Could you, would you, read an ebook?

[mollyringle]

Before facing the world (for the second or third time) as an e-published author* (this time new and improved!), I am figuring I ought to go out and get a proper ebook reading device. I can't see myself reading anything on my cell phone, and those Palm Pilots I had a few years ago posed many a problem. Namely, the batteries ran out quickly and then the whole software system died and everything had to be restored; and also, there was a limit on how big text files could be, so I had to divide up Project Gutenberg ebooks into four or five chunks. That was a daunting and annoying task when you're reading, say, a thick Dickens novel. Highlighting and scrolling for hundreds of pages at a time gets old really quickly.

But! They say the new readers, like the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle, are much friendlier about these things. I haven't done all the research yet on which device is handiest, so feel free to weigh in. And in the meantime I ask you...

[Poll #1172907]

Add any comments you like. My publisher seems to feel firmly that ebooks, not print books, are indeed the future. And while part of me says, "Tell that to those of us who lovingly sniff aged paperbacks for their delicate aroma," another part of me hopes they're right, because hey, e-published author here. Furthermore, kids these days seem to be heading in the direction of doing everything with their handheld devices; soon they'll be making phone calls, listening to music, emailing, ordering pizzas, taking the SAT's, and yes, doing some light reading if they have time, all on those dinky screens they can't pull their eyes and thumbs from.

And wouldn't it be nice, in some respects? You're lying on the beach with your reader device, and fifty pages into your selected ebook you decide you can't take another word of this lame novel. So you click over to your browser, select and download a new one, and settle back with that instead.

Hmm. I better make those first fifty pages really riveting.

* Yes, my book will be available in paperback as well. But the publisher likes to put the focus on the ebook side, since that's cheaper and faster for all involved.

Comments

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

My answer isn't strictly true, because I read fanfic and classics on Guteberg online all the time, so I obviously do read stuff on a screen, all the time. If I'm paying money for it, though, I want pages and weight and cover art and my name somewhere on the first few pages in ballpoint. I don't know, I just cannot dig the concept of curling up with a little digital whatchit the way I curl up with a book. Secondarily, I drop things a lot, and the things that live in my purse undergo a great deal of punishment. Books stand up to this better than electronics.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

*nod*
In a way, it perplexes me that so many people are saying they could never read a book on a screen, when obviously they do already spend several hours a day reading text of some sort on a screen, be it LJ or news or fanfic. Why not a book? I guess it's the money issue--if you're paying, you want the "real" experience. Then what about those who subscribe to websites for their content? Hmm. *shrug*

I look forward to the cheaper and more durable readers, for the "dropping stuff" problem you name, among other reasons. I've heard that some of the e-paper in development can stand up to a lot of abuse, so there's hope yet.

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

"they do already spend several hours a day reading text of some sort on a screen, be it LJ or news or fanfic. Why not a book?"

Generally speaking, the stuff I read on screen are snippets of stuff. A bit here a bit there. Even the longest of LJ entries, new articles, etc. donm't generally take more than a few minutes to read. Whereas a book is a contuining narrative that can take hours, or days depending on how fast you read, to get through. I rarely spend more than a half hour any given day on LJ or anything else for that matter, and often not in a single stretch. I quickly get restless somehow, for lack of a better term, and need to switch to doing something else. Even longer stuff at work, scientific articles for example, I'll actually print on paper because I find it easier to read.

No way I could sit here reading much of anything, for 2+ hours like I can a book.

For me, the money has nothing to do with it, but that's me. :)

[thefish30.livejournal.com]

IAWTC

Except for the $ bit. Expense is a big issue for me.

[rockstarbob.livejournal.com]

My partner is currently waiting for his (back ordered) Kindle to arrive in the mail. He did a lot of research, although I don't know the specifics, before deciding that was the best option. He says the Kindle should be better on the eyes than even paper.

I struggle with the whole ebook thing. I like the idea of creating less paper waste, but I also think books can be beautiful and artful. I, too, love the delicate aroma of aged pages. ;) But! I also love the idea of ebooks. I wonder whether your publisher is right--time will tell.

Personally, I MIGHT be secretly planning to hijack my partner's Kindle. I love the idea that I can purchase ebooks for it on Amazon and have them in like less than a minute. Instant gratification is my friend.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I submitted this book to this publisher because of the paperback feature that came alongside the e-publication. I just have to see it in actual printed colors, though yes, it does cause unnecessary waste.

Still, I'm with you on the instant gratification, and also the lightweight quality of carrying all those books in the device, so I bet I can become bi-bibliophiliac (reading in both mediums). :)

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

And once you've mastered that, you have to test the tr-bibliophiac waters - paper, ebook, and audio. :-)

I did that a few times when I was really into a book, so I'd read the paper edition in the evening, listen to the audio edition during my commute, and then the ebook edition during quiet moments at work. ;-)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I would love to be in audio format! I'll have to ask my press if they have any plans for that. I could record it myself, even, but that might not end up sounding polished enough to sell.

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to imagine using e-books much, but I guess if I had something that was portable like a book and had a touch screen that mimicked turning pages I might be more tempted. Also something to deal with glare factors.

Right now I dislike reading more than a few thousand words on screen at a time.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

*nod* Apparently the screens now are getting much better at dealing with glare and eye-strain issues. I'll have to look at one up close and personal to see for sure.

I've been known to read some classics in free etext format on my computer at work in the past, which made it possible to read during lunch or whenever even if I forgot my print books. I enjoyed the stories just as much as I would while reading a regular book. But it did strain my eyes more, I think.

[naill-renfro.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure. I tried out a Kindle the other day, and it was a big step up from other ebook readers -- it didn't feel clunky and the e-paper screen gave a much more booklike feel. But I was still frustrated by the relative difficulty of flipping through the pages to see what one character said to another three chapters ago, or to remind myself who some character is -- when I read a print book I'm always doing that. And there's something to be said for having all that choice, esp. all the public domain works you could put on there for free, for that long plane flight when you say "I've always meant to finish 'Le rouge et le noir,' and if I had a copy with me right now I'd either do it or admit defeat."

Plus that would let me clear out a lot of bookshelf space, which in turn would let me clear off a lot of space on the floor, table and chairs currently taken up with book-overflow...

When are the copyright fiends finally going to let me copy all of my movies on to a single device, so that I can box them all up and move them to the garage?

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good point. I'm always flipping back to check names and maps and explanations too, especially when the cast of characters is vast and the terrain unfamiliar, as in G.R.R. Martin. Maybe an easy sidebar navigation thingy?

"I've always meant to finish 'Le rouge et le noir,' and if I had a copy with me right now I'd either do it or admit defeat."

Heheh. For me it's War and Peace. Someday, I swear!

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

That is a big issue for all current e-ink readers; It takes a small, not noticeable amount of time to flip a page. You get used to it quickly when reading in a linear fashion, but flipping backwards to find someone more than a few pages ago is a pain.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Thanks! If you like, mine can be the first ebook you read. ;)

i have downloaded a short story from a site that charged by the download; that's it.
of course there's fanfic, but that's different.

Ah, but why is it different? Because it's free? And yet you just said you've paid to read fiction online. Would you pay for fanfic? Or is it that fanfic is usually not novel-length? And yet some of it is, once all the many chapters are compiled together. If you read a book online in the same way, a few chapters every so often, over the course of a year or more, would that make it all right somehow?

Just trying to get to the bottom of the reluctance so many people have. Not meaning to pick on you in particular. :)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Sometimes - especially when I'm reviewing and end up with a dozen books that I don't want to schlep around - I wish they were all ebooks.

Then I remember all the fanfic that I lost when my palm pilot crashed while all my old zines are perfectly safe and readable, and I'm not so fond of the ebook concept.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the issue of losing it all in one crash is especially troublesome. I think the idea is that these readers have a backup set of files on your PC or something, but I may be wrong. At least you can usually re-download it, annoying though that would be for a large collection...

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

I *love* my Sony Reader. :-)

The form factor is much nicer than the Kindle when you hold it for any length of time, and the display is better ( 8 grey levels, as opposed to 4 on the Kindle ).

Battery life on the Sony is far, far superior to the Kindle; I can go weeks without recharging the Sony, even when using it every day. The Kindle can go just a few days, tops, even when you turn off the radio.

The Kindle's biggest advantage is that Amazon has ebooks for 100K or so of their titles, which far outstrips the number of titles available for other readers.

Officially, the Sony supports just a few formats - BBeF titles that you can get from the Sony Connect store, RTF, plain text, PDF, etc. Unofficially, there are applications that allow you to convert pretty much anything you want to work on the Sony, including DRM'd Microsoft and Mobipocket files.

Any of the E-Ink displays currently being used are excellent. They're particularly readable in sunlight, when paper books printed on glossy paper or bright white become tiresome to the eyes.

As for the number of books you can put on the reader; I have 130 at the moment, ranging from Dickens to the latest best-sellers, and have room for hundreds more. What else could a bibliophile ask for?

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Thanks to your comments here and in the past, I'm definitely leaning toward the Sony. Is there also unofficial software to convert the Kindle format to files readable by the Sony?

130 books! Now that's a cool enticement. I feel better already. :)

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

Well hey, Z could get this for his mom for Mother's Day: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665411941

:-)

I haven't seen anything about converting Kindle files to the Sony Reader, but apparently the Kindle format is very close to Mobipocket, so I wouldn't expect it to be very long before someone comes up with a solution. The bigger problem is that Amazon won't sell you a Kindle ebook without having purchased a Kindle from them.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Well, *that's* annoying of Amazon! I become more interested in the Sony, then. Still, I'm guiltily heartened that my publisher is providing our titles in Kindle format...

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

Personally I'm not a fan of ebooks. I've tried to read a few, one of them pretty decent, but trying to read on a screen just doesn't feel right.

While I can see the appeal of being able to load up a bunch of books to get to as you see fit, I just can't seem to read eboks comfortably at all. I don't know why. I just can't seemto sit there looking at them. Yet I can curl up on the couch or stretch out in my hammock with a good old paper book and read for a couple of hours.

There's also just something unrelaxing about doing something that should be relaxing on an electronic device. I'm trying to unplug and unwind. That's hard to do if you can't remember wether or not you charged the damn thing.

In short, I'll stick to paper thanks. :)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I'm torn on this, as I do see where you're coming from. The recharging issue and other complications make it less fun.

Then again, I have actually read books on a screen, and enjoyed them just as much; and it could in fact be easier, when lying on my back with a toddler asleep on me, to read a small handheld device than a thick paperback that I have to hold open with my aching thumbs.

[wandererrob.livejournal.com]

I've never tried to read with a toddler on my chest, but I can't argue with your logic there. :)

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

That brings back fond memories of being woken up at 3:00am by a screaming toddler who would go back to sleep only while sleeping in my chest, while I was fully awake. It was great to be able to keep the room dark so he'd go back to sleep, while I entertained myself with a new ebook on my Palm. :-)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

And those days do end eventually, right? :)

(Li'l Z still sleeps next to me to make life easier, but that doesn't stop him from occasionally waking up and needing to climb on me for moral support or something.)

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

And those days do end eventually, right? :)

Of course!

I'll just refrain from mentioning that I had bicepital tendinitis in my shoulder this past February, and that it was caused by Dear Daughter sleeping on it every morning. ;-)

[new-iconoclast.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope that it will be years and years and years, if ever, before the print book industry dies completely. Because I love real books, I love being able to page through real books, I've never met an electronic footnoting, highlighting, or page-marking system I liked, and because they'll figure out a way to make them even more stupidly expensive if they go electronic.

Yes, I'll read them that way. But the best fanfic stuff and e-books I've read have engendered in me an intense urge to PRINT THEM OFF AND BIND THEM LIKE BOOKS WERE GODDAMN MEANT TO BE.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

I doubt it'll ever die completely, and I don't want that either. And, heh, good point about the "stupidly expensive" part.

But if you can find someone to take on the expense of printing and binding stuff that people love to read on screen, then please, tell me who they are, because a thousand rejection letters later, I'm getting discouraged.

[new-iconoclast.livejournal.com]

Have you read "After the End" on Sugar Quill? I am seriously considering printing it out and hand-binding a limited-edition, it's that good.

As for real publishing . . . I think you have to pay someone to do that, unfortunately.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hmm, haven't read that one, no. Must look it up!

Yes, real publishing always costs money for someone. Ideally the publisher takes it on, not the author, but it's a tough market to crack. Thus we authors hope e-publishing might help level the field, even though most of us also cherish printed books and wish we could see our works in that format too.

[origamislayer.livejournal.com]

I've had one of these (http://www.ebookwise.com/ebookwise/ebookwise1150.htm) for years and I really love it. Besides being great on vacation (try bringing 100 paper books on a trip) it's nice to read in bed without worrying about book lights. It's not state of the art, but until the e-ink books mature I'm sticking with this one.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Hmm, cool! I doubt I'd read in the dark much, so I'd rather have screens that approximate paper. But I'm still heartened to see that someone's willing to try the ebook thing. So thank you!

ebooks

[(Anonymous)]

I love my sony reader and I have been downloading books onto it instead of buying paper books since I bought it last year. The E-ink technology is great and much easier on the eyes than a computer screen. It really feels like you are reading a book.

Re: ebooks

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Good to know. I look forward to trying one out in person.

[stitchinthyme.livejournal.com]

origamislayer beat me to it - I have the same device as he does. The big dealbreaker for me on the Kindle and Sony readers is the lack of a backlight -- I like to be able to read in the dark. Once the new readers have that, I might buy a new one. Until then, I like my eBookwise reader just fine; it gets 20 hours of battery life and I can carry much of my library with me wherever I go.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

At least it's more affordable, too. Still, I'm intrigued by the e-ink paper-look screens...may have to look into that. Never liked reading in the dark anyway. :) But thank you for giving ebooks a chance!

[dirae.livejournal.com]

I suppose my reluctance to truly embrace the electronic print industry in book format stems from the fact that I have family entrenched in the industry (an industry already feeling the impact of the electronic age in other printing venues aside from book printing... perhaps it is one of the only things keeping the printing industry afloat). For example, in a 50 mile radius of my house there are at least 4 book printing companies, employing well over 1000 people together. One is almost going under, one is doing ok enough and two have merged (with the chance that a number of employees will be "let go"). As much as I love technological evolution, the offset printing industry has been around since Gutenberg invented the printing press (and allowed books to be available to the masses, thus spreading literacy across the country) and I would hate to see our generation diminish it as its own form of art.

While I see many levels of the printing industry going to totally electronic in time, I hope and pray the paper and binded book industry will never cease. Books should not be a novelty and electronic formats the norm. Just look at what the trickle down effect the iPod/iTunes has had on the printing industry/artistry associated with music production: great album art and liner notes are things of the past.

From an economic angle, it makes sense that smaller presses will herald "e-books as the future". The cost for the publisher is much less if they publish in electronic formats, and it allows them to publish more per month than traditional publishing houses. Nonetheless, HarperCollins, Random House, and other publishing firms have spent the last year allocating their libraries into e-books form because of the renewed interest (i.e. contracts with Sony). The catch: almost every title listed on the Sony e-book store is cheaper to buy in a used print edition, or virtually the same price as the new edition. If you are looking for major publishing houses to offer e-books cheaper than the print versions, forget it. The mark-up is more outrageous than one would have with offset printing! This is an example of sucking the consumer dry while giving them nothing tangible aside from a bunch of zeros and ones. I see smaller publishing houses taking over this business model very soon.

So, while I'll give e-books a chance, I would NOT purchase one at the same price as a traditional form (unless, of course, it was yours or something I could not get in any other format).

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

You're welcome to get mine in paperback. :) I plan to do the same! The paperbacks cost about twice as much as the ebooks at my press, but there's still something wonderful about a physical book. I have to admit, the reason I chose to submit to this publisher was because they had the paperback format alongside the ebook.

I should have made it more clear that I *don't* agree with their assessment of ebooks and "not print" being the future. It's good that they're seeking out the people who believe that, and targeting them as customers, and yep, it's definitely less cost and hassle for them. Still, I hope ebooks and print can coexist, and I want consumers to give the new form a chance (thank you for doing so) :).

I definitely don't want print books to disappear, though. Hell, I'm looking to be a librarian here, and another far-off dream for Steve and me is to own a used bookstore, so we absolutely want to continue the existence of ink and paper.

Piracy in ebook-land is just as much an issue as it is for mp3s, too. But I don't expect to get rich from writing, so I'm hoping the trade-off benefit is the same as it is for the music industry: namely, more fans in more places worldwide, even if the royalties don't climb as high as they legally ought to.

At least for authors, there's always money to be had in selling the film rights. ;)

But while I'm defending the print industry, I also have some criticisms of it. Pass this along to those you know in the field, if you think they can change things. My biggest beef is their marketing focus on a handful of hugely famous authors, to the near-total neglect of newer and lesser-known ones. A related annoyance is the tradition of printing the first run in hardback--which is expensive and which practically no one wants, unless I'm talking to the wrong people--and only later releasing in the more convenient and affordable paperback. It ought to be the other way around. First print in paper, then, if the book is a big hit, print some special hardback editions for those who want it for their collection.

Just my liberal-arts ideal model, there. No business degree experience to back this up. :)

[dirae.livejournal.com]

I don't want it to seem like I assumed you were *against* traditional printing, as I know you are not.

I just had to get my little guff out against Sony's e-book company and how the larger publishing houses are charging virtually the same price for e-books as they do for the nicer edition mass-market paperbacks. As a consumer, this doesn't sit well with me. If anything, the median price for an e-book should be 5 dollars. With said price, they would still turn a mondo profit on very few purchases. Or, they could opt to serialize editions at say .50 cent a chapter or so. I believe Stephen King did this, but at a dollar or so a chapter, thus *sticking it to the consumer* (especially when the book was later released in a collection of other works thereby providing more bang for your buck in the print edition).

If someone wanted to be really cutting edge, an author would set up something like the DailyLit site you linked to. For, say 10.00 over the course of 2 months (or less), an author could slowly and leak bits of their novel through surprise email/rss/blog access. Perhaps you would go one day without a bit of the book, only to have 2 pages sent to you the next day. Then 14 words the next; then 4 smaller posts adding up to one chapter in one day, etc. Or something like that, always catching the reader off guard. It would be like serialized and surreal Dickens for the tech age. It would be the "engaged experience" younger readers crave, thus propelling static fiction purchases through the roof.

As for marketing focus: publishers rarely "promote"; they distribute the book to the Book Trade which mainly consists of listing it in a catalog. Much of the promotion angle lies on the agent's (and the writer's) shoulders. It may seem like one of the big five is promoting James Patterson more than, say, Myla Goldberg. This is because Patterson has already created the hype, and the small, over-worked publicity department(or whatever) just makes up a couple of nice displays--nothing more to do than sit back and reap the benefits. For Myla, it would take much more work because it is difficult for a group of people to market a less established author's fiction titles effectively even if the writing is great... there isn't much for them to do if the writer is not pulling in publicity-getting reviews in The New York Times or the Post. Someone told me that Random House only picks a few new writers a year of push, because it’s inherently an uphill battle with a high rate of economic loss coming out of their pocket if they market a new author who turns out to be a flop.

Publishing is in the industry of making money and it is a basic reality that people tend to buy more books from writers they already know... the publisher wants to make money so they will remind you Patricia Cornwell has a new novel out while making you search for the upcoming release date of James Ellroy's collection of short fiction. This doesn't leave much room for promoting the NEWEST writer out there unless he/she is something really special, and I mean in personality and not just talent (Truman Capote comes to mind as does Jonathan Safran Foer).

Then you have someone like Maile Meloy who has a contract with Scribner. Meloy (and her representation) set up all of her promotions and get them "Ok'd" through the publicity dept. You would think that the publicity dept. at Scribner would want a bit more involvement because Meloy is an award-winning author and highly marketable! In the grand scheme of things, though, she is in control of what she does and how much she promotes her work which is usually through "word of mouth"/small appearances. Her publicity plan includes getting her work seen by as many people as possible. She started out getting published in literary magazines; from there, she got as many people as possible to endorse her work ahead of time. Everything fell into place for her from there. Jonathan Safran Foer, by the way, had Joyce Carol Oates to help him out. William Styron had George Plimpton. The young ones who get the press seem to have a press-grabber already attached to them as a "mentor".

[astroman-rich.livejournal.com]

I just had to get my little guff out against Sony's e-book company and how the larger publishing houses are charging virtually the same price for e-books as they do for the nicer edition mass-market paperbacks. As a consumer, this doesn't sit well with me. If anything, the median price for an e-book should be 5 dollars.

ObAdmissionOfVestedInterest: I work for the 800 pound gorilla in the distribution of printed books, and for their subsidiary that is in the same position for ebooks. ( Well, perhaps not since Amazon came out with the Kindle ). However, I'm on the print side, not the ebook side.

People often complain that ebooks should be priced the same as, or cheaper than, the print editions, usually with the theory that it doesn't cost much to create and distribute them. That sounds nice... but isn't true at all.

The production cost of an offset, softcover book in a small run ( 10 - 20K copies ) is typically about 20 - 25% of the list price. That varies with the page count, binding, color, etc, but it's a decent middle ground. The remainder of the cost to the customer covers the distributer/retailer discount, overhead for editors/readers/advertising/keeping the lights on/etc. Those functions required for both print books as well as ebooks, so there isn't any wiggle-room there, really.

So, using that as a baseline, ebooks "should" cost 75% of the price of a softcover, right?

Well, no. There is a *huge* amount of infrastructure behind the scenes that is required to provision ebooks, but aren't required for print books.

Disk space is cheap, right? So why can't you just buy a couple dozen hard drives for $2000 and use them to store the ebooks? Well, because you want to have the ebooks available yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so you buy enterprise-class storage systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You pay thousands more for tape backup systems. Thousands more per year for the power to run it all.

Then you pay hundreds of thousands to Microsoft and the other DRM vendors every year so that you get licenses to run the software required by the publishers for the ebook encryption. As a voracious ebook reader, I would *love* it if publishers got away from DRM, but I don't think I'll live to see that happen.

Now don't forget all of those nice IT guys who need to be paid to keep all of this running. We like to eat and take our kids on vacation, too. :-)

But wait, there's more! The enterprise-class network connections ( plus their backups ) required to make sure that the moment someone buys an ebook from Fictionwise that they can get it, 24x7, cost thousands per month.

And the servers to handle all of this? Let's just say that you don't buy them from Dell for a couple hundred bucks.

That's not even counting the dozens of additional people you need to hire to handle the customer service, when Joe Reader calls up and wants to know how he can put his book on his phone, PDA, or washing machine.

All of that adds up, no matter how many ebooks you sell, whether it's ten or ten thousand a month.

Now sure, lots of small publishers put up websites and sell their ebooks using an old Dell they bought off Craigslist and do fine with that. That doesn't quite cut it when you're a big publisher who wants to put out 50K ebook titles into the retail channels, so you find a nice provisioner who will do all of the behind the scenes work - but who also wants to get paid. And that cost eats up a fair equivalent of the physical production cost of a print book.

At which point, ebook prices don't look all that much out of line with paperback books, after all. I wholeheartedly would agree that ebooks priced at hardback levels far more difficult to swallow, especially since the margin on hardbacks are significantly higher than softcovers.

Just as an aside - the Sony Connect ebook store pricing for all titles was way, way out of line until the Kindle came out. Often, it still is. But I've contacted them at least a half dozen times pointing out that specific books are much cheaper in Kindle format, and they've always dropped the price to match Amazon in a day or so. Makes the ebook-buying experience much more economical. :-)

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

This is quite enlightening--I didn't guess at half the effort and infrastructure that goes into the ebook side. I worry even more for my publishers now. :) But at least they've got you guys working for them...hopefully for the long term.

POD looks better and better as a manageable option.

the Sony Connect ebook store pricing for all titles was way, way out of line until the Kindle came out. Often, it still is. But I've contacted them at least a half dozen times pointing out that specific books are much cheaper in Kindle format, and they've always dropped the price to match Amazon in a day or so. Makes the ebook-buying experience much more economical.

Heheh. How mischievously heroic of you! The consumers present you with this Golden Page-Turn Button Award. *clap clap clap*

[dirae.livejournal.com]

Oy vey.

You should be glad I don't dig on debate anymore, because I could go on a diatribe. :) Now I'll only focus on a little detail about plant/production costs in the book printing realm:

Have you considered that book manufacturers have added logistics to provide warehousing and shipping services [known as fulfillment] for publishers. R.R. Donnelly, for example, also provides publishers with an inventory management software and services. Thus, the manufacturers move into project management for the book production process. Banta Bookgroup, now part of Donnelly, has 17 income streams including packaging design services. Just as book publishers have become "content providers," some major book manufacturers are moving quickly into becoming comprehensive content managers or "media providers" or "multi-channel content distributors." Here, the publisher provides the intellectual content to the content manager who then makes it available in whichever format is most appropriate for a particular audience or purpose. For example, R.R. Donnelley provides publishers with consulting, website design, development and hosting, content production, and marketing assistance as well as customized communications, multiple-media output (ebook creation for example), print-on-demand, global distribution, on-line collaboration, and electronic filing. The new options lead to an infrastructure as vast, if not more so, than what you described with "e-book" publishing. So, plant/production costs should skyrocket, thereby effecting the cost of the printed matter (using your logic) right?

But it hasn't.

Given the infrastructure needed for offset printing, I still can't agree with the cost to produce ebooks is enough to offer them at the price they citing.

Furthermore, I'm a-ok with Amazon and the their prices for Kindle e-books--it is as it should be. Foo on Sony... :P

*My sisters work for R.R. Donnelly, btw... and sorry if this is a ramble, my son has an earache.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

(My reaction to this, which was why I hadn't answered till now...)

Man, I know practically nothing about the publishing business. Why am I even trying to break into it?

Oh well; at least I'll take it as a good sign that my publisher is offering our ebooks in Kindle format, and for only about $6.50. :)

[dirae.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about "knowing the business"... I don't think it really helps. You know enough to have gotten published so that is half the fight.

I always thought I would use my degree to get into the publishing world until I talked to many people working in that world (who had bosses on par with the She-Beast from "The Devil Wears Prada" and experiences with long hours/little pay while managing to try a pay NYC rent) and decided I wasn't cut-throat enough to work my way up in that world. The little I do know about the world is mainly through my sisters who work with the largest printer in the country and some insiders I know in the field. Such limited knowledge is essentially worthless... they is actually the first time I think I ever used it in a conversation.

Furthermore, never feel bad about your accomplishments. Your book is very good and well worth being published.

-K.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. :)

Yeah, I could never live the NYC agent/editor lifestyle. It sounds about as friendly and relaxed as stock trading. That's part of why I want an agent myself, though--I'd much rather have someone else fight some of those fights for me.

[mollyringle.livejournal.com]

It would be like serialized and surreal Dickens for the tech age. It would be the "engaged experience" younger readers crave, thus propelling static fiction purchases through the roof.

I really dig this idea. I plan to ask my publisher if they do intend to get their titles listed at DailyLit or anywhere similar.

I know most of the marketing lies with the writer (and agent if they have one, and hopefully editor too), but I always wish it weren't so. I hate trying to sell people anything, whether I created it or not. All the same, I do cautiously look forward to contacting local bookstores and reading groups to tell them about my book, since they do actually want to hear about local authors, or so I assume.

I recall reading of the Foer/Oates connection, though hadn't heard of the others as much. True enough, that would be a golden ticket. On the other hand, I recently read an article in The Writer about MFA students assuming that merely their degree and their professorial connections will guarantee them a brilliant career. Though we hear about those few for whom this is true, most of them apparently come crashing down to the same hard reality as the rest of us: namely, you need a great book, not just an education and/or names in a network.

Usually that reassures me, since I can always work on my quality of writing. But sometimes it dismays me, since, well, my quality of writing is therefore likeliest to be the problem so far. :)