| Author | Message | ||
     Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.15.192.163 |
I know a lot of people here find the idea of e-readers to be worrying, but I've had a Kindle for 6 months now, and thought I'd put some of my thoughts down. Maybe they'll be helpful to small-press publishers contemplating e-editions. Maybe it will be a few paragraphs of unalloyed donkeyballs. Either way... First, I love books. I love the smell of them, the heft of them, the fact that I can lend them to people, the way they go yellow, the way I have notes scribbled in the margins of almost all of them. A book isn't just the words it contains, but the four-leaf clover you find pressed between two pages half way through, the joy of stroking an unopened book, and the knowledge that, when the seas rise and we're subsisting off roots and bark, you'll still be able to read them, just like you can today. However, I've also fallen for my Kindle. First, it allows me to buy a lot more genre fiction. The first book I bought on it was JLP's "Wicked Delights"; just today I've got Nick Mamatas' "Starve Better" and the "Voices From The Past" anthology. Essentially if it's priced under about $5, and it's by someone I like, it's much easier to purchase an e-edition, and to have it in my hands in seconds. Also, my house is full. I have thousands of books. I love them all. But I've got nowhere to put any more. Now, instead of my wife sighing as another parcel arrives in the post, there's just a *ping* as an email arrives with the file attached. I can indulge my passions without inconveniencing my family, which isn't an entirely negligible thing. Also, I've found it ideal for reading short stories. I'm not enamoured of the device when it comes to reading novels, but for short-form fiction it is ideal, as far as I am concerned. I can have all of the stories of Sheridan Le Fanu (for free), with Johnny Mains' collection snuggled beside if I want a change of pace. Obviously, I still trawl bookshops avidly, and come home laden with bags of treasures. I can impulse buy actual books as well as e-books (got Gary Fry's off this forum earlier today), but the Kindle has allowed me to buy more, and keep more of the things I like, and, frankly, be able to afford more. I was never going to be able to justify buying a print copy of the JLP collection, much though I coveted one, because I'm self-employed and have two small children who insist on eating almost every day. However, a lower-cost e-edition means that I could justify the purchase. It's another sale for JLP, another book for me, and - I think - a win-win. I suppose I'm just urging those involved with the small presses here to think about digital editions as a way to complement the books you already sell (not that some don't - I know Stephen Theaker is convinced already), and perhaps a way of capitalising on a back catalogue. Anyway, those, for what they are worth, are my thoughts. I think it's still too difficult to buy e-books by you all. Please make them available forthwith. End of transmission. (Oh, and hello, everyone. I've got a short story in this anthology: http://thezombiefeed.biz/tzf-store/the-zombie-feed-vol-i/ Bonus points to anyone who can spot what anthology my story was originally written for...) (Oh, and I'm in Brighton next Friday - Friday the 13th - doing more In The Gloaming Live if anyone would like to come along. The event details are here: http://www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk/ticketing/listing.aspx?ev=2384&et=7&ed= 11859 and there's a review of last year's show here: http://www.westsussextoday.co.uk/news/arundel_festival_review_the_gloaming_1_995 147 ) (Oh, and a thing I done about AV is here: http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/04/19/sir-ian-bowler-explains-av/ ) | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.99.210 |
Wonderful description. Thanks, Nathaniel. There is a Kindle available in my household. I recognise everything said above. But, before the Kindle was even dreamt of, I got rid of many of my books and all my contributor copies. They seemed so much dead clutter. However, having said that, I still only read novels and short stories in real books, books like Chomu and Ex Occidente and Gray Friar - and Stephen King's Dark Tower latterly in NEL paperbacks. I think there is an intrinsic (God-given, if you're that way inclined) quality of existence that you've only read a book TRULY when you've read it as a book, not on an electronic tablet. I'm not a Luddite but I will be re-incarnated as Nathaniel's four leaf clover. After dying as a multi-leaf book-lover. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 92.232.184.206 |
I have to admit that, keen as I am on ebooks, I'm way behind in making the books I've published available in that format. The Kindle is super for short stories - I love being able to just email TQF submissions to it. With the Sony Reader I had to format them a bit first, then hook it up and transfer them across, but the Kindle sorts all of that out, and also lets me add notes and sort them into accept/reject folders. I noticed this campaign-type thing for the first time yesterday, on the blog of a new member of the BFS forums: http://readtheprintedword.org/. Bit ironic putting those icons on a blog. Like putting an "I love to cycle" sticker on the back of an SUV..! | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 92.232.184.206 |
(P.S. Enjoyed your appearances on Dick & Dom's Funny Business!) | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.63.48 |
As an author who was initially reluctant to see his material go into ebook form, I must admit that I'm now quite glad that I opted to put my MEDI-EVIL trilogy on Kindle before trying to get it published in hardcopy. First of all, it was cheaper and less complicated. Secondly - and this is the kicker - it continues to sell, so far at least, at a rate of 3 or 4 a day. Now, I don't know if that's a normal strike rate for one of my books, but I suspect it isn't. The low price and simplicity of acquisition must be helping, and it isn't hard to see that if this rate continues even for a couple of months, I'll be quids in. I'll never give up the yearning to see my work in actual book form, and would hope it continues to appear that way, but the ebook venture should be an additional string to all authorial bows. It's definitely worth looking at. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I was a big sceptic about ebooks, but now I'm a convert. | ||
| Giancarlo (Giancarlo) Username: Giancarlo Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 85.116.228.5 |
I am ashamed to confess I don't know how f..k a kindle or e-pad really works! But I am tempted by the device! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.35 |
I'm not. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 193.123.241.27 |
I think you've pretty much summed up the appeal, Nathaniel. It's all about space, conveniance and portability. That said, if I read an e-book that I love, I'll buy a printed copy. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.39 |
Guy tried to sell my mother an e-reader a few weeks ago using the line - "In a few years you won't be able to buy printed books any more"... It's attitudes like that from sales people that reinforce my hatred of the pointless things. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.57 |
Last time anyone tried to sell me an e-reader, I took the cheap paperback out of my pocket (I always have one - so convenient to carry), threw it on the floor quite hard and stamped on it. Then I picked it up, checked that the words were still on the pages, and asked if I could do the same test on his precious gizmo... He got the hint that I wasn't interested after that. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 92.232.184.206 |
The new McSweeney's kicks off with a piece about book sales, and points out that more printed books were sold in America during 2010 than in any other year on record, except 2008-2009. For example, in 2005 only 650 million print books were sold compared to 751 million in 2010. Taking ebooks into account, over a billion books were sold in the US in 2010! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.143.99.210 |
I suupose I was 7 years too early putting the whole of my then back-catalogue on 'The Weirdmonger Wheel' in 2004!  | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.63.48 |
I don't think ebooks represent the whole future of literature. But I'm pretty sure they're here to stay. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.15.156.150 |
I don't think I'd say they were the future, but I'm pretty sure that they can sit alongside books, comics, parchments and clay tablets as another repository for the written word. For books I want as books, I'll certainly buy physical copies, too, but for some, and as a halfway house until I can afford a physical copy, an e-book is a decent way for me to throw a couple of pounds an author's way. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.15.156.150 |
{PS - Thank you, Stephen. If anyone missed them and would like to see them I've popped them up on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULr-jsUlHF8 and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j3906RQ3rQ ) | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.15.156.150 |
Oh, and because Paul mentioned his, I could just pop to Amazon and get a copy, like I'm doing... now. Done. And it just dropped onto my Kindle. It makes the whole purchasing cycle easy, and almost at the level of an impulse buy at the supermarket counter. Yes, there is joy in trawling through bookshops, finding unexpected treasures, but there's also joy in instant gratification for both author and reader. |