Writing can be a lonely business. But it doesn’t have to be. Authors banding together for mutual support, by means of the amazing internet, has been a boon for our mental health, productivity, and building a reader base.
When authors and readers network, everyone benefits. Authors gain new followers and readers, and readers learn of new authors and exciting new books. A win-win for everybody.
I have benefited immensely from my involvement with The WolfPack Authors and The Underground Authors. And I expect more good things to happen with The Horror Meisters. So stay tuned.
I have something of a love-hate relationship with ebooks. And while I do think they are the future, I’m not sure I like that. At the very least, I feel a bit of remorse at the passing of paper books.
After all, the present form (the codex) of the paper book has been with us for approximately 1900 years. The codex replaced the scroll by the fourth century AD and was in use as early as the first century AD.
Now, I don’t think the paper book will disappear as did the scroll. I think paper books will survive. Although, I believe they will become rarer and rarer. Eventually, as bookstores disappear, and the older generations that grew up with paper books disappear, the ebook will become the standard form of the book.
We have moved from clay tablets to scrolls, to codices, to tablets once again. And the e-ink tablet is here to stay.
Although the majority of my reading is done on my laptop and iPad, I still love the feel and touch and smell of a book made from paper. I grew up with paper books. So I suppose my love for them is at least somewhat driven by nostalgia.
The Ebook — We Hates It!
What is it that I don’t like about ebooks? Here are some random thoughts, in no particular order:
I don’t own my ebooks. I simply have a license to use them. And that really bugs me. Because it’s always possible that at some point I just might have a book I love disappear.
I can’t resell my ebooks because I don’t own them. Which means if I “buy” a dud, I’m stuck with it. I’ve lost the money and have no chance to re-coup even a portion. At one point, Amazon was working on a re-sale agreement. But used ebooks are stuck in legal limbo. For now, the publisher owns the book and just lets you have the use of it. Too bad for you.
There is no tactile pleasure associated with ebooks. They are cold and sterile.
They are far more fragile than paper books. Because they are digital data, they’re open to corruption. They can also become unreadable when technology changes. Just like all the ancient writings that were lost that didn’t get copied from scrolls to codices.
If my ereader dies, I can’t read or even access my books. Until I get my ereader fixed or get a new one.
The Ebook — We Loves It!
What do I love about ebooks? Here are a few random thoughts:
They are so easy to store! I have hundreds of books on my iPad. If they were paper books I’d need another room in my house to shelve them, or even just to keep them in boxes.
I never break a spine or have pages fall out of an ebook.
I can adjust the text size. As I get older that is a very important feature. I can also adjust the font to find one that’s easier for me to read.
It’s easy to search for a word or line in an ebook. Highlighting, or removing highlighting is easy. And you can’t remove highlighting in a paper book. Writing notes in the books is also easy, and I can even write lengthy notes that won’t obscure the text.
I tend to read a book faster, because I find it easier to scan the boring parts.
It’s also easier for me to carry my iPad than it is a book — especially a big book. And my phone is even easier to carry than a mass market paperback (which publishers are replacing with ebooks).
The Bottom Line
The proof is in the pudding (or, for the purists, the proof of the pudding is in the eating), as they say.
While I don’t know how many hundreds of books (probably thousands all told) I have in paper — I read more ebooks than paper books. It’s just easier for me to hold my iPad than it is a physical book. And it’s often easier for me to see the text on my iPad than it is the text in a physical book.
I used to be able to read tiny print. Not anymore.
Ebooks will probably enable me to read at a much older age then if all I had were paper books. And since reading is my favorite form of entertainment, I love ebooks. I do hate them as well. But maybe, just maybe, I love them more than I hate them. Then, again, maybe it depends on what day you ask me.
Comments are always welcome! An until next time, happy reading!
April on Twitter is #IndieApril month. All month long we celebrate independent authors/publishers — indies. It is a self-publishing extravaganza.
I regularly read self-published books. In fact, the majority of my reading is of self-published authors. In this day and age democracy reigns in the publishing world. The artificial gatekeepers of editors and agents and publishing house rules are dinosaurs on the evolutionary path to extinction.
Two thousand and many more years ago there were no agents, no editors, no publishers. If Sophocles wanted to write a play, he wrote one. The audience was the only arbiter. If Seneca, wanted to write a book on moral philosophy, he wrote one. Only the audience mattered.
When the printing press was invented, self-publishing — which was the only kind of publishing there was — could reach much larger audiences with the new printed books than it ever could with the old handwritten manuscripts of previous generations. A win for publishing democracy.
Today, with ebooks, there are no limits. Not selling enough on Amazon? BookFunnel can create a code for your ebook that allows you to give it away or sell it. The reader then redeems the code on the BookFunnel site and gets the book.
You can literally stand on a street corner and give away or sell your ebook to any number of takers. All you do is give them a card with your book code on it.
You’re on the bus or an airplane. The person next to you is interested in your book — you can make a sale right then and there.
I haven’t used BookFunnel’s new program yet (it’s not offered on my current plan), but I’ve been thinking of ways I could use it. Because it sure beats the heck out of hauling around cartons of paperbacks.
Democracy has returned to writers and readers in a way, Aeschylus, Plato, Seneca, Plotinus, and other ancients never dreamed of. And I, for one, love it.
Each #IndieApril I try to read several brand new authors. So far this month I’ve read two new to me authors: Caleb Pirtle III and Lex Allen.
Lonely Night To Die by Caleb Pirtle III is a collection of three noir thrillers. I prefer to see them as three episodes in the life of the Quiet Assassin, Roland Sand. Lonely Night To Die is a thrilling, suspenseful read by international bestselling and award winning author Caleb Pirtle III. Do add it to your reading list.
Lovably Dead is a collection of tales of terror by Lex Allen. Awesomely scary reads by a superb writer. If you love being scared to death, get Lovably Dead. Just make sure your life insurance is paid up.
I also like to revisit favorite authors during #IndieApril. So far I’ve revisited Ray Zacek and Andy Graham.
Cosecha by Ray Zacek is a novella of terror you won’t soon forget. A monster is prowling the US-Mexico border. A monster that only catches — never releases. If Zacek writes it, you need to buy it.
Andy Graham is a writer who is quite literary in his style. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t scare the bejesus out of you. Because he will. I’m currently reading A Crow’s Game. And, yes, all the lights are on. And I do mean all.
Indie writers are turning out fabulous books and stories. There are so many talented people out there that the gatekeepers would have denied an audience. And that ain’t right.
April isn’t over. I urge you to buy, read, and review a self-published book. Let me know in the comments if you need suggestions.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
Cthulhu reading an ebook he discovered he doesn’t really own.
I was surprised to learn I don’t own my ebooks. And neither do you. I know that’s no surprise to most of you. However, I’ve always been a late bloomer and I just came to the realization this past weekend that I don’t actually own my ebooks.
How did I come to this revelation? My wife and I are preparing to move and I was looking at all my books and taking mental inventory if I wanted to move all of them. Suddenly my mind made the leap to my ebooks. How do I resell the ones I don’t like or have no further use for? The answer I came to was I can’t.
Further investigation revealed that I don’t buy ebooks, and Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, don’t sell them. I am buying a lifetime use license, in effect. And at present there is no mechanism for me to resell the license. When Amazon, et al, sell me the license it is with the understanding I won’t resell.
So what do I do with all the ebooks I no longer want. I have dozens that I’ve read or started to read and don’t like. Sure I can delete them. But that is like throwing a five dollar bill in the toilet and pulling the lever to flush it. Why on earth do I want to do that?
The short answer is, I don’t. But right now, I’m stuck with all those ebooks I no longer want. Unless I just flush them down the toilet.
Some people have made the argument that buying an ebook is like going to the movie theater. If I don’t like the movie, I’m just stuck with a bad experience. The same with ebooks. I’m just stuck with a bad book.
Most young people, it seems, don’t find this strange. I think this is because the entertainment industry has brainwashed them (because they grew up with all this digital content) into thinking that reselling digital content is wrong. But how is digital content any different than a paperback book? There is no difference, really. It’s all content.
Oh, sure the argument is made that books are fragile and deteriorate. Which is hogwash. I have perfectly readable books that are over a 100 years old. However, I have all manner of digital content I can no longer use because I no longer have the readers to read it. Digital content is extremely fragile.
Just think about what happens when mobi and epub books can no longer be read. And since technology is rapidly advancing, that could be in my lifetime — and I’m 65. Remember floppy discs?
What guarantee do I have that my latest tablet will let me read the old digital content? I have none. Because someone somewhere will probably want to make money to convert my old books into the new formats. And if publishers want to convert their old digital format content to new formats, that will be up to them. If they don’t, that content is lost and gone forever. Just think of all those books, that are ebooks only, and they don’t get converted. Gone. At least with paper, they still exist. All the books. The good, the bad, the ugly.
So the argument that digital files don’t deteriorate is misleading. They might simply become unreadable. Which is tantamount to deterioration. It has the same end result.
Now what to my wondering and searching eye should appear? But that Amazon (as of at least 2 plus years ago) is working on creating a used ebook market. And in 2014, a Dutch court ruled that Dutch company Tom Kabinet could continue to resell digital content because the company actually was operating in a gray area of the law.
This is how it could work if Amazon created a used ebook market for Kindle. I have an ebook I no longer want. I offer it for sale in the used marketplace. When I get a buyer, Amazon takes a cut of the sale price — and may pass a cut onto the publisher, as an inducement to get their agreement to resell — and then deletes the item off my Kindle and transfers it to the new owner of the use license. In effect, I’m selling my use of the book to someone else.
Personally, I like this idea. The main argument against a used ebook market is that it will drive down the cost of new ebooks. But I don’t see the Big 5 lowering book prices simply because there are libraries and used bookstores. So I’m inclined to think the argument is a non sequitur that ebook prices will fall by force if there is a used market. After all, new books have to be sold for there to be used books.
As a publisher of my own content, I would get paid for the sale of the new book AND get a cut of the resale price. To my mind, that is a win-win. Sure I wouldn’t get the new book price on the resale, but maybe that person wouldn’t buy my book new to begin with. But if they buy my book used and like it, I could reap benefits down the line.
I hope Amazon goes through with this project. I think it will benefit readers immensely. And, if publishers get a cut of the resale price, it will help indie author-publishers as well.
As always, comments are welcome; and, until next time, happy reading!
