Tag Archives: e-book

Will Self-Publishing Save Print?

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Last month in this blog, I made a statement that at the time seemed obvious, but now seems rash. “Most writers,” I wrote in declaring that print is effectively dead, “don’t care in a meaningful way about the physical presence of a book. They just want to tell a story, or convey information, or to create works of art out of their words.”

Since then, I’ve had cause to rethink my position. Print, it seems, isn’t dead, but just retired. Though diminished, it still has vital roles to play—especially for writers.

This realization came to me last week as I attempted to lean back and survey my achievement, such as it was, in publishing my first e-book, the New-Media Survival Guide. The leaning back was satisfactory; the surveying less so.

As a vehicle for conveying information, the e-book is superb. But as a device for signifying to yourself or others that you’ve written a book, it is dismally disappointing. The physical heft of a book that is an outmoded and inefficient drawback for traditional publishers and booksellers is, for authors, one of its most precious traits. Just try weighing an e-book appreciatively in your outstretched hand. It can’t be done.

That’s one reason why I spent many hours this weekend formatting my e-book for print-on-demand via CreateSpace (more on that experience later). Until I have a volume, however slim, that I can put on a bookshelf, I won’t feel that I’ve truly published it.

That’s why I suspect self-publishing may end up sparking a modest renaissance in printed books. In terms of units the quantity of printed books will grow ever smaller. But the number of printed titles may well explode as self-publishing grows. No matter what their motives for publishing, most book authors will want at least one printed, bound copy.

Though I plan to put the print version of the Survival Guide up for sale, I don’t expect to sell many copies. For most readers, the electronic version is ideal (ahem: why not buy a copy and find out for yourself?).

But for most authors, I now see, e-books lack one thing that only a paper book can provide: tangibility. A small thing, to be sure. But like print, it still matters.

Doubling Down on Print, for Better or Worse

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Photo of book sculpture. Image: Robert Burdock, Flickr

A nice specimen. Photo by Robert Burdock/Flickr

Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Julie Bosman described how book publishers have begun putting extra effort into making their print products more physically and esthetically engaging. Their rationale, says Bosman, is that if “e-books are about ease and expedience,” then print books should “be about physical beauty and the pleasures of owning.” The strategy, they hope, will “increase the value of print books and build a healthy, diverse marketplace that includes brick-and-mortar bookstores and is not dominated by Amazon and e-books.”

As a book collector, I’m pleased that books will be more beautiful. As a lover of bookstores, I’m happy for anything that might help preserve them. But as a reader and writer, I’m quite indifferent.

The problem with the strategy is that it won’t, as hoped, “cut into e-book sales” in a significant way. Most readers aren’t antiquarians and don’t value the physical esthetics of the container. They just want the content.

In the same way, unlike book designers, most writers don’t care in a meaningful way about the physical presence of a book. They just want to tell a story, or convey information, or to create works of art out of their words. The physical format is not essential.

There are a few books for which the physical medium of print matters in an essential way. House of Leaves, for instance, just wouldn’t be so mind-blowing in a leafless e-book. And is there any effective e-equivalent of a pop-up book? Moreover, could anyone do this with an e-book?

But these instances and their like are minor eddies of activity that briefly pull print defenders upstream before they are hurtled back down, inevitably, towards the fatal digital waterfall.

The effect is simply amplified when it comes to magazines (and turned up to 11 for newspapers). The physical aspects of magazines can be nice indeed, but they are rarely treasured objects. Inveterate collector though I am, I have gradually whittled down even my set of classic Wired issues from several shelves to one shelf—and only the Neal Stephenson issue is safe.

I’m all for more beautiful books, but let’s be realistic. Like taxidermy, printing beautiful books may preserve glorious specimens, but it does nothing to save the species.

Six New-Media Principles: Introduction

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This month, besides writing these time-limited daily posts, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on an e-book to be called the New-Media Survival Guide: For Journalists and Other Print-Era Refugees. If all goes well, it will be available next month. Stay tuned.

Like many posts on this blog, the e-book aims to help traditionally trained journalists, marketers, and content creators understand the ideas and values that differentiate new media from old. It doesn’t try to be the definitive word on the subject, or to offer step-by-step guidance in using new-media tools. Instead, I hope, it will provide a succinct, readable overview of the key principles driving the evolution of new media.

In the introduction to the guide, I identify and explain six key principles of new media. Both as a preview and as an invitation for your feedback, over the next week I’ll review each of those principles in a blog post.

For most people, the challenges in adapting to new media are not practical or technical, but attitudinal and intellectual. Once they understand the ideas behind new media, the hurdles, if not always the objections, largely vanish. And the first thing to understand about new versus old media is how much both have in common. Their shared concern is communication, and they involve many of the same concepts, methods, and values.

But what differentiates them is where they place their emphasis. Though not the only ones, the following six new-media preferences are to my mind the most significant:

  • Dialogue over monologue
  • Collaboration over control
  • The personal over the corporate
  • The open over the closed
  • The transparent over the opaque
  • The process over the product

For the rest of this week, I’ll share a few thoughts about how these preferences underlie new-media practices. Tomorrow I’ll discuss the first, dialogue over monologue. And in the spirit of dialogue, I hope you’ll share any thoughts you have on this topic in the comments section, both today and during the rest of this week.