| Author | Message | ||
     Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.5 |
I'm aware this "lamentation" should be turned over to Peter Crowther but I'm just expressing my feeling about PS Publishing's future launch of their e-books titles. I don't have a kindle-reader, I refuse reading from a monitor albeit I do understand the powerful advantage of possessing a whole library just in one pocket. Maybe I'm an old batty Horror fan but I like the smell, however musty, of paper pages, not e-tronics. I suppose and hope PS e-books titles will follow a parallel track to traditional print, even if spaced in time. I can't even figure reading Ramsey's, or any Author's for that, future titles on an e-screen! False alarm, probably, but I can't deny I'm taken by a little anxiety about the issue.  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
No, you're right. I think it'll happen more and more. We have a book chain over here and they're closing a whole load of stores down soon - and this is a BIG chain. I've been reading a book by Susan Hill and she points out some things I'd miss about books; finding things in them, finding things written in them in pencil, finding dedications and signatures, the artwork, the texture, the fact they can be passed on. The funny thing is i did get used to the end of vinyl albums moving over to the ether, so why not books? Is it because we have to hold a book to read it whereas music we don't? Is it because an album could be more easily damaged and you knew their shelf life was short, so accepted it? Books will go one day, but I don't think I'll be accepting it very easily. | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.5 |
Yes, it feels like they are destroying the Library of Alexandria a third time! First the Romans, then the Parabolani Christian sect (anybody's seen "Agorà"?), then technological "progress" by its worshipers and priests. Is it all, perchance, the work of some hidden bibliophobic complex? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
It feels Tower of Babelish to me. I saw a quote recently, from someone on twitter; 'I have to unfollow Manchester Police. They are flooding my timeline.' All of these odd words, these almost Burroughsian fragments are creating odd gulfs between people who are able to get it and those who are not. Thing is, I used to like Star Trek, the idea of all this electronic stuff, but the nearer I get toward attaining it the more I feel like some crusty old hobo carrying all his old crap behind him. I've just let a book snake grow in the hall this past few months; my wife hates it, no matter how hard I try to tell her they have them in Harry Potter. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
It's like a technical north/south divide. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
If I ever sold a story solely to kindle I think I'd feel slightly ill, like I'd put up a card on tesco's trader/items for sale board thing, that it didn't exist. Where does the thrill come from knowing your story is on a screen rather than this book that comes through your letter box? | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 92.232.199.129 |
I'm afraid I'm an old fuddy-duddy book lover too. I have to confess, I'm with you guys here! But as to PS Publishing, I don't think their aim is to go *entirely* to ebooks, is it? I took it that they're simply making their books available as ebooks if anyone wants them that way - as most publishers are doing nowadays. I think publishers have to go down that route to make what they do viable. So long as there's a choice - ie. that the old book lovers like us can still buy the real thing - I'll be happy with that.  | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.144.35 |
See - from amazon today an old collected shorts of Elizabeth Bowen. Four pages from the very end of this near-800 page book is a folded down corner and a receipt for a bus tour in Athens in 1997. That's a story in itself. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
I thought this was going to be a thread about UR! I'm delighted by this news - well, the hints so far. PS Publishing, I think, began by focusing on novellas, and their back catalogue would make superb ebooks. It'll be interesting to see what approach they take, whether it's actual Kindle editions like many publishers, or selling their own ebooks from the website like the Black Library, or even a dedicated app like the fantastic one McSweeney's have done. This could well lead to PS being even more influential than they already are. They already have the collectors market sewn up in Britain; this could see them making major inroads into the mass market. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 217.20.16.180 |
The thing is, this isn't the either/or situation that a lot of doomsayers seem to suggest. It's just an alternative. No one (as far as I can tell) is suggesting that the e-book replaces the printed book, it's just another medium. I have many books. So many that until a recent clear-out they were stacked high on the floor. I also have limited space in which to keep said books. Now, some books are favourites which will remain on my shelves until they (or, more likely, I) crumble into dust. Others are less precious, but still worth holding on to. But, as I've said, space is an issue. In such situations, it's a lot easier to keep them on an e-reader for future reference. There's also the convenience issue of taking multiple books on holiday or on trips. Personally I'm all for PS releasing electronic copies of their books, simply because they release a lot of great material and I can't afford to buy the hardbacks. Sometimes I want a beautiful copy of a favourite book (given the right conditions I can be as much of a book fetishist as everyone else) but, to tell the truth, more often than not I just want to read the damn story. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
I don't think this is a calamity. It could be if PS stop producing hardcopy books, though. I've long thought something like Ramsey Campbell, Probably was perfectly suited to e-book form. The hardcopy version was an expensive book (I've a paperback), so an affordable ebook would now, these years after the original publication, perhaps see it more wodely read. | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 86.170.116.124 |
They should pair them together. So that say you buy the 75 quid Horns HB you get the e-book version bundled in so that you can read that and keep the hard copy unsoiled. |