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Jan
29
21st Century Digital Book Lady
2009 at 9am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
(my apologies to Bad Religion for the bastardization of their song title)
This week’s BTT is a little bit different. The primary discussion is actually taking place in the comments at BTT, but I wanted to discuss it here as well. Here’s the prompt: First. Go read this great article from Time Magazine: Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature. (Well worth reading.)
Second. Stop and think about it for moment. Computers and digital media are changing everything we do these days, whether we realize it or not, and that includes our beloved books.
Third. DISCUSS!
Tell us what you think. Do you have an ebook reader? Do you read ebooks on your computer? Do you hate the very thought? How do you feel about the fact that book publishing is changing and facing much the same existential dilemma as the music industry upon the creation of MP3s?
Oh, I have a lot of thoughts on this subject, so buckle up. Before I dive into the issues I have with the claims this article makes (claims, I’d like to note, for which the author offers very little evidence), I will acknowledge that publishing is changing. I see it and hear about it everyday, and yes, the business model is outmoded. The rise of digital media poses an interesting problem for publishers who now have to adapt to readers’ desires for books in various formats. We need to make some changes.
While we are witnessing a time of transition, we are not, dear readers, about to see the demise of traditional books. I don’t have a Kindle or a Sony Reader because I love the tactile experiences that come with real books. I love the way they feel in my hands, the sound the pages make when I flip through them for the first time. I love the way they smell. I love that I can write in them, underline passages, and mark pages to come back to later. I know you can do that on ebook readers, but if you take your Kindle to the beach, you’ll have to worry about getting sand on it, and if you read while you’re eating lunch, what happens when you spill your soda?
And what about bookshelves? If you’re like me, you like to keep the books you love in a special place and display them in your home. It’s a quick way for people to get to know me, and it’s a reminder for me of one of the great loves of my life. Without actual books, what am I supposed to do? Put my Kindle on a backlit pedestal in the center of my living room?
Now, I know I can’t knock the convenience of being able to carry around hundreds of books in a simple device, and I won’t lie—I’m thinking about putting an ebook reader on my next list for Santa because I do get tired of hauling tons of books around when I travel. There are circumstances in which I think having an ebook reader would be nice. But I’ll never give up real books.
And I don’t think most readers will, either. I think MP3s and digitial music downloading created such a problem for the music industry precisely because most people aren’t attached to the way their music is delivered to them the way that readers are attached to books. Yes, there are purists who are wholly devoted to vinyl, but for the most part, who cares if a song comes from a record, a tape, a CD, or an MP3? You only hold one of those items for as long as it takes you to load it into your stereo, car, or iPod. When you read, you spend hours—even days or weeks—in close contact with each book, and it starts to mean something. I might enjoy the convenience of a digital book every now and then, but I’m not willing to give up the enjoyment of holding a real book, and I don’t think many people are.
But there’s another side of me that thinks “well, whatever it takes to keep people reading.” If we can use ebooks to promote literacy and get people who don’t normally read to read more, that’s a good thing…..as long as what they’re reading is of the same quality as actual books.
And that brings me to a few of the statements in the Time article that I’d like to discuss.
(Are you still with me?)
The novel won’t stay the same: it has always been exquisitely sensitive to newness, hence the name. It’s about to renew itself again, into something cheaper, wilder, trashier, more democratic and more deliriously fertile than ever.
Change and renewal are good. “Something cheaper, wilder, trashier”? Not so much. More people reading is a good thing, but not if what they’re reading is crap. Call me a snob, but I feel pretty adamantly about that. This article refers a lot to the rise of fan fiction and amateur publishing, and while those are interesting phenomena that allow more people to have a creative outlet and that do, just every now and then, result in a great book that would not otherwise be published, it does not mean we need to have “publishing without publishers.” There is still (and, I hope, will always be) a market for well-written literature that is not just cheap and easy but that contributes something to the consciousness and intellectual development of its readers. The formal vetting processes used by publishers may let some good ones slip through the cracks—and, on the other hand, may result in some duds being published—but it generally serves to weed out the crap, and that’s a good thing.
Compared with the time and cost of replicating a digital file and shipping it around the world–i.e., zero and nothing–printing books on paper feels a little Paleolithic.
Fair enough, but there’s something to be said for tradition, and again with the whole “reading is a tactile experience” thing. And what was that about getting what you pay for? If free/cheap books = lower quality books, I’m not interested.
Saying you were a self-published author used to be like saying you were a self-taught brain surgeon. But over the past couple of years, vanity publishing has become practically respectable. As the technical challenges have decreased–you can turn a Word document on your hard drive into a self-published novel on Amazon’s Kindle store in about five minutes–so has the stigma. Giga-selling fantasist Christopher Paolini started as a self-published author. After Brunonia Barry self-published her novel The Lace Reader in 2007, William Morrow picked it up and gave her a two-book deal worth $2 million. The fact that William P. Young’s The Shack was initially self-published hasn’t stopped it from spending 34 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.
These are a few extreme examples of books that slipped through the cracks the first time around but for which there was clearly a market. They represent a very, very small percent of self-published books. Believe me–I get phone calls from local self-published authors who want to set up publicity events all the time, and 9 times out of 10, it’s an automatic “no” after one look at the book. (Read a published author’s take on self-publishers here) The Time author’s anecdotal evidence is nice, but we can’t and shouldn’t use it to make sweeping generalizations.
But Genova and Barry and Suarez got filtered out, initially, which suggests that there are cultural sectors that conventional publishing isn’t serving. We can read in the rise of self-publishing not only a technological revolution but also a quiet cultural one–an audience rising up to claim its right to act as a tastemaker too.
There are certainly cultural sectors that are underserved by our present publishing model—if there aren’t enough people interested in the particular area to make a book profitable, it doesn’t get published, and I would like to see that changed so we can maximize the number of people reading and promoting literacy. But Genova and Barry and Suarez (and Paolini) have all written relatively mainstream books. It would have been a shame if they had not been published, but their absence would not have left a gaping hole in the body of contemporary literature.
If readers want to pay for the old-school premium package, they can get their literature the old-fashioned way: carefully selected and edited, and presented in a bespoke, art-directed paper package.
And that’s how I want it, personally. For the most part, it’s like the difference between community theatre and Broadway.
Reading on a screen speeds you up: you don’t linger on the language; you just click through. We’ll see less modernist-style difficulty and more romance-novel-style sentiment and high-speed-narrative throughput. Novels will compete to hook you in the first paragraph and then hang on for dear life.
None of this is good or bad; it just is.
Hello, this is definitely bad. “You don’t linger on the language; you just click through.” How is that not bad? Sure, we all enjoy the occasional brain-candy beach read, but literature is art. Writers work for years to hone their craft. Beautiful, intricate, lyrical language is one of the reasons I love books. And I don’t want to read anything that is written in a way that encourages me to “just click through.” Thanks, but no. If I want to turn off my brain, I’ll turn on the TV.
The author defends the idea that books will, essentially, be dumbed down and says we just have to get used to it because even novels weren’t well received when they came about. People in the 1800s
thought novels were vulgar and immoral. And in a way they were, and that was what was great about them: they shocked and seduced people into new ways of thinking. These books will too.
How is a book that is designed for instant gratification and pure entertainment and which does not inspire us to think at all going to do that? Please enlighten me.
Don’t get me wrong—I love books, and I believe passionately in supporting the publishing industry and doing whatever it takes to keep literature alive and well. But I don’t want just any books. I want publishing to survive and thrive and to continue giving us high quality books that have the power to transport us to other worlds, to challenge our ways of thinking, to expose us to new and difficult ideas, and to make us smarter, better, more thoughtful human beings. I don’t want a reading diet made up of only airport books, and I don’t want a bunch of cheap fan fiction or unedited amateur writing just because it might be convenient.
I spend upwards of 40 hours a week in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. Yes, sales are difficult right now because of the economy, but we aren’t hurting as much as most other companies and industries. Electronics stores—those bastions of digital convenience and high-tech instant gratification—are in debt and going out of business, but people are still buying books. Why? Because books have lasting value that you’re just not going to find in a video game or DVD. There’s just something about books, and I’m pretty sure they’re here to stay.
What do you think? Share your thoughts here, and join the discussion at Booking Through Thursday.
The house I work for now passed on the Shack in one of our pub boards. Hindsight hurts on projects like that when they go on to sell millions of copies, but when it came in it looked terrible. You just never know what is going to hit.
Nothing compares with the tactile experience of reading. Great post!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts on this, and agree wholeheartedly. Let’s hope books are here to stay for a long, long time!
I think so much of this is overblown. Not your post–I agree with your post. But I also know that I’m far from the only person who’s still interested in reading well-written and well-edited books. And that most current readers of fiction are already reading the junk food–and that’s fine. There’s room for both.
I think what this will really mean is that there will just be a longer tail of books available through self-publishing.
That whole “cheaper, wilder, trashier” line gave me pause too. Really? Cheaper and trashier? That’s what we want? Basically I agreed with everything you said and said many of the same things in my own post, but I loved reading yours because you have the additional perspective of working as a bookseller.
How I wish I could jump up and down and shout “I agree” to almost every point you’ve made! Some acquaintances and I recently had a conversation over this (and other) articles via Twitter that brought up the subject of new media/self-publishing.
I personally believe that change is occuring in every industry and is therefore undeniable, but there is a reason for why publishing has lasted as long as it has: the standards for “traditional” publishing are high, as well they should be.
The quote that had me most shocked was this: “[readers] can get their literature the old-fashioned way: carefully selected and edited, and presented in a bespoke, art-directed paper package.”
I am all for new media and self-publishing for strong writers who just haven’t been able to get that break. If their content is good and their writing is strong, then chances are they deserve to be published. However, with self-publishing, it seems that anyone and everyone is now writing a book, just so that they can say that they wrote a book. For me, this lessens the appeal and, quite possibly, the reputation of the industry.
Like you, I *want* my books to be well-structured, written, and edited, despite the fact that it’s “old-fashioned.” I want to be intellectually stimulated. I just want to read good, original, grammatically correct books.
Will traditinoal books ever really “go out of style”? Will self-publishing trump traditional publishing houses? I highly doubt it, but the thought still makes you pause.
A fantastic post; thanks!
Ray Bradbury must be dying to shout “I told you so!”
Ah, the good ol’ paper vs. digital debate!
I think it’s inevitable that books will eventually go down the digital path, although that won’t happen until someone invents a gizmo that is able to perfectly replicate every tangible attribute of a book.
Until then, what’s most likely to happen is that the publishing industry will diverge into digital and paper realms. Well-written, cleanly-edited and gorgeously-presented works of literature (plus the odd bit of non-fiction) will continue to be printed in paper form. Publishers will scale back on how many they print each year and prices will rise accordingly.
Meanwhile, pretty much every other type of book, including newspapers and magazines, will end up in the digital realm. Many books will be serialized and/or purchasable in chapter-sized chunks. Most publishers will give away the first chapter for free. We’ll end up with a lot of crap to wade through, but publishers/authors will also be more open to taking risks and experimenting with the medium. We’ll end up with just as many Mark Z. Danielewskis as Dan Browns.
Both forms will co-exist quite happily for a long, long time; paper for our most cherished works, digital for our more leisurely, experimental reading.
Maybe.
I will admit, I am one of those readers that have given in and purchased a Sony Reader. I purchased it for the reason you mentioned–when I travel, I didn’t want my luggage to be weighed down by all the books I must have when I travel. After all, it’s a high likelihood that my flight will be delayed. My husband suggests that I only pack one extra book (GASP!). But what happens if I finish the book I’m currently reading, and I’m not in the mood to read the single extra book I’ve packed!?
So I travel with my Sony Reader tucked in my carry-on. Since review quite a selection of books, and many ARCs aren’t available in electronic format, I do still have to carry some “real books”.
Bottom line–I don’t think traditional books will be going away in the near future. Electronic book readers are simply a convenience/luxury that a few may have (quite similar, perhaps to desktop PCs versus laptops).
I think certain types of books, category romances for example, fit well in the digital realm. They are short and often only read once.
So I think there’s a place for stories to be told through a digital means, and then the good old bookstore for everything else.
I am of the school that agrees that both forms willl co-exist for a long, long time (until, like, I am dead) because I also agree with you that unlike music, MANY of us care about how our books are delivered.
As many times as I have seen this debate, I am not convinced that printed books will disappear…but just in case, I am doing my part by hoarding a huge TBR pile that will last me a long, long time.
I do not own a reader, as such, and have no plan to buy one and spend almost the same amount of money for an e-book as for a REAL book.
I did however just buy a netbook Samsung NC10) on which i can read downloaded free e-books when I travel (and there are a lot available) and go on-line and play games and work on stuff …and all sorts of stuff. I like a multi-purpose toy.
I really didn’ t like that “linger on the language” comments. I love to do that. I can’t be the only one can I? The article seems to say that we might be reading but we’re not getting smarter.
E-readers like Kindle would be especially useful and convenient for business travelers and moms traveling with kids. They don’t have to worry about lugging books around and paying extra for baggage. I’m glad there are more choices for readers but for me, I like the feeling of having an actual book. No, I cannot imagine concerting my book collection to a handy gadget, that thought really bothers me.
I just consider e-books to be another choice and not a replacement for paper books. Just like the music industry went through growing pains with the introduction of mp3, the publishing industry will suffer growing pains. Hopefully it will all work out in the end. Excellent post!
I think it’s your comments on the “cheaper, wilder, trashier” part that makes this post quite impressive. It does come off as a bit snobbish (as I’ve been told by many people upon mentioning it), but there are a lot of very poor books published every year. Reading is great, but I won’t ever say that reading anything is great. The act of reading (eyes passing over words) isn’t what’s educational and amazing in reading books. It’s the need for imagination and mental reconstruction of images. It’s the exposure to new and different worlds that you have to build in part (unlike movies or TV shows, where I disagree with you: you don’t necessarily have to turn off your brain for the quality stuff!).
E-Readers should eventually get more popular, cheaper, and convenient. They are infinitely betterish for the environment (when I think of the amount of trees I’ve killed for hours and hours of entertainment, I feel almost sick. Almost.) and do save a lot of space and energy. I also disagree about the “clicking through” comment. When I’m reading a silly or boring book, I often skim through by flipping pages every couple of seconds, not bothering to savor the writing (usually because it’s bad, hence the skipping). I see no difference between that and clicking through. If anything, it’s probably more uncomfortable to do it with an e-reader. It depends on the book and on the person behind the book.
I can actually say a lot more about your specific post but it’ll equate to a post longer than yours (I know, I know). So I’ll just leave what I already have and tip my hat in your direction.