My name is Haether L. (Morris) Shaw. I live in Bend, Oregon and my parents are Demmis and Donna Morris. I have one borther, Jeffry Morris and one sister, Trician Medrano. I am married to Michael C. (Benninger) Shaw. We previously lived in the Sacra…

But I’m not going to boycott the best reader device yet introduced (I think), because I do believe that ebooks can be the making of the small press, and that the faster we can bring this about, the better. It’s a judgment call, though.

I would not go Kindle on principle as Amazon summarily tossed all my ebooks off their site to prepared for the Mobi-Kindle market share grab. I support the most DRM free options available, currently Sony e (reads native pdf tolerably well) and fictionwise.

The first obstacle is, as you say, e-readers. I have own several and do not use them when i can avoid it. low contrast, unpleasant things.

Once that happens we shall see just hpw great the power of the ‘bookness’ of p-books is. Are they obsolete anologue clung to only by real geeks (e.g. vinyl records vs. CDs and downloads), optional depending on lifestyle (e.g. wrist watches vs. just using your cell phone) or just not the same thing despite what logic might suggest (e.g. denim vs. synthetics).

For those of you who raised the topic of POD — I agree that it’s a great technology, but I don’t agree that it will drop the cost of putting a p-book into the hands of a reader. There are, I think, going to be economies of scale in printing books for a good long time.

Syndicators, or electronic distributors, who sell to retailers may indeed have a role. That will come into play if readers find a reason to shop at thousands of different e-stores for their e-books. I’m not sure I see a reason for that dispersion to happen. I see plenty of reasons for the stores to open, but not many for the customers to migrate. But it’s definitely something to watch.

The issue of piracy and of defending the existence of writing as a profession is important. When we look at the right way of accomplishing this, I suspect that the answer will be “It depends!”

I hope you’ll all tune in again and again.

As for “collaborative stories”–I’ve actually seen this done a number of times on writers’ groups. It always turns into a game, where each person tries to get the protagonist into increasingly absurd situations that are increasingly hard for the next writer to get the protagonist out of. Likewise, every writer tries to totally change the setting. It’s very funny, but it’s a terrible way to tell a real story.

But, since many people are unanalytical about the value of the free content of the net, seeing the good as much the same as the bad, I think it is important for publishers–regardless of whether they publish e-books or print books–to educate the public as much and as often as possible about the value of works that are professionally researched, written, edited, designed, indexed, etc. In other words, to have a marketing stance of “you get what you pay for”; that amateur freebies are generally free for a good reason, but that professional works are charged for because they are well worth the money.

Not only are people (especially younger people) used to spending a lot of time with screens, they are accustomed to getting information in “byte-size” pieces, such as with text messaging and Twitter. And information is becoming more collaborative with sites such as Wikipedia.

Will “books” of any kind, p- or e-, be around in 100 years? 50 years? One of the goals expressed by the people at Google is to make all of the world’s information accessible. There may not be a need for information to be collected in one specific place if the collective knowledge is available to be searched instantly.

What about fiction? Perhaps the novel as we know it will disappear, to be replaced by ongoing collaborations where everyone can be a part of telling the story.

Of course, it is possible that great writing will always be respected and novels will be available in some format for many millennia. But I believe we have to accept that there will be massive changes in how people access information and entertainment. Even better, we should embrace change for the possibilities it offers.

If we small publishers are open to new ideas, we can create opportunities while the giants are holding meetings and trying to figure out what is happening. The Internet (and companies such as Amazon.com) have leveled the playing field in many ways. New technologies will help the “little guy” even more in the future.

Cathy Stucker
Special Interests Publishing