. . . to bring you breaking news: Looks like we've finally got a viable e-reader. Remember when Steve Jobs said no one read books anymore and that was interpreted as evidence he was working on an e-reader? Well, it's here (actually, not sure if it's literally on sale, but the device was just introduced at a news conference). (Live blogging all over the place, but good coverage here from NYT.)
Soooo. Now all I need is the $700+ the thing is going to cost. And since there's no hope of rounding up that much disposable cash anytime soon (you didn't seriously think I earn any money from my books, did you??), I shall lust after the iPad from afar.
iPad? What the FUCK were they thinking with that name? Every woman over 45 is howling with laughter. And every guy old enough to remember the era of the bachelor pad. All I can think of is electronic Kotex.
The good folks at Book Oven are among those trying to figure out what "writing" and "books" mean in the twenty-first century. (The link takes you to the site's home page; once there, you can check out their blog, twitter link, etc.)
Among their other projects, they've created a site called Bite-Size Edits, where control freaks like me can throw caution to the wind and let you, the reader, help write/edit our books.
(Yes, I am a control freak. The very idea of turning my text loose, unedited, unfinished, unpolished is unnerving. But what's life for but to learn and grow?) So you are hereby invited to join the process.
It works like this: I post some text at the Bite-Size site. The site software spits it back out in small chunks (bytes/bites. Get it?) and you have at it. So go! Have fun! Here's the link
Okay, so nothing to do with anything, but . . .
Today's Wall Street Journal has a brief take on the state of e-readers (you know: Kindle, Nook, etc.) There's also a great graphic in the sidebar that's a side-by-side comparison of the current contenders. Nice!
My favorite part, however, is that the reporter notes that, ahem, this first crop of readers may go the way of the eight-track. Which is precisely why I've not bought one. There are too many flaws in all of them.
So until Mr. Jobs enters the fray, I'm keeping my checkbook closed (my debit card unscanned? my paypal account unclicked? whatever). Not that Jobs will come up with a perfect e-reader, but a) I'm guessing it'll be better than what's available now; and b) its arrival will surely spur even more competition and some kind of standard for the device. And when it comes to stuff like this, standards are where it's at.
The past month or so, new e-reading devices have poured out of the --- I was gonna say "woodwork," but somehow that cliche doesn't quite cut it --- so I'll say instead --- are appearing like mold after a flood. There have been so many that I'm having trouble keeping them straight. But so far the only serious contender to Amazon's Kindle is, near as I can tell, Barnes and Noble's "Nook." (Yes, if you use one, you're enjoying nookie....)
As authors and publishers explore the new world of ebooks, we need to do more than just translate print books to an electronic screen. We have a future to invent! And the time is now.
Put me in mind of my (too long) series on the Age of E-Quarius, although O'Reilly is definitely more of a high-brow brainiac than I am.
While I'm here (before I resume my task of breaking the back of this chapter) (I've succeeded in smashing its kneecaps; the back awaits....), two pieces worth reading on the subject of, um, reading. And writing.
First, this in last Sunday's New York Times Business section, in which columnist Randall Stross asks if books will be "Napsterized." The, uh, punchline comes at the end. Yeah, I'll start giving it away alright. Just as soon as I win the Powerball.
Second, Anne Trubek weighs in at Good on the subject of "speed publishing." Anne is a terrific writer, and I have nothing to add to her comments. Except to ponder my fate as a wordosaur: a dying species that needs years, not weeks or months, to study a subject and then write something coherent about it. Sigh.
Tip o' the mug to Astute Reader Dexter for reminding me of the Stross column.
Loyal reader Dave pointed out this news item about the Sony reader being used for library books: People who have one of the readers and a library card will be able to "check out" a copy of the book and read it on their device. He wonders what I think about it.
My reaction: Great idea! Libraries are feeling the hit from the financial crisis. Indeed, they're being hit with a double whammy: Their own budgets are being cut (because, for example, sales and property taxes used to fund libraries are down) even as the public flocks to libraries in record numbers (because they're checking books and dvds instead of buying them).
So my guess is that this would allow libraries to provide a service at a low cost.
My question is this: at what point will e-books be inexpensive enough so that people will buy them instead of "borrowing" them from a library? As a writer, I hope that sweet spot shows up sooner rather than later: I only earn money from books when someone buys them. The more books people buy, the more money I earn. A library purchase, of course, is a one-time event: the library buys the book, and thousands read it for free.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a serious fan and supporter of libraries. Have been all my life.
But I gotta say that the British system sounds good to me: writers there earn a bit of money every time someone checks out their books.
BUT: the best part of this news item is that Sony would also partner with Google and make its collection of digitized books available as well. That's GREAT news. As it stands now, the agreement Google has hammered out will provide for access to that digital collection at only one computer terminal per library. Not good. Not good at all. (I'm simplifying part of a very complex agreement, but that's the gist of the relevant part of it.)
So: Sony, have at it. If this actually pans out, I'd even (finally) spend money on one of these e-readers, if only so I could get access to the Google books.
The short version is that a Washington Post reporter wrote a story, meaning he spent hours tracking down sources, traveling to talk to the sources, checking and re-checking facts, and then, ya know, writing the story. Only to have the entire thing "stolen" by a site called "Gawker," which specializes in gossip and fluff, with, in effect, no attribution to the original source.
Gawker gets a free story. The WaPo reporter gets, well, nuthin'. Journalism in the age of the internet: Chumpsville.
Although, of course, the WaPo reporter was able to mine the story of the stolen story for another story, the one I linked to above. It's worth reading, because it digs into how/why this can/will affect the future of news.
So hey, go read it. Quick, before Gawker swipes it, too.
On a sort of related topic (related, that is, to the previous post): Astute Reader Dexter sent me a link to this New Yorker magazine article in which the author gives the Kindle a test run. It's a long article, but if you're thinking about buying/using an e-reader, it's worth reading.
Dexter also informs me that I'm ruining his reptutation: I keep referring to him here as this ultra-connected guy lying on a beach in Hawaii. He's not, and he's not: According to him, he owns pretty much zero e-gadgets (no blackberry, etc.) and spends little to no time on the beach itself.
He also says he's not nearly as culturally literate as I keep making him sound, but he attempted to refute my description of himself by referencing seven obscure films, an ancient Paul Simon song, and Norman Mailer. Which, ahem, proves my point.
Tony Comstock, one of my Twitter-pals (@tonycomstock) (a truly nice guy who is passionate about personal freedom), asked me (rhetorically) if he'd be able to read the Kama Sutra on the Apple e-reader (or any reader).
Well, I dunno. But I'm guessing that for some time to come, e-readers will only be useful for reading fiction. Mind you, I've never used an e-reader (can't justify that kind of money for something with, at present, marginal utility).
But given my experience reading scholarly journals and monographs online, I suspect it will be a loooooong time before anyone comes up with an e-reader that can be used to read scholarly stuff. By that I mean books/articles that contain footnotes or endnotes.
'Cause I'm here to tell you that it's mostly a total. pain. in. the. ass. to read that stuff in digital form.
As you probably know, Google and a number of university libraries launched a partnership several years ago to scan the contents of the libraries. Many of those volumes are available at the partner libraries (most notably at the University of Michigan's online library).
I have no idea who designed the software/structure for the project, but mostly it sucks. The project calls for the actual books to be scanned, so the online versions are digital reproductions of the physical books. That's where the problem begins. The software is designed to allow you to "open" only a few e-pages at at time.
But what if the book contains endnotes that were printed at the end of the book? Say you're reading page 24 and it contains five endnotes, and those were printed on page 250?
You guessed it: Close the first set; call up the pages that contain the notes. Total nuisance. Tedious and time-consuming. WAY more complicated than, ya know, just opening the pages of a book and thumbing through them.
And don't EVEN get me started on how fucked up the method is in other databases, ones created by other, different partnerships. Unless you've used them, you canNOT imagine how much those software designers managed to complicate the otherwise simple task of leafing through a journal.
Take my word for it: The printed page is much easier to deal with. So, for that matter, is microfilm.
Right now, for example, I need to read Good Housekeeping from c. 1890 to 1910. I started reading it online --- and gave up. It takes too damn long. It's easier for me to go to the library and read it on microfilm.
Obviously, none of this would matter if the content is designed specifically to be used on some kind of e-reading device. Eg, turn the notes into hyperlinks and create a reading device that allows the reader to jump back and forth from page to note and back. But it would also help if the program designers actually, ya know, tried USING their own programs.
Life in the digital age: Not all it's cracked up to be.
So. It's true: When Jobs says he's not doing something, it means that he is. A few months ago, and then a few months before that, I commented on Jobs's comment that no one reads anymore, which was interpreted as meaning "We're working in secret on The Best E-Reader Ever." Well, here's more news: Apple plans to release the device next year.
Bezos, getcher game on, buddy (as if there's ever a day you don't): Stevie Boy is comin' after you.
We are seeing the future, and it is --- scary? The background is the ongoing debate over electronic books and the electronic devices (the actual objects) on which those books can be read.
This is a Very Hot Topic among the elitterati and writers and publishers because, well, we're watching history being made and of course we who are living through the process don't know how things will turn out, so mostly we sit around and talk about the details --- details that some future historian will gloss over because by then this will have all been decided and no one will care about the details and chatter that enveloped the topic at the time.
Okay. My submission for the Longest Sentence of the Day contest.
Anyway --- as I think many people know, Amazon's version of the e-reader is the Kindle and there's been huge, contentious debate over whether or not Amazon will end up controlling the entire market for e-books because of the Kindle. Last week, the debate heated up because Amazon "yanked" (deleted) copies of several books that customers had bought, including George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm.
This move was widely criticized and interpreted as still more evidence of Amazon's plot to take over the world (although it's competing for that prize with the Google Guys and it's not clear who will win: Bezos or the Google Guys.)
So to finally get to the point here, Astute Reader Dexter is a devoted blog reader who lives in Hawaii and spends his time lying on a beach surrounded by blackberry, laptop, Iphone, and other gizmos that enable him to keep up with all the stuff I'm interested in so that he can then pass on great info to me. He's sort of my personal Beta Reader (who comes equipped with an astounding range of cultural references.
I think the guy has read every book, seen every movie, and every TV show ever in the history of time.) Yesterday, he sent along a link to this Slate.com article, which offers a chilling, interpretation of Amazon's deletion of the books from the Kindle.
Read it and, uh, ya know, ponder the possible future.
One quick, drive-by post (I want to get back my other job. Today: Explaining how Philip Armour made his zillions so I can get this chapter FINISHED.) A
nyway, wanted to pass along this fascinating dissection of a failed attempt at "online" journalism. Stoltz does not present any hard evidence for his claims about the speed at which people read online (yes, I clicked over to his "source," but the source simply presents the date as fact, without any supporting evidence.)
But I think we agree that there is an inherent difference between reading paper and reading a screen, and so his basic argument --- that print journalism can't be a one-for-one transfer from paper to screen --- is true. Anyway, completely worth reading.
And once again, I curse Twitter: I learned of this piece via @boraZ while doing an "Okay, I'm just going to turn on the computer for fifteen minutes and do a quickie scan of Twitter" and of course found ten things I want to read. Sigh.
But back to Mr. Armour. And hey, some day I'll heed the experts' advice, apparently supported by fact, that blog entries need to be SHORT, damnit, SHORT. Because, ya know, no one wants to read these long rambling semi-disquisitions.
A client looking to invest in media asked me earlier this month for advice on what might replace failing newspapers. My response? There are plenty of interesting ideas in play, but the first meaningful test won't come until a major American city loses its only metro daily. So wait.
Methinks he has a point. Indeed, his point is so obvious that I suspect all of us have overlooked it. Anyway, take a look at his entire post if you have time. He's gone waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond the "how we gonna charge for online content" debate and into some serious thinking about the actual technologies (intellectual and otherwise) that might be used to create new models of "journalism." As Conover says
Journalists tend to think of the future in terms of their jobs, and from that perspective "What's next?" is another round of layoffs. Sorry, folks. Do the math. But take a slightly longer view and "What's next?" is a decade of experimentation, opportunity and chaos
Make sure to hang on to the end of his essay for his cartoon cartoon rendition of the Media Meltdown of 2008. And when you're finished with all of that, check out the excellent comments posted in response to Conover. So --- whaddya waiting for? Get on over to Scholar and Rogues and Xark and get reading!
[Yet another] debate over the future of newspapers and journalism, which I discovered when I visited Prospect's site to check out the article on drinking and creativity (which I mentioned in my previous post).
Forgot: Dexter also tipped me off to this essay in a locale I would have gotten to eventually, but am glad he directed me to sooner rather than later. Always good to hear the contrarian view. Speaking of which, I gather that Congress is holding hearings on the future of newspapers, and this testimony today caused a bit of a fluproar. The entire testimony thus far is here.
Man, the age of the internet is amazing. For the past two days, I've been trying to track down some congressional committee testimony from 1878, and I'm here to tell you: it's a hell of a lot easier now to keep tabs on who says what in Congress.
Earlier today, Astute Reader Dexter pointed out to me, via email, that, no, Ambitious Brew is not available on Kindle. Or, for that matter, in any e-format. (*1)
That's 'cause, way back when --- oh, 2001 or so --- when my agent and I signed the contract for the book, no one was thinking much about e-books or the future of the book.
Of course we're all thinking about it now. And I'm sure as hell hoping my forthcoming book will come out in an e-format at the same time as it comes out in the old-fashioned format. (When Agent and I signed that contract in 2007, all concerned were more aware of the changing reality. Although at that point, none of us had heard of the Kindle.)
In any case, Dexter sent along a link to this article pondering the new-as-of-48-hours-ago version of Kindle. I'm hoping, and have been for some time, for a viable e-reader.
So far, am not wowed enough to plunk down money. But I can tell: it's coming. And soon. As Andrew Keen pointed out recently, 2009 will likely be regarded at the Year of the Tipping Point for publishing.
___________
*1: Note to Loyal Reader Dave: the link leads to the Amazon page for Ambitious Brew.(*2)
*2: Dave has hounded me for not including a link to a place where people could buy my books. I explained that I didn't want to load the website with ads or favor one book-buying site over another, so I didn't include links to a "buy it here" site. But I finally caved today and added a book image and link in the sidebar.
This via the Washington Post: The Boston Globe will likely cease to exist --- and sooner rather than later. Which reminds me of my ruminations/fretting a few weeks back about what would happen to a newspaper's electronic site, and especially its digital archive. (I've relied extensively on the Globe's digital archive in my research for my new book about meat.) (Gustavus Swift started his career as a cattle trader in Massachusetts and he launched his "dressed beef" empire in New England.)
Tip o' the e-mug to Rebecca Skloot at Twitter (@rebeccaskloot). (Notice how my Twitter reference rolls right out of my keyboard. Ah, how quickly things change . . . .)
As always, there's no way to tell if this is one of the WSJ's freebies or not, although you can always try googling to see if it's beyond the barricades elsewhere. The title is "Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle," written by Shira Ovide and Geoffrey A. Fowler. One quote:
Gannett Co.'s USA Today and Pearson PLC's Financial Times are among newspapers that have signed up with Plastic Logic Ltd., a startup that is readying a reading tablet, the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper, that can displays books, periodicals and work documents. The device, which uses digital ink technology from E Ink Corp., the same firm behind the Kindle, is slated to be rolled out by early next year, and will offer publishers the chance to include ads.
