The Practicality of Ebooks

Having recently moved house, I find myself again and even more enamored of ebooks. In whittling away my belongings (I swear, they self-propagate when I'm not looking), I got rid of a banker's box and more worth of books - and this had been over the course of two years where I was specifically trying not to collect books, after two recent purges (one to a bookstore, one to the free books shelf in our laundry room), and taking a big stack of them to my new place.

Some of the ones I kept I've read already, some I don't know if I ever will, but I held on to them because they were gifts or signed or both.

If they'd all been ebooks (there's nothing wrong with electronic signatures and dedications), it would have been much easier to keep them all. Just disconnect my ereader, move some files to the cloud if I'm running out of storage, and never delete anything I like ever again.

My mom has a rather impressive and oppressive collection of cookbooks, too. She's been slowly going through them and whittling them away, but likes to have them around for reference. Ebooks would be perfect: available to leaf through when uninspired and searchable when locating that half-remembered recipe. And then they wouldn't be littering every flat surface when I come over for dinner!

There's nothing quite as nice as delicately poring over a hardcover with color inserts from the 1930s, but for condo living or frequent moving, ebooks are the only practical way to go.

An additional note: next week, I'll be vacationing in Florida, so my friend Patrick Thunstrom has agreed to provide a guest post.

Author Interview: Adam Schreckenberger

Adam, in addition to being the technological heart of Theory Train, is an author in his own right. I interview him about his series, McCallister Chronicles.

Eileen Young: So, what's McCallister Chronicles about?

Adam P. Schreckenberger: Hmm, that’s a good question. Sometimes, I don’t even know the answer to that one myself. Upfront, it’s about a knight’s duty when it comes to his princess, but that seemed a little boring on its own. To some extent, it is about the endless insanity that lurks in my imagination and a mythology I created to pass the time. I can do whatever I want in those pages. I want a sword that talks? Fine. I want people that can wield fire? Fantastic! It also keeps my girlfriend happy, which carries a lot of benefits.

EY: Was she part of what inspired you to write it?

APS: Oh yes, she was. We had been thinking about writing a story together for a long time, but it just never worked out. One day, she really needed an upbeat, new tale. I sat down and wrote the five pages that became Episode 1. Like always, I posted it on my site for kicks. What I did not expect was the response.

EY: There was a lot of interest?

APS: That day still holds the record for most hits, and I got a few emails with messages asking if I was planning to write new chapters.

EY: Wow, that's impressive. And you've continued to release the chapters as free downloads. What was the thought behind that?

APS: Well, I am a physicist. Writing is my hobby, and that is how it is going to stay. It just has never felt right forcing my readers to purchase my works. Originally, it was motivated by the fact that most of my fans, if you want to call them that, were in high school and had no fixed income. In that sense, it became a simple choice. Either I’d charge for my stuff and no one would read the pieces, or I’d have them available free of charge. Old habits are hard to break.

EY: And now you have the first several episodes available in print. What made you decide to make it available that way, too?

APS: Some of my friends are diehard supporters of MC. When they asked me to make a printed copy available, I obliged. Plus, let’s face it. It is awesome to hold a physical copy of something you wrote. It certainly brings me some joy.

EY: It really is. So, you never considered publishing traditionally?

APS: Once upon a time, I did. I was in talks with a publishing house, but there were terms of the deal that I just did not like. For starters, everyone could kiss the free copies goodbye. They also wanted to put me on a timetable for the remainder of the series, which is not acceptable when one factors in my job. I guess it would be nice to have it released in the traditional sense. It would certainly make it more capable of receiving some recognition, but I am proud of what the book has accomplished.

EY: Is there anything else you'd like to say?

APS: I am grateful that I had the opportunity and the motivation to write MC. It brought me new friends, and pushed my old friends even closer. There is also something worth mentioning to those out there that are on the fence about writing a book or self-publishing. Just do it. Whether you put it on a blog, dA or some website, getting your work out there is worth the effort. We are all extremely fortunate to live in a time when these tools are available to us. Do not let them go unused.

Navigating The Ebook Jungle Now On Amazon

It took a little longer than expected, but Navigating The Ebook Jungle is now available on Amazon for download to your Kindle.

An interesting aspect of putting it up on Amazon is that, to keep the price point the same, I had to lower the royalties I receive to 35%. The lowest price at which you can receive their other royalty rate, 70%, is $2.99. Probably irrelevant for most people, as almost everyone will charge more for ebooks than the $1.99 Navigating The Ebook Jungle is priced at, but interesting from the technical aspect.

I'm already considering ways to expand on the book; with a lot more research on pricing.

Navigating The Ebook Jungle

So, this is where I usually put my writeup of the most recent Victoria Writers' Society general meeting, as it's the first Wednesday of the month.

And I get to do that tonight, but tonight it is more awesome than usual, as I was one of a panel of speakers on how to get your book out there, with Melody Poirier and Iryna Spica. Since I knew I wasn't going to be able to cover in depth everything about my area of expertise, I put together an ebook about it.

Epublishing and Publishing Companies

Went to a very interesting talk by the estimable Ruth Linka of Touchwood Editions and Brindle and Glass about the effects of ebooks on the publishing industry. This was a couple of weeks ago, but it took me some time to both process the information in her very informational talk and examine my own feelings about it.

It's a complicated subject, the role of ebooks in the world of publishing. I read a lot of ebooks, and a lot of books released free online under Creative Commons licensing. Ruth mentioned something about the new "Cult of Free" that I wish I'd written down, about how my generation very much believes in free things, and how that's not exactly harmonious with the publishing industry. More on that later.

Ruth also said very definitively that ebooks are not a trend. They are here to stay. The difficulty lies in that there are easily two dozen separate and unique file formats that someone at a publishing house has to convert them to.

There is a movement, of course, towards some sense of uniformity. And PDF, of course, never goes out of style, though it's less than ideal for several platforms. And a different ISBN is needed for each individual e-release. All of which takes man-hours, which contribute to the price of a book. This leaves aside the fact that the cost of editing remains the same, and one of the biggest components of book price. There is a general feeling that ebooks should be cheaper than paper because there are no associated printing, storage, or delivery costs, but those are much smaller factors for small printers. For large distributions, like that of bestsellers (Harry Potter, Twilight, or anything else people dress up and wait for hours in the rain for the release of), editing and other man-hour costs become a much smaller part of the cost, which allows them to keep the cost of ebooks low. Given the low cost set as the standard for ebooks, it is harder for small publishers to keep up with low prices.

On the other hand, ebooks are ideal for self-publishers. The cost of a print run can be hugely intimidating for an individual, but ebooks have, wonderfully, no printing costs. With no initial capital outlay (other than an editor, of course, and a graphic designer), epublishing allows many more authors to get their work out there. There is still, of course, the attendant hard work and devoted marketing required of any self-publication, but it makes it more accessible. But part of that accessibility is that the market for ebooks is flooded, and not everyone is willing to pay for an ebook by an unknown author, especially a novel, when there are novels available for free under Creative Commons and public domain. Novels by noted authors, too, including Cory Doctorow.

Part of that is my own devotion to the Cult of Free (backed up, you'll note, by there being no price tag on any of the stories I have up). But it will be interesting to see how the Cult of Free and other market forces affect the future of the ebook and the publishing industry.