Friday Free-for-All: Technology and Books
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Hot and chance of showers
One of the big assumptions we make in this new age of digital publishing is that we will have the power to make the technology work. I haven’t seen anybody addressing that issue, but it seems we should in this age of brown-outs and computer crashes and having to back up our writing “just in case.” I am reminded of the saying about what assumptions do to all of us.
What is your principal concern as we head full-scale into the age of electronic publishing? Here are three that come to mind for me:
1. What will the traditional publisher do with and for my writing?
2. How will an author explain the publisher’s decision to produce her/his writing electronically to his or her long-term audience, some of whom use e-readers and some of whom don’t?
3. What kind of promotional support will the author need to give electronic publications, and how will that best be done?
I’ll be eager to read your thoughts. We’re all groping at this point. In the meantime, I want to read Lane Smith’s new children’s book due out in September, It’s a Book. The review says it’s an exchange between a jackass (the digital version) and a gorilla (the print version). Sounds interesting.
By Etta Wilson on Jul 30, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Publishing News | 15 Comments
There is a very funny YouTube video out called “Medieval Helpdesk.” A parody on the confusion of new computer users, this spoof applies their questions to a monk who is trying to make the switch from scrolls to hardbound books.
I’m inclined to believe that many of our questions apply only to the generation making the transition. The exciting thing about digital children’s books is that this new generation will grow up with ebooks. For them, it’s just one more option. The key, as always, is the story.
Lynn Dean
Jul 30, 2010 | Reply
I haven’t published an e-book because I can’t figure out how to effectively market it. When my agent asked if I would like to submit to some publishers that only do e-books I immediately said no. It’s not that I don’t like the concept, but when I think of who is my target market I struggle to see how to reach them with an e-book.
My husband, on the other hand, wants me to publish an iBook. Of course, he’s an iPhone, iPad,iPod Touch guru and rarely reads a print book except his Bible.
Lynn Squire
Jul 30, 2010 | Reply
I couldn’t agree more with your statement:
“The key, as always, is the story.” Sometimes we get too distracted by the format and accessibility to create absorbing stories. Both are important, but the roles of author and publisher are not so neatly divided as earlier.
Etta Wilson
Jul 30, 2010 | Reply
Although there will be a transition in how content is delivered over the next few decades, the publishing industry will remain as the literary wall between great fiction and the slush pile.
Writers will need to be highly proactive in “priming the pump” of their careers and Social Media provides an unprecedented tool to accomplish this. We’re just scratching the surface.
Michael K. Reynolds
Jul 30, 2010 | Reply
One concern is that technology changes so fast. I’m not quite in the market for a Kindle but I’m dreaming. Now they have two new versions out – wifi and G3. By the time we get one appliance (our phone, ipod, itouch, ipad, blackberry, garmin, Curve, not to mention our computer) something new and better comes along and we find we are unable to do some things that other people can do.
A book–a published book– doesn’t do that, does it?
Debra E Marvin
Jul 31, 2010 | Reply
I meant to say published “on paper” (old fashioned paper pages in hand)
Debra E Marvin
Jul 31, 2010 | Reply
E-books will have their purpose and their fans, but paper books will always be more popular.
There’s an entire generation that don’t feel comfortable using a computer or mobile device. Many children enjoy the sensory experience of books like Pat the Bunny and The Wheels on the Bus that were mentioned in a previous blog. There are those, including myself, who enjoy the more sensory experience of holding a book in our hands as we read.
Our society is so technology-based. We stare at a computer screen for many hours a day, look at the screen on our cell phones and PDAs and then come home and gaze at a television screen. We ‘talk’ to our friends over an internet connection and our children spend hours playing video games. Some kids can’t even spend a half-hour in the car without having a TV screen in front of them.
I’m a fan of using technology to prosper humanity, but we need to recognize when it starts to take away our humanity.
Amy Caruso
Jul 31, 2010 | Reply
I was reading Andy Crouch’s “Culture Making” this morning. On page 28 (how will we give citations in the purely digital age?), he made an observation related to our question:
“…culture can make some things impossible that were previously possible. Reading David McCullough’s biography of John Adams a few years ago, I was reminded that not long ago, a vast cultural infrastructure made it possible to travel from Boston to Philadelphia by horse. There were roads, wayside inns, stables and turnpikes along which travelers could make a slow but steady journey from one city to the other. For more than a century these cultural goods made interstate horse travel possible. But I dare say it would be impossible now.”
How long before digital media obsoletes the printing presses that make the mass production of books possible? Horses and cars had to coexist for quite a long time on the roads. How long will this transition take?
People still travel from Boston to Philadelphia, but not by horse. Words will still travel from author to reader, but not necessarily in book form. The digital infrastructure is in place, it just remains to be seen how quickly it is adopted by the culture. When it becomes the norm, publishing as we know it will become impossible.
Timothy Klingerman
Aug 1, 2010 | Reply
My big question is what about getting a signed copy of a book? How will this who e-book/ibook thing change meeting authors in person?
Jenny Rose
Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Timothy, thanks for reminding me of Crouch’s book Culture Making, which my husband read and I need to. “Making things impossible that previously were possible” is an interesting inversion of how we usually think of progress. We do now have ways of spitting out mass quantities of typed language, it’s just not so much on paper anymore.
Etta Wilson
Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Amy, your comments remind me of the cartoons of future generations in which humans have two big eyes and very adept fingers but their ears have shrunk. Surely we won’t sacrifice human interaction for love of the screens!
Etta Wilson
Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Oh, Jenny, I think you just helped inflate the value of my collection of signed children’s books. Thanks!
Etta Wilson
Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Jenny, sorry I didn’t make clear that I understood your comment. I think it will still be important for authors to press the flesh on occasion (surely literary festivals will survive in some format) and I suspect publicists will have something for authors to sign–if they can still write by hand!
Etta Wilson
Aug 2, 2010 | Reply
Our literary magazine is available in both print and digital formats; and, the Senior Editor and I have been struggling to standardize a format for our journal which is both artistic, and easy for reading for Kindle and iPads, etc.
One needs a brand new skill set to reach out to the “electronic consumer.” In our experience, the market has not matured to the point where this is a major concern. Yet, we need enter the computer/portable device arena early, because when the next wave of mobile readers and apps comes online, and the format becomes more widely accepted, we’ll be ready.
My personal opinion is that newspapers and magazines will make this paperless transition easier than books. There’s an organic quality to a novel which a readers appreciates that a glowing, plastic, touch-screen cannot offer.
Michael J. Kannengieser
Aug 9, 2010 | Reply
Michael, your point about the new skill set, especially for the publishing area, is a good one. Surely as the market matures, we will arrive soon at a format that works for both print and electronic distribution. It’s all those in-putting codes that are so off-putting!
Etta Wilson
Aug 9, 2010 | Reply