Overall Impressions:
–Reed and the Javits staff have found a way to obscure the fact that it no longer fills an entire floor with exhibitors, but there was plenty of space around the edges for curtained enclosures and meeting rooms of various types.
–Despite the small number of exhibitors (or perhaps because of it), the aisles were full, and the mood seemed upbeat, enthusiastic and intent. I heard far less of the “this will be the last show” chatter.
–The “concurrent events” brought new blood into the mix. This bodes well for the future. Unfortunately, the total attendance didn’t go up with the inclusion of this new blood. That doesn’t bode as well.
–Oddly enough, I saw far fewer of the independent publishers’ booths and the denizens of Writers’ Row. It could be that the word has finally gotten out that those locations aren’t really offering the full benefit of being at the show, and that this isn’t a place where you go to sell a bunch of books on the spot.
–This was the “All Ebook, All the Time” BEA. I know that e- is the coming trend, and I certainly advocate being aware of how it can be used in your own publishing, and what the pros and cons are for your operation, but surely we could have found more topics to discuss? Maybe next year?
I attended one very interesting lecture, and yes, it was ebook-related. The presenter was from Attributor. If you publish in niches that suffer from large amounts of organized piracy, I would invest in their services. They search all of the darknet and legitimate file sharing sites (after all, there are legitimate reasons why you might need to upload things, for example team projects where people are telecommuting). When they locate files that might be caches of pirated material, use AI and expert systems to rank the most probably-pirated of the millions of files found, and then have humans examine them to prevent false positives.
Then they do a tiered enforcement action, resulting in a 99% success rate in getting the illegitimate material yanked, or converted to a revenue producing legitimate sales site.
Ebooks are wonderful things. I love them. I read on my Kindle, and on my Kindle app on the iPhone, and wouldn’t give them up for worlds.
With ebooks, we gain convenience and the ability to change font sizes. We gain on price and on environmental impact. We gain a number of obvious things. But we lose, as well, and some of the losses are less obvious.
We’re losing privacy, and we’re losing control of our books. We’re losing readability (both in terms of text design and in image resolution). And we’re losing barriers to entry, which is a two-edged sword.
Privacy: Some ebook readers already “phone home” and report what you’ve read and how far you’ve gotten in it. It’s not hard to imagine that this information could be used in many ways. Even if you’re reading on a device or an app that doesn’t seem to do this, it’s not hard to imagine hackers or security agencies that could install backdoors in your software that would allow them to monitor your activity. Paper books never do that. And it’s almost impossible to track your purchases at random stores, especially if you use cash.
Control: With a print-on-paper book, it’s very hard to take or damage your copy. With ebooks, someone else can take your copy without any physical contact with it. Amazon has already proven that they can pull your books back off the Kindle. Other ebook providers may or may not have the same capability.
Digital Rights Management techniques (DRM) also cuts into your control. It’s quite difficult to craft DRM that doesn’t prevent you from doing things that are within your rights, as well as those that aren’t. Certain types of copying are allowed, even by the most draconian interpretations of copyright.
Readability: Text design is an art that’s generally under-appreciated. But it doesn’t take long with a badly designed book before you realize that something feels wrong. It’s just harder to read, and often harder to understand. It’s not comfortable on the eyes. Something feels “off.”
But being able to change font sizes within a fixed screen size means that you text design and composition go out the window. Of course, the e-readers could come with a hyphenation and justification program, such as the modules that underpin TeX or InDesign, which would help enormously, but they don’t now, and they probably won’t in any near future. Who wants to wait for the text to be re-flowed when you change the font size? Who wants to pay more for the program or for the cpu size needed to run it?
Screen resolution on the Kindle is roughly twice what the resolution is on a computer screen, but it’s still only 1/2 to 1/4 what a printed book offers. And it’s black on gray only. The color screens of iPhones and laptops offer the lower dots per inch to offset their colors. It’s not as easy on the eyes.
Lower Barriers to Entry: The last loss I listed is the lowering of barriers to entry. This means that we gain ease of publishing. But as readers it means that we have a harder time finding the books we’ll enjoy. And as publishers it means we have a far harder time rising above the roar of the crowd to draw our readers’ attention. And that means that more new readers will experience fewer wonderful books in the short time during which they decide whether they “like books” or not. And that’s the worst loss to our literary community.
As usual, I invite you to tell me what I missed or messed up. The comments section doesn’t require registration, although it is moderated to reduce the flood of spammers.
Okay, so I haven’t blogged in months. I’m still here.
Just so you don’t miss me too much, I’m sharing my favorite procrastination:
LOLcats!
Many of you know that I’m a mom and a knitter in my "real life." If you share those characteristics, or simply share my slightly screwball sensibiity, you’ll also like the blog,So The Thing Is . . .
And now, back to our regularly scheduled (or rather IRregularly scheduled) posts. Enjoy.
I saw a post on another journal, and it’s a really good idea. As a gesture toward end-of-the-year bonhomie, I’d love it if you would post something about yourself in the comments. Writing/publishing interests are grand, but so are more personal comments, like descriptions of pets, hobbies, and other things. I suspect I know some of you from other venues, and I know that most of the folks who drop in here never post a comment at all, but please de-lurk and do so now?
Here, I’ll start:
I have a 7 year-old daughter, who is the light of my life. Like her mother, she’s an utter printers’ ink junkie. Also like her mother, she loves fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, and general fiction. She also likes dinosaurs!
I have a husband, and he’s a complete sailing fanatic, so we have a boat. We live on board for a couple of weeks or more each summer, which is all we can spare. Sailing has produced lots of stories.
I love to knit and crochet, and do all sorts of crafts and DIY stuff. Upholstery, masonry and brick-laying, gardening, and sewing are on the recent lists. And I have two very cute and spoiled cats.
Your turn!
If you like what you read here, you may want to attend a webinar (seminar over the web) that I’m giving for PMA. The topic is Building a Better Budget, and you can find more information here.
Publishing professionals tend to view budgets as both intimidating and useless masses of numbers. After you take this course, you’ll be empowered to take control of the process and you’ll know how to use it as part of your strategy for success.
I hope you’ll join me, Wednesday, November 14 at 2 pm EST, or at least download the resulting recording later. This is an important tool that’s all too frequently neglected.
Vampire Myths: The Ones We Simply Can’t Kill
Sunday, January 15th, 2012Do you have an authors’ or writers’ myth you’d love to kill? Ones that just keep going in defiance of all logic and reality? I have more than a few, and I’m collecting yours today, too!
Myth #1: The way to get published is to send your manuscript, in full, to a publisher or agent.
Why would they want your full manuscript before they ask for it? They have the instructions all over their sites, and all say to send queries or proposals. Many say that unsolicited manuscripts will be returned unopened. Believe them!
Myth #2: Editors will change your work until it sounds like them, not you.
Not if they’re any good, they won’t. The purpose of an editor is to help you figure out how your book can work better for the reader, while remaining true to your vision of it. That’s why one editor can have many very different, but excellent, authors on his or her list.
Myth #3: Editing is about fixing spelling and grammar.
That’s copyediting or maybe proofreading. Editing is about fixing the structure of the book, and the macro issues. Some of the small stuff may be caught along the way, but that’s not the point.
Myth #4: Big publishing is terrified of the self-publishing’s new modes, especially the e-book revolution.
Wish fulfillment, anyone? 99% of all manuscripts that float around are not worth publishing. They’re either so bad that it’s not worth trying to fix them, or they are good, but have a very limited market. So now, those manuscripts are going straight to ebook or being “POD published” (which is NOT the same as self-publishing with a POD printer). This is simply dumping the slush pile on an unsuspecting public, most of whom are showing the sterling good sense to buy elsewhere, or to do a pan review if they do accidentally purchase one.
Good stuff will sell, and be on the front pages of the on-line searches, and on bookstore shelves. And publishers still offer all the advantages that they always have. (Should this be another blog topic for later? Are you interested in this?)
I could keep going for a good long time, but I’ll give the rest of you a chance. What are your favorite myths? Skewer away!
Posted in Common Errors, For Authors, General Comments, Publishing Answers | 5 Comments »