This entry is a 'kinder, gentler' version of a response I posted to the article captioned below. Thankfully, the Huffington Post's auto-editor noticed that my submission wasn't as coherent as it should have been, and the piece was not posted beneath the article. This is a better-collected group of thoughts on the idea of electronic publishing than I could ever have dashed off, and I will cop to the fact I shouldn't have posted a response without better clarity of thought. If that sounds like an apology, so be it...
I love to read. I will read just about anything - it's a pleasure to receive someone's message, which may be seconds, or centuries old. Hearing the words in my head (sometimes, out loud) as I read is a pleasure. This is February; I'm into my fifth book for the year. Current read, which I cannot put down? Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney. Awesome stuff.
I was a little put off when I read Michael Ashley's article on the iPad, when I saw he plugged his company, which publishes exclusively online. But I got really annoyed with his idea that we'd be better off with a "new" concept of 'book.' Apparently, it's not enough for him to have a dedicated, one-to-one uninterrupted channel of communication containing another person's (or other people's) coordinated stream of thought. Heck, that's like.... I don't know... '... a bunch of chapters packaged between two covers...' [this was supposed to be the 'kinder, gentler' and more coherent response, so enough of that.]
Maybe we should change the concept of 'book' since aside from scholastic, reference, and summer reading, people don't read nearly as much as they used to. What's the need for it? There's television, there's the internet, you don't need to wade through a bunch of dark spots on a page to get an answer to your important question. Thank goodness, because we don't have time to sit and read anyway. We're too busy.
Maybe we do need a change in 'book.' Although I don't think embellishing it with video and audio will help the form. Perhaps, if we instead refine the 'cone of silence' concept introduced by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks. That would help the form, I think.
A gift, my paperback copy of Beowulf retailed for $13.95. At Amazon.com, it's currently $10.04 in paperback, or $9.56 for the Kindle edition. I don't suppose the concept of 'fair use' goes too far with purveyors of e-books. From what I understand, not only are e-books not easily lent, they're often difficult to archive.
After I finish reading it (and probably re-reading it,) I'll pass it on to a couple of friends. This is something you can't easily do with an e-book, since that would mean lending out your electronics as well. Sharing a book, and hearing what others you speak with regularly think about a book, is part of the pleasure of reading!
It seems as if the e-print industry sees the future as a 'one man, one Kindle, one book license' kind of place. I don't know of any libraries planning to stock up on Kindles, to loan out to card holders. Since people don't read as a pastime as much it will take enormous price drops to make e-books mainstream. Without those price drops, reading isn't going to get cheaper, it's going to get much, much more expensive. And exclusive, in the process. Perhaps reading for pleasure will become one of the decadent activities of the privileged.
How many Kindles, iPads, Sony E-Readers, etc. can be physically produced? Not enough to get the price low enough for everyone to have one. Not enough for everyone to have one at any cost, realistically. And that may be a good thing. It ensures that much of the content beyond the daily digestion of reports, news, sports, tabloids, stock updates, recipe ideas, and amber alerts will still be available in print. For the immediate future, anyway.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
