The Future of Books

Since Edith is locked in deadline fever, I'm posting a classic from 2007:

Pat Rice present and accounted for:

The advent of Amazon’s Kindle wireless e-book reader swept across my writer lists just before Thanksgiving.  Much discussion of the future of publishing ensued with everyone, as usual, taking their own particular viewpoints and running with them to the detriment of all other perspectives.  It’s a bit like watching the blind men examining the elephant.

So being of a contrarian nature, I thought I’d wander through the history of books and publishing to see where we’ve been, before I tried to imagine what lies ahead.  I had some funny notion that I could spend a few quiet post-holiday hours perusing the internet and putting together a blog that might show historical cycles.  Silly me.  I should have known book lovers would produce enough material on book history to fill several libraries.  For a chronological listing of book history, try http://www.xs4all.nl/~knops/timetab.html                                                            
There are even complete scholarly magazines devoted to the subject at http://www.sharpweb.org/bookhist.html, but I’m not interested enough to join. Sorry. 

But what I did notice was that with each new technological development in printing, there followed a new break-through in illustrations.  I suppose I could dig deeper and attempt to figure out what kind of books followed each break-through, but the Bible is now and always has been the biggest bestseller.  Finding anything else requires more research than I have time for. If you really want to work at it, there is (of course!) a website to start your research at http://www.kb.nl/bho/

But if I want to extrapolate from past history on just this one point, it only makes sense that once e-books and e-readers become as commonplace as i-Pods and MP3 players, that publishers will once again attempt to add content with illustrations.  But now we have the technology to add moving pictures and music as well as audio readers.  I’ve been trying to persuade my publishers for years that we need to go back to illustrations, but it’s much too costly in print.  Right now, I wish I had a talent for art because a writer who can produce his own illustrations and videos could be a hot commodity in a few years.

Personally, I believe e-books will just be added to our libraries of other print forms for many years to come, but they will start shaping the market shortly.  In a few years, it should be possible to buy all our backlists on demand through e-books (provided authors let some publisher have the rights to them), which I count as a good thing.  But to balance it out, I suspect there will be a gazillion new books hitting the virtual shelves in e-book format to dilute an already saturated market, thereby reducing an author’s ability to sell many books with an original release.  Reader pockets can only stretch so far.  Which means prices will have to come down, unless the quality of content goes up.  That’s where the illustrations and “extras” count—if publishers are smart.  Of course, that leads me to wonder if publishers won’t just take the easy road, release a gazillion backlisted books, and sit back and watch the market die, but I’m trying not to go there. (I see Jane over at Dear Author has already been working this out in current day terms, if you want to follow the link to her blog.)

Did you polish your crystal balls after our last session?  Want to take a look and see what you think might be in store?

Comments

[Kalen Hughes]

I'm in the "real books will never die" club (at least they won’t pass away in my lifetime). But then I'm a bibliophile. I love the smell, the texture, the weight, etc. of the physical book. I love flipping the pages. I love seeing them lined up solidly on my shelves, an army of forever friends.

I suppose that if the ultimate iBook came on the market I might be a convert (the idea of having hundreds, if not thousands, of books at my beck and call while traveling IS intriguing), but no eReader I’ve seen to date—including the Kindle, which has to be the ugliest of them yet—has tempted me in the least.

And as the price of the readers is high ($300-$400 for most of them) and the books aren’t any cheaper than the physical copies (which makes no earthly sense; hello, there are no printing costs with an eBook!), for now I’m sticking with book books.

[liz]

Kalen - the top sellers / new releases are discounted more than at the bookstore, but I agree, the prices still seem high considering all the print/transpo costs are removed.

If I was assured I could get all my books at a discount I would buy a Kindle tomorrow. My ipod convinced me that tech I thought I didn't need could become important to me. Being able to get all my books on release day, not having to price shop to get more or have stores out or slow to stock, or wait for the mail? Sign me straight up. and I see a huge benefit to some authors (sure, pitfalls - but....) Dropped mid-list authors could sell directly to their fanbase. Bad authors are already making some cash on ebooks, good authors should be able to make more.

Obviously, there's a lot to work out, but the cell phone instant store access of Kindle is brilliant and won me right over as a concept.

[liz]

And speaking of books - someone linked, and I think it was this site, me to a printer who was issuing the late 1700's early 1800's gothic novels for about $15 a pop. I wanted to get some for my cousin but I can't find the link - ring a bell, anyone?

[Susan Wilbanks]

I'm with Kalen. So far I've seen nothing to tempt me away from my love of the physical book. I try to keep an eye on the new technologies because I hope to read, and eventually be published, for another four or five decades or so, but I'm just not going to be what my marketing professors called an "early adopter" on this one.

Recently I got a 1960 edition of a book from my local library, and its old-book smell and the slightly worn, soft feel of the pages transported me back to my childhood library where the whole building smelled like that. A scent of love, for me...

[Patricia Rice]

While I do and always have adored the feel and smell of books to the point of buying extortionately expensive limited editions of classics, I have moved one too many times not to admire the possibility of storing thousands of books on a single device!

I have no doubt that e-books are in our immediate future as a major market. Downloading them wirelessly is almost attractive enough to make me buy from Amazon. "G"

But what would you like to see as "extras" if publishers take that route? Would you like to see illustrations or videos of your favorite heroes? Would you be willing to pay a standard price for the extras or would you prefer a heavily discounted unillustrated version? There are so many fascinating possibilities on the horizon, I can't help dreaming.

[Susan Wilbanks]

I feel like Grumpy McCurmudgeon, but videos are pretty much an "absolutely not" for me. Already I have to ignore the men on the cover, who are almost never the type I find attractive. So the video would probably feature a man who didn't ping my hot-meter, and I doubt the budget would allow for good production values or accurate costumes and props...and so it would detract from rather than enhance my reading pleasure.

As for illustrations...maybe, if they were really, really good. One of my dreams for my website if/when I'm published is to find someone who can kind of match the style of illustration you see in older books and/or the art of the period my story is set, and have him/her produce a series of portraits of my main characters and illustrations of key scenes. It's probably prohibitively expensive, but I'd love it, and could see it being part of an e-book as well as a website feature. But again the quality would have to be really, really good, or it would subtract from what my own imagination came up with instead of adding to it.

What I would like and would potentially pay more for in an e-book would be sort of "DVD extras." Deleted scenes, commentary from the author, research notes and links to further information, etc. Basically, the kind of thing I visit author websites for now.

[piper]

I know very little about this, but the idea of having a huge number of books on hand while travellng is seductive. But like others, the price to me is prohibitive, given that buying an ebook is the same price as a regular book. (Plus I love being able to flip through pages at will - and find what I'm looking for - in re-readings). As far as illustrations, etc go. I don't care. I find videos and illustrations may not jive with what my imagination has painted.

[Kalen Hughes]

I lurrrve my iPod. If an iBook comes out that gives me the same (or a very similar) experience as a printed book, I'll be all over it!!! But I've not been impressed with any of the eReaders so far . . . they're too bulky, I don't like the screens (though the one with the backlit screen that looks like a normal book page is a step closer . . .), and I don't like the fact that you get a single page at a time vs. a recto/verso arrangement. *shrug* I also don’t like scrolling. I want to be able to press a button or tap the screen to “flip” to the next page.

If I were in charge of the tech universe . . . LOL!

[Ingrid]

The thought of having thousands of books in one device is indeed seductive. But I keep imagining being in the situation where the battery runs out, and there's no way of recharging it. And there you are, thousands of books, and nothing to read.

[Sherrie Holmes]

Bring on the illustrations! I have some very old books from the 1800s, many of them with exquisite engravings, and they just make the reading experience so rich. What I especially like is that the engravings are done in a style that is true to the period, so they give the book a certain historical ambiance.

I also love the melodramatic feel of some of the pictures--the heroine half-turned away from the hero, the back of her hand pressed to her forehead, the other hand extended behind her with the hero kissing it fervently.

I don't like electronic book readers, but if I were forced to use one, I'd want some sort of apparatus that allowed you to read hands-free. You know, as in one of those Bob Dylan-like harmonica things that hook over the shoulders and rest against your chest. (Hey, maybe I should get a patent on this!) *g*

[MaryK]

>>Would you be willing to pay a standard price for the extras or would you prefer a heavily discounted unillustrated version? >>
I'd go for the heavily discounted unillustrated version, mostly because I'm not a visual reader. I've been trying to stretch my brain though, and Loretta recommended a couple of graphic novels that I'm going to try. [I forgot to thank her for that. Thanks, Loretta! :)]

>>What I would like and would potentially pay more for in an e-book would be sort of "DVD extras." Deleted scenes, commentary from the author, research notes and links to further information, etc. Basically, the kind of thing I visit author websites for now.<<

Now that I would pay extra for. I'd also love to be able to annotate my books to add the prologues and epilogues and just interesting tidbits that I find so they're actually with the book and not scattered in my computer files.

As for current ebook technology, no way. I like to own forever the books that I buy. When I'm 80, will online bookshelves still be maintaining my library? I'm not risking money or books on that idea.

[Patricia Rice]

Oooo, I like the idea of DVD extras! I'm not particularly tempted by the real DVD extras because there are barely enough hours in the day for me to see the movie much less pay attention to mishaps involved in making it. But for books... yeah, yeah, yeah, gimme!! I can almost taste the rich subtext and background cut from a really good book and I long to see an author's unexpurgated version.

I'm probably talking to the wrong audience here about illustrations since we're all very verbally oriented. But given the enormous expansion of the Manga market, the way kids are mesmerized by TV, videos, and X-box, I still think illustrations of some sort must come next. Really interactive books, maybe, depending on genre. I can't see that happening in romance "G", but certainly in mystery or suspense or adventure.

Annotating e-books! Excellent idea, also. I have a hard time forcing myself to mark on the pristine pages of a book, but I'm quite used to scribbling on computers. Just think of the lurid comments I could write into the margins of a bad novel!

Of course, the problem of passing on those comments to anyone else comes up since I haven't quite grasped the technology. What happens if we can never share our books?

[kay]

I don't mind the idea of illustrations, as long as they're good. Maybe like some of the old illustrators that were in the fairy tale books I used to read when I was a child, like J.W. Smith or Sarah Stillwell. However, don't you authors have hard enough trouble getting you covers to look like your characters, let alone trying to have someone do illustrations for you?

[Patricia Rice]

FYI--I'm just catching up on some blog reading and Dear Author is reporting that Amazon has QUIT DISCOUNTING paperbacks! I told you e-readers were going to throw a wrench in the market, but this isn't one I expected. Ugly.

And Kay, yes, there have been times when authors have struggled with the art department, but I would hope if a publisher went to the expense of creating an "extra" to sell, that they might do it right. Or maybe I'm hopelessly optimistic. I sure didn't expect pricing to go the wrong way, did I?

[kay]

P.S.

Here is the missing "r" and a website with some wonderful illustrators

http://giam.typepad.com/100_years_of_illustration/jessie_willcox_smith_18631935/index.html

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here. Great blog, Pat, and I agree on illustrations. If done well, they're a lovely addition, especially to historicals. I had an illustrated edition of The Scarlet Pimpernel when I was young. (I mean, the novel with occasional illustrations, not a graphic version.) It enriched my imagination of the past.

Liz, the gothic publisher you want is Valancourt Books, the one that did The Demon of Sicily with a foreword by me. It is a rather disjointed tale, though. There are some great rip-roaring yarns there, and I think they'd be great and unusual gifts for the right sort of reader. They are nice editions on good quality paper.

http://www.valancourtbooks.com/index2.html

They have early 20th century books as well, so quite a range.

Jo :)

[Jane George]

E-readers aren't quite there yet for me. I know it sounds odd, but I like to turn pages. My dh, video engineer and tech-guy, says e-readers will soon have a function where you can turn the page by touching it with a page-turning motion. We'll see.

I think e-books will be just another option, like I-tunes, for a long time. At least until killing trees is outlawed. lol

I am very excited by the artistic possibilities opening up. I may actually be at the right place at the right time, jeesh! My son introduced me to the wonderful, whimsical world of Steampunk.
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/multimedia/2007/06/gallery_steampunk

The Golden Compass film employs this sensibility. I would think Terry Gilliam's Brazil would qualify as well. But what do I know? *g*

Not sure how I missed this one. He and I are now planning a collaboration. This should be great fun! I love stuff like this: Winstanley's 1699 lighthouse. It only lasted four years, but hey!

http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session3/46/eddy51.gif

[Patricia Rice]

thanks for the website, Jo. I'd forgotten where to look.

Oh, wow, Jane, you're a real troublemaker! What fascinating links--a Victorian computer. "G" The artistic possibilities are wonderful, and really, I think technology will make illustrations so much easier. Just look at all the playing that could be done!

E-readers aren't there yet for me, either, but my techie husband tells me the same thing--we're almost there.

[Jane George]

Patricia wrote: "E-readers aren't there yet for me, either, but my techie husband tells me the same thing--we're almost there."

Yeah, but they have to be tub proof!
Think I'll write Sony a note...

[liz]

Jane - Tub Proof. you're a freaking genius. No, really, you are.

Jo - that's it!! Thanks.

[ariana]

I love the idea of DVD extras and would definately be willing to pay more for it, but I wonder if they'll sooner or later have the same problem the music and movie industries are having with piracy. Then again, maybe it's impact won't be much different from the effect of UBS.

[Patricia Rice]

I've heard people say they can put their e-readers in a ziplock bag and still work them for use in a tub.

As to pirating, I suspect if hackers can break encryption, then a single book could circle the globe far faster than any used book. Musicians shrug this off because they make as much on sales of t-shirts and concerts as they do on the music. I don't even want to imagine the wenches wearing t-shirts and on a concert stage! So, yeah, piracy is my biggest fear, along with the market.

[Edith]

>> I don't even want to imagine the wenches wearing t-shirts and on a concert stage!>>

Pat, I am des-troyed! Of course wouldn't appear on a concert stage in only a tee shirt!

(.......ahmmm... how much are they paying?)

[Edith]

As to the above, I meant *I* wouldn't appear in one, of course.
The only centerfold I'm fit for anymore is the one in Modern Medicine.
sigh
As for all them new flossy ebooks and suchlike, my only question is: how may can I lose in a week without going barkrupt?
There is no way I can figure out how many gloves, sunglasses and umbrellas I lose in a year. So, when the new e-readers are as cheap as paperbacks, please let me know.

[Edith]

"bankrupt"!!!
"barkrupt" is when you lose your dog.

[Sherrie Holmes]

"barkrupt" is when you lose your dog."

ROFLOL, Edith! And here I thought "barkrupt" was short for "barkus interruptus" (When a dog's barking is interrupted.)