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By Lisa Eagleson-Roever E-book Editor  E-mail: ebookeditor@charlotteaustinreviewltd.com |
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February 28 / 2000 Introduction - Electronic publishing or e-publishing is a form of publishing in which documents are produced and stored electronically rather than in print. E-books may be produced in a variety of formats, including online, on disk or CD-ROM, as a file that can be downloaded or transmitted via e-mail, or as a file that can be downloaded to a hand-held electronic reader or similar device. Many e–publishers offer books in several of these formats. The launch of this column takes on a gentle debate format, as two sides of e-publishing are analyzed. Confessions of a Slow Convert By Lisa Eagleson-Roever Right now, I dislike e-books. I stare at a screen for a living. I don't want to stare at one after-hours. I can't flip through an e-novel before I buy it to make sure the writing in the middle and at the end is as good as the sample chapter. Like many, I'm waiting for the software/hardware compatibility issues to be worked out so I don't end up with the e-book viewer equivalent of a Betamax. Therefore, the only way for me to read an e-book is on the home computer. That means sitting in the home office and scrolling...and scrolling... and scrolling... and scrolling. I can't curl up on the couch under a comforter with an e-book while the snow flies outside my window. Yet. Despite the above, I'm looking forward to the rise of e-books. No, I don't think they'll completely replace print books, nor do I want them to. When I go to the public library, I revel in being able to pull a book off the shelves at random, flip it open, and see what's there. I’m a kid in a literary candy store. I like being able to roughly guess when a book was published by the typeface and graphics (or lack thereof) on the cover. And my brain is used to thinking in terms of flipped pages; I can skim text much more quickly with a print book than I can scroll through text on a screen. I can come close to speed-reading with print text. I haven't figured out yet why I cannot with screens of texts. But I also know that ten years ago I couldn't compose using a keyboard. Today I rarely compose without one. Someday, my brain will adjust to thinking in terms of screens. The attractions of e-books are obvious. Someday a student will be able to store hundreds of e-books on a tiny dorm shelf. Because they're less expensive to produce, public libraries will be able to keep copies of more books available for their customers. And no more aching backs on campuses across the country from lugging textbooks, notebooks, and laptops to classes! (Last May when I visited UCLA for a week I noticed I was usually the only person in the Library's study room with a laptop, so maybe laptops aren't as portable on campuses as they were originally touted. If you remove the weight of the standard day's worth of textbooks, however, that may change.) Traveling would become easier with e-books. Backpacking across Europe and the Mediterranean? Some day you won't need ten travel guides to get the inside scoop on fifteen countries - or five dictionaries. It would be nice if more of us were multi-lingual, but until that happens, a set of high-quality electronic dictionaries would be helpful. I spent a week in Austria and Germany in 1997 and the "dictionary" I took with me consisted of three index cards: a list of basic questions, the German names for foods I'm allergic to, and phrases/words like "cough suppressant" and "medicine for a cold/flu" (it was winter). I would have liked to have had a talking dictionary (including user-chosen or user-created phrases stored in memory) to use in an emergency. And think how much easier it will be to do research with properly vetted e-books. With hypertext, you can skim through the index and instantly go to those chapters you need. You can search for keywords not listed in the index or table of contents. Connect to the Net, and you can instantly follow links to scientific journal articles or entries in a library database. I do believe the quality of e-books is improving. On-line publishing houses are flexing their muscles and their imaginations, and those that haven't learned the value of hiring experienced editors are learning the lesson now, as reviewers increasingly call them up because of shoddy quality. As e-houses compete, they'll form identifiable images in customers' minds, the same as print houses have now. We'll have electronic equivalents to Random House, Scholastic, Llewellyn, etc. And the electronic "alternative presses" will flourish, too. Because e-books are less costly to produce than print books, a far greater variety of voices can be published - the next step in the revolution begun by desktop publishing software. Meanwhile, I wait for the industry to coalesce. I peek at samples on Web sites and keep an eye out for reports from those more adventurous than I am, who already own Rocketbook Editions.  E-books and the Future - If AnyBy John A. Broussard, PhD "All the damn things do is scare the horses." A hundred years ago, that was probably the typical attitude toward that newfangled device, the automobile. It’s easy for us now to look back over the last century and snicker at the shortsightedness of the critics, but they weren’t really too far wrong. The automobile was noisy, unreliable, totally unsuited for what passed as roads at that time, and just generally a dismal failure. Yet it eventually became what is arguably the most significant invention since the discovery of fire. Maybe that’s what we’re seeing with today’s e-books. It won’t take a century for those who currently dismiss that new medium to have to eat their words, but right now there’s much about e-books to criticize - and to criticize very legitimately. Granted that the information superhighway is well paved, perhaps ideally suited for travel by e-books - the end recipient, the consumer, is still getting a product that is even less satisfactory than those first horseless carriages. There is, of course, the possibility that e-books will go the way of the Concorde, that amazing aircraft you can board in London to arrive in New York less than three hours later. When first launched, it was touted as the transportation of the future. Yet the forty-year old venture is still little more than an expensive luxury - under-utilized, unprofitable and virtually forgotten. My belief is that the e-book is more apt to be the Concorde than the automobile of the future. Like the former, it is trying to invade a space already adequately occupied. Granted that the expenses in e-book production, however, are an infinitesimal fraction of what it took to turn out the Concorde, that very cheapness may be a drawback. Editing can be and is ignored. Shabby books can be published at little or no cost. The public may well be overwhelmed by the inferiority of the product and treat it accordingly, even after significant improvements occur. Does e-book publishing have advantages? Definitely. But the disadvantages seem overwhelming. Electronic publication, in general, is obviously a success. Short stories are doing very well - for one, simple reason. They’re short. Five thousand words is tough. Three thousand is much better. Best is the story that runs to less than two pages of 10-point, double-spaced type, which makes for easy reading and keeps scrolling minimal. That’s about a thousand words. But 40,000 words? No way. To say nothing of really long novels. Anthony Adverse on the screen? Horrors! The argument is heard that our viewing machinery is still at a primitive stage, and that new technology is already available, that it will be even better in the future and that will make all the difference. Here’s what one e-book publisher writes: "New technologies like electronic ink, holographic pictures, and so on will enrich our lives in more ways than we can imagine. For example, when the print textbook industry vanishes almost overnight in the next few years, my son will be able to carry his entire backpack (equivalent to many pounds of books) in one lightweight reading appliance. There will undoubtedly be holographic readers - you lie in your bed in the dark and the text page displays in midair, maybe glowing an ergonomic amber, so you don't have to have a night light or hold up a print book or even a reading appliance." *See footnote. I’m willing to go even a step further, since virtual reality is already here. Sony has now come out with wrap-around glasses where you can view the equivalent of a 52-inch TV screen at six feet. Think of that possibility for e-books. Maybe I’d rather not think about it. I’ll settle for the 707 at 30,000 ft. over the Concorde at 60,000 - and the comfortable feel of a book while I’m lying in bed with my reading lamp shining over my shoulder. Footnote: * A very short quote from an e-book publisher. For more, visit John Cullen and Brian Callahan, at SharpWriter.Com and Clocktower Fiction. |
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