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| Your Words In Print - A Whole New Meaning |
You’ve worked diligently at perfecting your prose. You’ve attended the classes.
You have been witness to your work moving from the mere recording of words on
paper to stories that compel readers to forsake other interests for the sole purpose
of devouring the essence of your words. And now your dream is about to be
realized. Finally you will see your book in print. Or will you?
The possibility of your book actually making it into print form is dwindling with each
day. For print is being replace by the new kid on the block, the eBook. Technology
and a generation familiar with computers are forcing a revolution of the publishing
industry. And they are more than willing to comply.
These new devices are lightweight, comfortable to hold and more importantly, are
read as effortlessly as printed books are today. In addition, they have compelling
advantages over printed books. The selection and availability of tiles surpasses
what is available even via the on-line bookstores such as amazon.com. New titles,
plus those that are backlisted or out-of-print are immediately available. And works
that are in public domain can be downloaded free of charge. The text is also easily
searchable allowing the reader to find specific terms, definitions and other
reference material. When confronted with unfamiliar terms, a simple click on that
word brings up the underlying definition.
The weight and size allow the reader to carry a vast amount of reading material in a
small package. Adding a book no longer means adding weight to a briefcase of
backpack. A text inhabits the book for as long as you care to store it, before reading
and deleting it to make room for more texts, or offloading it to an online “bookshelf”
for later. (Somehow the thought of an “online bookshelf” doesn’t come near the
image of a room lined with books. )
The publishing industry is eagerly awaiting the arrival of these new devices.
Companies behind the pitch are promising a closed-loop delivery system based on
authentication of the individual devices, wrapping the text files end-to-end in a
secure format, so that this morning’s bestseller won’t turn up on this afternoon’s
FTP site. They even boast a “one reader, one book” plan. No longer will you be able
to read a book and then pass it along to a friend.
Other incentives for publishers include no shipping costs, no warehousing
backstock, no delivery delays until the next printing cycle and no returns. The very
thought of curling up in our favorite chair or taking one to bed evokes more of a
Star Trek image than an image of comfort. If Chaucer’s restless lady who took “a
romaunce” to bed with her to “dryve the night away” - had taken a 3.65 pound
Everybook into her bed chamber, her wrists, at least, would have been aching by
morning. Likewise, these devices are too hefty to prop up comfortably in bed
without using both hands.
With all that this new technology has to offer, it misses the mark in many ways. Our
books tell other who we are. We stumble over a book we had long ago forgotten
about and we recall the circumstances that surround it. How we obtained the book.
Who we were when we read it. The characters of the book and the effect they had
on our lives. Arranged on the shelves of our houses, carried about in our
briefcases, bags and backpacks they broadcast our private wishes and ideas. Even
our manner of storing these volumes bespeak our relationship with the written
word.
Books not only offer journeys, but are destinations in themselves. Opening the
cover of a large hardbound tome is like stepping into the entry hall of some great
edifice, a cathedral of reason or temple of the muse. Smaller books are enclosed
spaces, rooms taken by fugitive travelers whose histories bleed into our own. A
well-loved volume has a personality and a certain quiet dwells among its pages.
Books will still be books only in the aspect that they will still be written by writers,
will still be made up of words and thoughts, but everything else is about to change.
The intimate relationship we have with books, no matter how had we fight to retain
it, will soon become a thing of the past.
