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I’ve recently ‘discovered’ the world of ebooks, having heard of but never having experienced them. On the web, I stumbled across Microsoft Reader™ and, as an author (that is disappointed with ‘the machine’ that now dictates creativity) I was curious.
What scared me about electronic publication was accessibility to my laboriously achieved text. To think it could be copied and edited by all was a real concern.
Nor do I want my children’s books’ pictures stolen, but anyone can scan an image these days and use it at will. And with text recognition, a hard book isn’t absolutely going to keep your work out of a stranger’s word processor. Ebooks actually vary little from their hardcover cousins.
There are a variety of ebook Readers, and self-sustained programs that resemble web pages – off-web readers (reminded me of magazine ads . . . with music). I didn’t find much that got me thinking seriously about ebooks. None of them felt like a book – MSReader™ being the closest.
I downloaded ‘FREE’ ebooks and, where most were drivel with no content, some actually hinted at useful information. Finally the basic idea had my attention. Ebooks could be more than just infomercials.
I weighed the ebook against the hardcopy. The foremost concern was how I would protect my work. It was child’s play to snatch text and images from those off-web readers. Acrobat Reader™ and MSReader™ offer protection means but there have been reports of both having been compromised. It is in fact inevitable. Mountains will be climbed and software will be cracked. Then again, music has always been greatly distributed without permission; yet, the industry thrives.
With all the good intentions, someone (read that “many someones”) is going to ‘give’ your ebook to a friend. I would have no problem with this if the file would simply transfer and not duplicate. They’re still able to give it to another friend, and another. And the friends are going to give it to friends. In this example one legitimate ebook quickly results in nine illegitimate copies. Ouch!
Of these ten people how many actually would have paid money to you? Within them could there be at least one good fan that might never have known you? This is speculation of course and we can never really know. There is one comforting thought. If they don’t like you they will delete you!
A hard copy book is going to find its way into a yard sale and then another and another as long as the darn thing has pages intact. Personally I’d rather be given away free than passed over for a quarter. How many hand-me-down levels are there with one hard-print copy? Five? Ten? More? Speculation, but a five thousand print run can realistically reach five times that many readers. Whereas, it is illegal to copy an ebook, giving away a paperback is not.
Time! My greatest woe. You work two years on a novel. It’s rejected enough times to discourage you. You edit it again. You resubmit it. Six weeks – no. Six more weeks – no. Maybe finally a yes, but it takes four years to get to the shelf. Seven years investment for fifty cents a copy. Be still my heart. A three thousand dollar check is hardly enough to make you want to go through that again. You tell your publisher that it didn’t have the right promotion; if it had more time. And he tells you ‘if it had been a better book . . .’
They aren’t looking for a better book. They are looking for a book like one they made money with. That’s if you make it beyond the slush pile. Likely, you’re rejected by a part-time, literary student that has his mind on the hindquarters of another part-timer that has PMS. You’re right; I have no way to know that. No one tells you, anymore, why your book was rejected. The point is; your success is in the hands of only one person.
Money is always a good incentive to accomplish something. More money, more incentive. Of the average eight dollar paperback the author gets the mouse’s share. The publisher might turn a profit. Shipping certainly isn’t going to loose. The clearinghouse will snatch a percent and finally the bookseller will slice off the greatest piece of the pie. All those people working so someone can read your book.
I know; none of them make all that much. Those Heidelberg presses cost a chunk of change, labor too. You don’t have to tell me about fuel. So? Either the pie isn’t big enough or there are too many fingers in the filling. If you raise the price, your book will never leave the store. It’s cheaper to go to a movie. We might try lopping off fingers.
How does this sound? You write a book, have it edited by someone that isn’t trying to save ink. Upload it to the favored outlet or your web page. Set the price at half what the paperback would cost and collect four times what the publisher would pay you. After you declared your hard work complete it only took an afternoon to publish.
This is an overly simplistic (but not outrageous) example. You still have that promo thing to deal with and being hasty is going to cheat a lot of authors out of much needed editing, but nobody is going to pull your book from the shelves or rip the covers off. You decide how to promote it and if you’re wrong you change your angle. You have time.
All this isn’t going to help a bad book. On the other hand there will be no stopping a good book. The reader gets the author’s intended ideas at a fair price. The author gets the lion’s share of the profits. And those other’s get . . . well, they get nothing.
There is always someone willing to make things easier by complicating the system and so we can expect the ebook to open new fields of expertise. Frankly I find promoting and finance troublesome. I don’t want to bother with the numbers. I want to write and so I would welcome the appearance of e-agents. This service might include such things as web design and promotion, credit card processing, ebook compilation, illustration and cover art design (gee, that sounds like a publisher). The current average of twelve percent among literary agents would be excessive compensation for even the best e-agent. Not that he is worth less – the potential is just that great. There are currently internet accessible agencies set up to perform many of these functions but operate on a cash first basis and thus lack the incentive to excel. Sink or swim, they already have their money.
The ebook isn’t going to replace hard-print before credits replace money. They might replace the standard method of submissions. A publisher can examine an ebook’s track record and make an educated decision based on facts. After, he only needs to contact the author. (What? They contact us?) There will be fewer risks and the hard-print industry will trim itself down and increase profits. Books that should be printed will. Those that shouldn’t won’t. Rather than a few deciding (by guestimation of projected profits) what gets printed; what flies will be decided by the end users.
There are indications, even at this early stage, that ebooks often increase sales of hard-books. Publishers are ever so slowly eyeing this new medium with a sideways glace. It won’t be long before the reality of e-publishing gets their attention with a solid jab in the arm. There have been failures, granted, and big money lost but (it seems to me) the emphasis was on the devices and the devices failed. The ebook is inherently logical. Put the emphasis on it and the means will follow.
Ebooks are good for the author, good for the reader and I predict will, in the long run, be good for the hard-print industry. The primary obstacle is acceptance to view literature electronically. We can tell readers of the advantages until we’re blue in the bindings (no book cases, no fumbling for your lost page, etc.) and it won’t mean spittle until they are comfortable reading on screen. I’ve read that Adobe claims to have nearly three million installed (I assume that means registered) Readers (although, I contribute this to vender preference, not reader preference). Microsoft’s numbers are modestly less but as of yet I know of no one who is distributing software documentation in MSReader™ format. I expect that to change and if Microsoft bundles its Reader with its operating systems then I predict a definite shift to MSReader™. I saw a reference to a report projecting ‘seventy-nine percent of all web users [read that approximately 79,000,000 people] by the end of 2005 will be buying books online’. I feel that is a bit optimistic if it was regarding ebooks but stranger things have happened.
Adobe has advantages, its WYSIWYG format is actually the most suitable for my children’s books, but as I discovered with my first MSReader™ release, FROGGY CROSSES TOWN, there are benefits to MSR as well. In trying to compensate for MSR’s floating pages (text can be orphaned from illustrations) I found I could manipulate the TTS (Text To Speech) engine and I added a facet to my book that I never would have considered. FROGGY is a fair book but the TTS enhancement elevated it to another level.
MSR’s resizable text is a practical assistance aid. Adobe is zoomable, but at the cost of viewing area. MSR talks, AAR can animate. MSR permits bookmarks, notes, colored highlighting and even drawing on its pages. AAR was loaded with menu options but I didn’t find many of those useful end-user features. With protection inactive, text in MSR could be easily selected and copied, AAR could not (required product knowledge). AAR prints, MSR does not. The nonstandard menus in MSR are easy to use and convenient (after a minute of study), standard menus in AAR seem excessive. MSR has integrated, multilingual look-up (additional download), AAR has a multitude of plug-ins, if you are willing to search for them. MSR could be configured by a child, AAR gave me sensory overload. Both are free to the public. So, do you prefer apples or oranges?
MSR better emulates the essence of a book and (falling short of an optional two page view) I think they’ve come as close as anyone will in the near future. I’d pass on MSR if I were publishing a comic book; however, it is ideally suited to novels and text manuals or anything where precise image placement isn’t an issue.
Once publishers of reference manuals accept ebooks as a distribution means there will likely be an increased acceptance for e-publishing universally. From the user’s perspective, e-reference (most distinctly; hyperlinks and automated look-up features) will trim a student’s study time remarkably.
The ebook is here. Badda bing! Which of the readers will stand out is anyone’s guess (but Digital Rights Management (DRM) will certainly contribute). Choose for yourself. Choose them all. Frankly, I don’t want to spend my writing time learning multiple programs or reformatting for a variety of Readers so my money is on Microsoft.
Ereader numbers are going to climb. In the end it will be the authors that get to decide - perhaps the most important issue ever brought to their trade; soft or hard books. We will vote by the means with which we deliver our goods.
gjjw - (www.gjjwalter.tripod.com)
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