| Author | Message | ||
     Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.178.187 |
I published an ebook a few years ago which I'd pretty much forgotten about due to ebooks being, at the time, strange and alien things which no one could be bothered to download. But one of my friends pointed out to me recently that ebooks are more popular these days due to Kindle etc so I've finally decided to mention it here. The book's called SHARDS OF DREAMS and it's a collection of sci-fi and fantasy stories featuring lost gods, stolen faces, and creatures made from leftover dinners. First story is available to sample at https://store.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b22176/Shards-of-Dreams/Stuart-Young/?si=43 | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Make an honest book of it, Stu. Find a publisher. I'm sure the stories are worth it. Putting fiction into electronic formats is about as worthwhile as scrawling it on a toilet wall, and will get you fewer (and less interesting) fans. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.168.189.118 |
I disagree to an extent. I think the future is the e-book. Mainstream publishing is going the way of big record companies, and while just as there are Indie publishers about for both music and fiction, I think the future is more and more thedirect download type. While I hope there'll always be hardcopy books (even if they're read on computers that look and feel like books), I think fiction's going electronic. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.168.189.118 |
I shall read Stu's free tale on my phone soon. And I can do that in the dark, without external illumination... Until my battery goes, anyway. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I think fiction's going electronic. Sadly I think you're right. And I weep for the future. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.168.189.118 |
It just changes, Zed, that's all. The best music at the moment, raw and earthy, is coming out of folk's MyFace pages . . . Stock, Aitken and Waterman (may their postules bloom and rupture) would never have had the success they manufactured in a universal electronic download market, however good their viral marketing. My guess is the same will be proved true for James Patterson's fiction factory. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
My guess is that there'll be so much material 'published' that finding good stuff will be like finding a needle in a shitstack. Only a number of people have an album inside them; everyone has a novel there. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Aye. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Also, unlike music, words come naturally to people. We don't whistle tunes in the same way we speak sentences. Ergo, there are far more people who think they can write prose than they are who believe they can compose. Even those complex music-making PC programs demand a modicum of skill and dedication. Prose writing just needs a pencil and paper. And if musicians need at least five years' practice on an instrument before becoming adroit enough to perform, what does a 'writer' need? The ability to type up a document on MS Word and hit print? Or even use a digital printers? Yes, that's about it. In short, music and prose are different, and these differences will have huge impacts on their respective e-developments. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
GF - my work email is currently down...I'm not ignoring you. Honest. :-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
How did you know I even emailed you?  | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
>>finding good stuff will be like finding a needle in a shitstack So a bit like going into Waterstones or browsing Amazon? | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.184.88 |
Joel, the book's still under contract to the ebook publisher. They get first refusal on a hardcopy edition. Although I get the impression they're not going to bother. The problem I found with this foray into e-publishing was promoting the book. The publisher has a policy of handing all the publicity duties over to the author which at the time I didn't think would be a problem -- I'd already done a half-decent job of promoting SPARE PARTS so I thought I'd just send SHARDS along to all the same reviewers. What I didn't count on was that no one wanted to review it purely on the basis of it being an ebook. The only review it got was by a certain Jonathan Oliver but even that one spent a fair chunk of the review discussing the pros and cons of ebooks in much the same way that this thread is doing. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
"The publisher has a policy of handing all the publicity duties over to the author" Which is typical. Publishers of e-books are ignorant, selfish vermin. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
>>>So a bit like going into Waterstones or browsing Amazon? Yeah, except that shitstack's a molehill in comparison to the mountain of the future. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
This is true. We're all in the shit; only the depth differs . . . | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
And while I think, there's surely another difference: music is more immediate. It takes, what, 40 minutes to listen to an album. A novel takes at least 4 hours. Therefore, it's harder to evaluate the quality of a novel than it is an album because it takes longer. And time is short enough for everyone these days. I'm all for 'democratically selected' art, but without some kind of editorial control, isn't it going to be like her next-door running for election, and him up the street, and that bloke who licks his fingers at the bus stop, not to mention our Dennis who's dead good at stuff? Etc. I'm being silly now. I put these thoughts forward for discussion. Sorry for hijacking the thread, Stu. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.106.220.19 |
If books do go the way of music, let's hope there's not a literary equivalent of the MP3; compressed to buggery, and lifeless... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
>>>So a bit like going into Waterstones or browsing Amazon?<<<< Nope. There's tonnes of good stuff in both of these outlets. It's more like browsing on Lulu, or some other self-publishing shitfield. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
This is probably a good moment to mention the ebook version of my novella "Rough Cut": https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3038  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
And another point: I used to have a drum machine on an old keyboard and it was remarkably easy to cobble together a decent track just by pressing things at random. Music, I assert on the basis of this limited experience, can sound decent more easily than prose can read well. At any rate, I find it difficult to think up a device that can throw words together and make the resultant material sound coherent, let alone possess an unfolding narrative. Music, therefore, and IMHO, doesn't have the same ruthless demands of legibility. In order to sound decent, it can take many paths. Prose has a more limited number of potential progressions. Perhaps what I really mean is that a bad composer can fool you more easily than a bad writer. Oh, I know what I mean. I just can't describe it very well. And a greater irony-in-context I cannot imagine. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
I don't disagree with much of any of the above. But as mainstream publishers no longer seem to be applying much in the way of editing to some of their books (I've read reports dating back ten years of some writers never having even met their editor, let alone talked about changes to their books), you then have to hope the writer's got it all pat anyway. As for e-novels, I agree you're unlikely to find a good one electronically. Chances are slim, though they are out there, I bet. But it's good form for short stories, direct to your phone or other reader . . . Thus my future reading of Stu's tale on my phone. I still think RAMSEY, PROB would make a great e-book. But that's non-fiction. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
I have an image of Gary sitting playing his drum machine now, playing for hours on end . . . | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I mean, try reading this fucker on the beach: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8038079.stm Sigh. Want to know what i think man's greatest invention was? Not the wheel. Not the printing press. Not sliced bread. The pocket paperback. Seriously: a whole world in your back pocket. God, how I miss that format. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
I agree with these points, Mark. Except for the one about me playing with a drum machine. You must erase that from your mind now. It's simply not a good thing to keep up there. Like plastering a fresh samosa into a wall*. Ah, the stench in years to come . . . * c/o Craig Fry, 1999. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.90.161 |
Having said all this, I wouldn't mind a Kindle. That's not the point I'm making. As long as they don't fuck your eyes up like a PC screen. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
>>The pocket paperback.Seriously: a whole world in your back pocket. God, how I miss that format. Your Abbadon book's gonna be larger format, isn't it, Zed? Like Simon's? (I noticed you sneaked your chapter 8 in the back of his book, too.) | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
Folk are working on what we might call cloth screens at the moment, which will carry computer screen info. Won't be long before computers we can load novels into look and feel like books, except the book won't have to be in that horrible font Black Swan publish in, the one that looks like shod horse shoes. We'll be able to choose a nice garramond or Sabon instead. And the font size. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Interesting euphemisms. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Aye, mate - larger format. I was gutted. The new format looks a million miles better, but it's one of my ambitions to have somethign published as a pocket paperback. Did you like the chapter? I hope you found it as funny as I did. :-) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Damn, damn, damn. Mark's last post got in before mine and ruined the comic effect. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Cloth screens...brings a whole new meaning to the phrase touching cloth. Or does it? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
>>Did you like the chapter? I always start on chapter 8 of your books, mate, so they're over sooner . . . ;-> | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
Actually, the Dialy Fascist had a piece on surviving a zombie plague the other day. Some scientists with nothing much better to do, they had a go at predicting a zombie plague's likliehood and how best to go abot surviving. All apparntly inspired to research by Earth's rising population . . . | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.110.58.21 |
Daily Fascist. (Daily Mail, of course.) | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.150.109.19 |
If you read 'Grin Of the Dark' off a screen would it make it a lesser book? The words and images are in your head after you have read them. As for cobbling together an album, sure, it can be done, but try cobbling together a GREAT album. gcw | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
If you read 'Grin Of the Dark' off a screen would it make it a lesser book? Yes. It isn't about the words, it's about the thing itself. I'd rather hand a book to someone and tell them to read it than email them a text file. Books can be like holy relics; computer files can't. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.173.198 |
Ooh, don't - you'll get me going on about vinyl next! I agree with Zed about this in a way, although Grin of the Dark would be a great book however it appeared. I think the physicality of the book is all part of the experience, although my opinion may change as technology improves or changes. A friend has one of those electronic readers - he says "it's great; I have loads of books in it" - I said "yep, but what if you drop it? Try dropping a paperback". I had a look and yes, it's easy-ish to read, but it in no way replicates the experience of reading a book. Maybe one day they'll have the technology that makes electronic readers feel like the book they've loaded, but until then I'm not bothered. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.108.231 |
I think books are about the feel of the paper, the smell of the thing, the weight of it in your hands, almost as much as they're about the actual words. I've got a Sarah Langan novel - one that has received many rave reviews - that I simply cannot begin to read because I don't like the printed font. I'll have to buy another version of it. To me, reading the hardcover version of a novel would be a different experience to reading the trade paperback. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.215 |
I too much prefer reading, say, my old Holden & Hardingham copy of The House on the Borderland to the 'electronic' version which I downloaded from (I think) Gutenberg. On the other hand, I can do a quick search in the digital version to locate a term or the number of times a name occurs, etc. The 'screen' version of Stepehn King's The Tommyknockers is probably on the net somewhere, but that didn't stop me from buying the hefty paperback in a second-hand shop yesterday. Fifty cents! The only thing I could possibly have against digital fiction and non-fiction is that it becomes much easier to rewrite whatever is experienced as 'offensive' or 'unrighteous'. Wasn't it Winston Smith's task to rewrite complete chapers of history in 1984? | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 99.227.90.149 |
It's interesting this topic keeps popping up everywhere as of late (though maybe it's just because of Sony's announcement). I'll just repeat what I've said elsewhere here: just because YOU don't like ebooks doesn't make them bad, it just makes them something you haven't emotionally bonded with since childhood. Things like the Kindle do a decent job reproducing books in a way that can be comfortably read, so there's no reason why a child can't discover all the great works on it. When that child becomes an adult and someone threatens to take the Kindle away, you can be sure he'll moan about the next technology just as much as paper-book lovers complain today. The medium is not the message. "yep, but what if you drop it? Try dropping a paperback" So, Mick, what? You only use pencil and paper to do your work? Do you have a band follow you and play music for you on the way to the office? The fragility of technology is the price we pay for the advantages it can bring. This debate gets me heated, gang, so I think I better sit the rest of this one out. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
The medium is not the message. Granted, but they are part and parcel of the same religious experience. When you can ruffle the pages of an ebook, I might change my tune. Drop a book on the floor, listen to its weighty fall. Can an ereader do that? Nope. When I'm restless, I touch my books. The covers. the pages. I smell them. Reader books from a screen is like stroking a plastic dog. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.173.198 |
So, Mick, what? You only use pencil and paper to do your work? Do you have a band follow you and play music for you on the way to the office? Of course not, I use my car radio! However, I thought the discussion was about ebooks, not technology in general. Yes, I use an iPod (they could sound better too, but that's not for this thread) but only because there's no alternative. This debate gets me heated, gang, so I think I better sit the rest of this one out. No chickening out now, mate, you're in the thick of it! | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.150.109.19 |
yEAH BUT...No bUT.! Now then boys, it's all about using technology rather than let it use you. F'instance, I dismissed CD's when they first came out as inferior to vinyl (they were), but nowadays I buy all CD's as the quality and convenience is more than acceptable. When I go on holiday, I don't take a CD player, I take my Ipod. It is inferior to CD or vinyl...But it is convenient. Suppose....It's 2027AD and I am still reading hard copy books at home, but if travelling...i take my book reader. Saves on baggage, read more books. Embrace (some) change. take what you NEED from it. Don't just dismiss. And 'Grin Of The Dark' would be great on the back of a fag packet to me. gcw.. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.150.109.19 |
...I crossed with Mick there! But it is about technology generally I think...Using it where it suits you. (wE fEAR Change..!) gcw | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.215 |
You can play a game of chess on a computer - with another computer, for that matter. But does it compare to moving exquisitly carved wooden or ivory pieces on an equally beautiful board over a snifter of Talisker by the fireside? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.173.198 |
Me, I love technology (ask any friends I bore to bits with it!), but I don't assume something is better just because it's newer. If anyone feels reading from a screen is as good as reading from a book, well, fine - I don't feel that way. I'm sure ebook readers will get better, but as they stand at the moment they feel like technology for technology's sake, and not any sort of improvement. Price is another consideration - the latest version of Amazon's Kindle reader is almost $400 - then you have to pay for the books you want (unless you ony get out-of-copyright stuff from the Gutenberg Project) plus unlike the iPod with music, you can't copy your own books to the reader. Mind you I'm impressed - sounds as if Simon has a band playing music to him at home! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.173.198 |
I bet Stuart wishes he'd never started this thread! | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 99.227.90.149 |
Me, I love technology (ask any friends I bore to bits with it!), but I don't assume something is better just because it's newer. I don't argue that. What I'm arguing is the inverse: just because someone grew up with paper books doesn't make ebooks inferior. Unlike Zed, I don't derive my primary thrills from book by dropping them. Or touching them. Those are fun things to do to pass the time, but I like reading them, and I'm willing to give up the fun of dropping them to the floor if I can read the same words in a more portable and versatile format. But if nobody else is, that's cool. But keep in mind it's a personal choice. Mind you I'm impressed - sounds as if Simon has a band playing music to him at home! Alas, Mick, it's just me alone playing with my organ. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.173.198 |
Alas, Mick, it's just me alone playing with my organ. I know - Fran posted the pictures on Facebook... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.111.139.82 |
My main gripe with e-books is the fact that you could easily find yourself on a bus/train with hours left of your journey when suddenly the battery dies, or you drop it accidentally, or (being computer based) it just goes faulty of it's own accord as computers are wont to do and then you've got to find some other way to kill several hours. That can't happen with a paperback. Plus an e-reader is never going to have that beautiful old-book smell. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Yes, there's that. Also, of course, there's the fact that I spent for too much of the day staring at a computer screen in one capacity or another- either at work at the office or writing. Like I need any more reasons or ways to fuck up my eyesight. Not that squinting at books is necessarily that much better, but still... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Call me old-fashioned (I am, and I'm proud of it!) but I'm with Zed on this one - you can't beat the smell, the feel, the look of a real book. That doesn't mean I think there's anything wrong with the new-fangled stuff. It's OK if you're into that kind of thing - but it just doesn't suit me. Besides, I can't read off screen for any length of time - my eyes are too old nowadays. Zed - do you go round sniffing books in second-hand bookshops too? I thought I was the only one who did that!  | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.173.198 |
I believe it's now possible to buy an air freshener called "bookshop in a can" or something similar. Lovely! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.193.25 |
My main issue with e-books and e-zines is that I hate the fuckers. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.177.186 |
I think the easiest way to resolve this debate is for everyone to buy my e-book. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.215 |
I know a solicitor who reads e-books during the long stretches between hearings, and even in the course of the hearings themselves. Reading a 'proper' book simply wouldn't do, as the circumstances obviously prohibit it. Now it merely looks as if he's accessing some sort of computer device, which is acceptable to the professionals around him. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.215 |
If you read 'Grin Of the Dark' off a screen would it make it a lesser book? Not sure about this, but I own both the pb version of Incarnate and the MacMillan hb, the latter graciously signed and inscribed by ye Landlord. Definitely makes a difference when I read the hb. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.108.231 |
Hubert, I understand that totally. Things like the smell, the colour of the pages, the artwork, the grade of paper, even the typeface, will give a slightly different experience. Ebooks are like audiobooks - it's an alternative use of technology, but I hope they never replace actual books. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.215 |
Once they're there you can't edit real books (my main qualm about electonic books). You can burn them, but books appear to have a stubborn life. Thousands of Hanns Heinz Ewers' books were burned by the nazis, but it's still relatively easy to find those original editions. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.202 |
My main issue with e-books and e-zines is that I hate the fuckers. Hey Joel: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0df31226-958d-11de-90e0-00144feabdc0.html | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
You know this emergence of ebooks might benefit the small press. Customers who love well-made books might start to turn more and more to the small press as things become more digital. Again you can't argue with the physicality aspect of a real book, but I don't think that the ebook platform detracts from the text itself. On the other hand I would much rather have the physical book. If anyone has the slipcased 'Grin of the Dark' for example, you are aesthetically led into the novel as you take the book out of the slipcase, remove the dust jacket, (kill the cat if it decides to step on it); when you open the book, you'll notice the scrawlings on the inside cover, the signature page, the introduction- all this is part of the experience as you are led into the dark and the first chapter. With the ebook, you might still have the artwork etc, but the intimacy is removed atleast by one step- it is a copy of a copy. I don't know if you can compare this to Vinyl/CD, because you are actually getting a broader and richer sound with vinyl (meaning you hear more things better); with the text however, the physical book/ebook are exatly the same at least when it comes to the content... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.223.98 |
Yeah, yeah, we'd been hearing for years how the Internet wouldn't threaten books. Then all the non-corporate bookshops closed down and all the non-corporate publishers went out of business (except those operating on a non-profit basis). The infrastructure of literature is breaking apart very fast indeed, the profession of fiction writer is becoming the province of an increasingly small number of people (how many full-time professional writers do you actually know?) and what wonders are replacing all this? Twitter. Amazon. Reality TV. The Internet can fuck off. Electronic publishing can fuck off. Stop walking through the ruins of the city saying that the buildings still look good. The buildings are ruined and no-one will ever live there again. It's been destroyed and what has relaced it is shit. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.223.98 |
Replaced, sorry. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.232.185 |
Hear, hear. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.163.6.13 |
Ok, ok so its fucked. But there will always be books, just not the way it used to be. The devil's advocate me. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.180 |
I liked "relaced" better, it's a creepy image.... I used to believe books would never go away, and I still do, except for one thing - the profit margin: if that goes, then books would go. Though, one could make the arch-grandiose Universal comment: Well, Joel, did you finish reading all those other books already?... before you go complaining about more?... | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.108.231 |
I think the same can be said of music purchases. I've got vinyl records that I've had for decades, cds that I've had for years, all of which I cherish as an actual object. I've bought several digital downloads over the last couple of years and burnt them to cd/put them on my MP3 player, and it's pretty much meaningless. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
There's an article in the Metro today extolling the virtues of e-readers. Just to prove how crap these things are, this article - trying to stay positive in tone - includes the line "Even though e-readers are difficult to read in sunlight" I know the answer to that problem. Buy a proper book instead of a gizmo that'll break down and you can't even read in bright light!!!! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.3.63 |
Weber, Stephen King's article in the latest Entertainment Weekly (9/18/09) talks about lamentable changes in pop-culture. One of them laments the proliferation of e-books - he doesn't like it: "... the product is sold cheap, for the same reason that dope pushers sell the product cheap, at least to begin with: to get you hooked." But he goes on: "I love my Kindle, but what happens there has (so far) been backstopped by great publishers and layers of editing. If the e-book drives those guys out of business (or even semiretirement), what happens to the quality? For that matter, who pays the advances?" So King isn't against them at all, it appears... he's just a Kindle-shill.... |