest book stirred no interest in that quarter.  He decided to try what he calls "a revolutionary experiment"  in publishing.  Taking advantage of the lower cost  of publishing digital books, Concord Free Press offers free books with a request that readers make a donation to an organization or person who needs the money.  The experiment seems to be working, as so far $142,000 has been registered as donations to a wide variety of causes.  Authors are happy too.  One author interviewed reported over 3000 downloads of one of his books.  I don't know about you, but 3000 people reading my books would make me pretty damn happy.

Finch does not think all books should be free.  he just wants to see what happens when a press like his asks for charitable donations in lieu of profits.  He also feels that a dying book publishing industry that is so resistant to ebooks and similar innovations needs to start thinking "outside the box".  He wants to explore some of those innovations.

The thing is for authors, given current stats and trends, assuming you can find a publisher willing to take a chance on your work, no matter how brilliant, it is unlikely that you will make any money through traditional publishing.  More than half of all books published not only do not make any  money, they actually lose it.  If the goal is to get people to read books, making it as easy and attractive to them as possible.  Hamilton Fish, former editor of The Nation, whose goal has been to get people to pay for books, was initially outraged that Concord Free Press was giving all their books away.

I have to say that as an author, though I would dearly love to make a few bucks on my writing, having it read by as many people as possible holds far more attraction.    I am personally very pro ebook for at least a half dozen reasons.  To those who lament the loss of the feel of a book in their hands I say "No one is stopping you from buying print books, nor is anyone saying that print books should go away.  The issue is not the materials used but the content of a work, the mind to mind of author and reader.  Further, if libraries and booksellers move to more ebooks, which is happening at Amazon as readers "vote with their pocketbooks", we can hope that reading will be in a reverse swing from recent trends.  Two things I thought about when listening to a story about the Stanford University Engineering Department Library going to more and more digital books is that no longer will a library have to take books off the shelf to add newer ones and the theoretical availability of books for students is unlimited.  I'll throw in my own particular issue, that every single one of the books in that library will be able to be read by print impaired students instructors.  All ebooks can accomplush is more access to more books by a wider and larger range of those who want and need them.

Meanwhile traditional publishers are trying the same thing movbie theaters did back in the 70s when they fought e emerging cable television industry.  They claimed that if people could watch commercial free movies in the comfort of their own homes the theaters would all close.  Clearly that never happened.  Publishers are throwing their own set of fits, demanding that ebooks carry the same price as print in spite of the tiny comparative cost of production, refusing to allow text to speech on their Kindle editions, and generally being real snots about what just can't be bullied.  If people want to carry around a Kindle, iPad or Nook with two dozen books installed, they are simply going to do that.  Wouldn't it be nice if publishers would imitate the photographic film manufacturers, who gracefully recognize the advent of digital cameras and fouud ways to fit into the new paradigm?

What do you think, as a reader, as an author, as a publisher?


Nan Hawthorne is the author of An Involuntary king: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England (2008) which is available in print, on Kindle, and on Smashwords.com .  She makes a 100%discount for servicepersons through Operation eBookrop at Smashwords.com .  Frankly, all anyone has to do is ask and she will seeto it you get a copy of the ebook.  he only asks that you share your thoughts and reactions with her and others, and that you love the character Shannon O'Neill unresevedly.

Doomsday: The Ultimate Case for Ebooks

I just went to see the new movie, 2012.My review in a nutshell: the effects were everything you have heard they were, the script one disaster movie cliché after another: divorced family, scientist no one believes, up to the last minute solution, corruption vs. self sacrifice. My favorite line in the movie, I think, was "If you want to give up your space on this ship to one of those workers down there, go right ahead." He doesn't.

The very best thing about the movie is that one of the two protagonists is a novelist, and an unappreciated one at that! You go!

Anyway, without really pulling a spoiler, let me just say that part of the story is the desire to preserve human culture. Early in you see the president's daughter helping to switch the real paintings in the Louvre with fake ones so that the real ones can be preserved. It occurered to me, being far more into books than art, that ebooks could be the best way to preserve the collected literature of all our heritages.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before" it's just not the same, you want something made of paper to hold in your hands. Go for it, nobody is stopping you. But as literature is intellectual rather than physical we can preserve the essence of it in digital form, which takes up a lot less space. A lot less! I'm not actually expecting Armageddon, but there are just so many good reasons to create digital copies of every book we have. This is just one.. if the final one.

So my hat is off to all those who endeavor to save the great writing of the world, whether for posterity or for some Brave new World. As the other protagonist says of the novelist's book, "The man who wrote this book may not even be alive but thanks to his book, human culture will be preserved."

You betcha!