fiction files redux discussion
ugh! i'm APP-alled
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Jonathan, the skipper
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May 10, 2010 10:22PM
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Jonathan wrote: ". . . if i have to hear about another fucking phone or e-reader APP that's going to revolutionize the way we read, i think i'll shoot myself . . .did it ever occur to anyone on the APP bandwagon th..."Amen, brother!
Reading at candlelight would actually put more strain on your eyes than reading on a Kindle would, though since a Kindle doesn't have any kind of back-light I suppose you could read at candlelight on a Kindle. I feel very bad for people who would rather read less books than read them on an ereader. As far as I'm concerned making books easier to access can only be an improvement.
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Dare I say, I beg to differ.
I think there are lots of possibilities out there for building communities of readers much like this one, using apps. I think that, when viewed through the lens of connecting people to the books and to one another, good things can happen. This is the evolution of MySpace, and the web itself, that we are watching.
I can see a social networking app based on books being read by people all over the world, and being invited to join a discussion chapter by chapter. If the keyboards on these devices become more usable, that is. I can use the one on my Kindle but it's probably easier on the iPad.
I'm not on anyone's bandwagon and I'd be the first one to say that there are terabytes of uselessness out there. I think apps are really just a way for people to organize their online activity in a world (the web) that is simply overwhelming due to its lack of organization and it's yet another attempt companies make (that will fail) to dominate the web as a commercial enterprise and not a knowledge-sharing one.
I also think that dismissing things outright because they're not comfortable for us is to deny possibility or evolution of the role books can play in our lives.
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how is a $250+ e-reader (+ the cost of each e-book) making access to books easier than a $9 mass market (or for that matter a public library)?
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Can't you see a future in which the devices are donated to schools much like one laptop per child? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Lapt...
Or the schools where reconditioned computers get installed all the time?
And haven't you heard about schools where aging textbooks have to be shared?
All that's needed is some critical mass of the texts themselves and a foundation whose mission is education. Two years from now, max.
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I'm just saying, let's not negate the possibilities.
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You mean... like... graphic novels? ;)
Jonathan wrote: ". . . well, i'm glad that there's two schools of thought on this, i just hope there's enough old fogey purists like myself to keep print and brick and mortar alive . . . you kill brick and mortar, ..."Ditto !
I shot this (also my) view to the B & N Salesman who happened to be a book collector; he did put forth a good argument for these devices—school texts. The poor middle school student wouldn't have to "lug around" all those OVERSIZED books—which is good.
For myself, though, give me a "book" any day.
No batteries.
No worry of theft (say, beach reading—where do you put it when you want to take a dip?). There's that worry of leaving a high dollar item back there with the towel . . .
A Simple Pen or Pencil to talk back to the book: Circles, underlines, phrases, etc., without buttons or mazes of operation to "navigate."
They're light. They're portable. They're books.
--R.a.
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Can't you see a future in which the devices are donated to schools much like one laptop per child? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Lapt......"
the money that's not there to get enough text books so they dont have to share is the same money that wont be there for e-readers (if it were this would be a non-issue in either case) + from previous posts I believe Andreaa is thinking more internationally and last I checked they still didnt have a plethora of wifi hot spots in the sudan so the kindle is a useless piece of plastic there until you get some infrastructure
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One point brought up: with digital publishing, it's possible a writer could make far more than 7%. But traditional publishers still offer writers more than if, say, Amazon became a major publisher. Money quote:
"Although critics argue that traditional book publishing takes too much money from authors, in reality the profits earned by the relatively small percentage of authors whose books make money essentially go to subsidizing less commercially successful writers. The system is inefficient, but it supports a class of professional writers, which might not otherwise exist."
People who slavishly praise and more importantly 'buy' into these technological mediums and apps are clowns dancing to the drum of the technology industry. There's nothing wrong with books...they've been around for centuries. A kindle or whatever is just the technology industry testing the stupidity of people and technology fetishists. Then such people claim all kinds of things in support of their own stupidity and consumerism.
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Books will never go away (and shouldn't), hell, I still buy records, but IMO the real issue is the publishing industry itself. Blaming people who are trying to innovate with devices or software for killing "The Book" is just "slavishly" dancing to the beat of blaming technology for every wrong in society.
The entire industry will have to shift to a print on demand model, if not something even more adventurous, because the current model doesn't work -- not for writers or readers (or even for publishers, really). Right now it's all over the place because no one knows what will work, and that's part of the problem. Someday, someone will come up with something totally out of the box we've never seen before and we will all be like, "Oh. So that's how it's supposed to be." And the big publishing houses will adapt or die like so many Wall Street behemoths.
And JE, if there's anyone who's adapting to this new model of how to stay alive as a fiction writer today, it's you, dude! All writers are going to have to adapt. You've found the answer for now - leverage the tech to build community and buzz around your work to sell the books themselves.
As to the book/device problem for kids, I still say, think longer term. Really? Bandwidth? We're talking bandwidth? It won't be long until wi-fi or its cousin crosses the planet and internet access is completely free. It also won't be that long before the world gets all of its data from the same network that manages itself. Ten years ago I couldn't put a streaming video on my website without ten thousand warnings about file size and shitty resolution for the file itself. As for the devices themselves, that's a corporate giving thing. It'll happen. Once the devices themselves are a little more... um... kidproof, it will make more sense.
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..."
I recently sat in on a panel concerning literacy and education hosted by Families in schools and the LAUSD
over and over again: no funding, cuts, cuts, cuts, and that was before the governator discovered the tax-month short-fall and had to come up with another 3 billion in cuts
during the course of the talks they mentioned the one lap-top program fondly but didnt seem to think it was a panacea for anything - interestingly for a panel focusing on the future of literacy no one mentioned e-readers, not once
they talked about parental involvement, they talked about public libraries, they talked about community engagement, funding, even corporate sponsorship of in-store reading parties
but for a group of experts concerned with the every day question of improving reading levels in schools and deeply troubled by and engaged with the business of funding cuts no one seemed to think e-readers were an answer worth bringing up
Matt wrote: "Andreea wrote: " As far as I'm concerned making books easier to access can only be an improvement"how is a $250+ e-reader (+ the cost of each e-book) making access to books easier than a $9 mas..."
How many books come out as a $9 paperback? You usually have to wait for months for the paperback edition, if there even is one. Or how many small town libraries afford to buy new books that are not best sellers every month?
Patrick wrote: "Those kids NEEDS to lug around books. It's called toughening up."
Say that to somebody with scoliosis.
Matt wrote: "from previous posts I believe Andreaa is thinking more internationally and last I checked they still didnt have a plethora of wifi hot spots in the sudan so the kindle is a useless piece of plastic there until you get some infrastructure"
But there is Internet in Sudanese universities, making books available online offers students so many opportunities to study/research because a lot of universities in poor(er) countries can't afford to buy the kind of resources students need and studying in Europe/the US/Australia is completely out of reach for most students because of the high tuition fees/living costs.
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. . .while i do think shel has some good thoughts, as far as the consumer impact of the e-reader and apps, i think martyn has said it here! . . . remember when we all when out and bought laser discs?
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So -- you didn't bring up electronic reading devices?
I think it's unfortunate that we have to rely on corporations to provide the funds to educate our children. But now we're getting into public policy, no? How important education is to our nation as a whole? How important critical thinking and comprehension are?
Laser discs... laser discs... Hm. People bought those? We've all fallen victim to fads. And it's possible that the devices we see now are faddish but they are also important stepping stones. We are the test group for the future of a more integrated device. Look at all the innovation the iPhone has inspired. Can't you see a day when a holographic keyboard pops out of a touchscreen device? Or projects movies perfectly? And learns voice commands from you? I can.
Again, not slavish or fanatical - but closing one's eyes to the possibilities is to turn our backs on some amazing stuff... and to sit back and "let it happen."
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I don't have a cd player (or even a cd drive), tape player or 8 track. But I have a record player and a creature for my digital music that plays music from my laptop through my network.
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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...
more later...
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There is enough content to read for free on Gutenberg that I will never have the need to buy an electronic edition of any book. My main method of consumption will always be through bound paper.
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92 to 2001... 9 1/2? :)
i still miss them, actually... like vinyl, there was a something about the size of them that was nice... they came with gatefold covers and big illustrations and liner notes and inserts... it really felt like you were getting something for your money. plus there was always a built-in snack & bathroom break halfway through as you stopped to turn the movie over.
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/20...
About Amazon, the iPad and the Kindle and the book business. My. How timely.
Really good article, too.
"In Grandinetti’s view, book publishers—like executives in other media—are making the same mistake the railroad companies made more than a century ago: thinking they were in the train business rather than the transportation business. To thrive, he believes, publishers have to reimagine the book as multimedia entertainment. David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, says that his company is racing “to embed audio and video and other value-added features in e-books. It could be an author discussing his book, or a clip from a movie that touches on the book’s topic.” The other major publishers are working on similar projects, experimenting with music, video from news clips, and animation. Publishers hope that consumers will be willing to pay more for the added features. The iPad, Rosenthal says, “has opened up the possibility that we are no longer dealing with a static book. You have tremendous possibilities.”
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"Publishers maintain that digital companies don’t understand the creative process of books. A major publisher said of Amazon, “They don’t know how authors think. It’s not in their DNA.” Neither Amazon, Apple, nor Google has experience in recruiting, nurturing, editing, and marketing writers. The acknowledgments pages of books are an efficiency expert’s nightmare; authors routinely thank editors and publishers for granting an extra year to complete a manuscript, for taking late-night phone calls, for the loan of a summer house. These kinds of gestures are unlikely to be welcomed in cultures built around engineering efficiencies."
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"For the moment, Jobs is the publishers’ best ally. “Steve is very proud that Macmillan put a gun to Amazon’s head,” the insider said. But in the long term Apple and Google will not necessarily be better partners than Amazon. One day, they, too, will complain about the cumbersome publishing process, or excessive prices. Just days before the iPad went on sale, on April 3rd, there were rumors that Apple might list best-sellers for as little as $9.99. Apple agreed to the agency model for just one year, and, as publishers are acutely aware, Jobs has a history, with music and television companies, of fighting to reduce prices. One publisher said, “Maybe Apple will want to come back in a year and bite our heads off.” The iPad may even make it possible for Amazon to reach new consumers. Apple now offers about sixty thousand e-books, far fewer than Kindle does, and Amazon has launched an app that allows it to sell e-books on the iPad. No matter where consumers buy books, their belief that electronic media should cost less—that something you can’t hold simply isn’t worth as much money—will exert a powerful force. Asked about publishers’ efforts to raise prices, a skeptical literary agent said, “You can try to put on wings and defy gravity, but eventually you will be pulled down.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/tec...
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I can't focus on any one thing when people start talking about this stuff, so I'm just going to spit random stuff out:1. e-readers are in their infancy, and they're not as confined to format like other new ways of viewing digital technology were (like DVD players, for instance). Anything can happen, but "anything" hasn't happened yet. In other words, two years from now, I expect e-readers (and e-books) to do a lot of awesome and wonderful things that nobody's talking about right now.
2. I'm happy when I think about books becoming other things (like a digital file in an e-reader), because I like the possibility of what can be done with a "book".
3. I'm sad when I think of every book out there simply being plopped into a flowing-text arrangement to be read by an e-reader. This is often just not the right way to read some books. Format counts. Some text is best read in front of a live audience. Some works better on a printed page. And some would definitely be fitting for a digital presentation, though most books are not written FOR that format yet. So...most e-books to me feel like a book plopped into an audiobook, without much consideration for who "reads" it / how it's presented.
Ah well...
It won't be long until wi-fi or its cousin crosses the planet and internet access is completely free. It also won't be that long before the world gets all of its data from the same network that manages itself.Hmmmm.
We're in Oceana, right? Of course, I'll forget soon. We're supposed to forget.
--R.a.
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That and we have to find a way to use less electricity for the hosting of our data. It grows by exponential amounts every day.
Oceana, oceana... Hm. For someone with a lot of sci-fi views on things I know nearly nothing about it. Is this a sci-fi thing?
R.a. wrote: "It won't be long until wi-fi or its cousin crosses the planet and internet access is completely free. It also won't be that long before the world gets all of its data from the same network that manages itself...""In time, you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love."
Colossus: The Forbin Project
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i never owned a Laser Disc player but i wanted one desperately. instead i grew up watching many films on poorly dubbed 2nd generation vhs tapes. result is- to this day, i have a nostalgic reverence for glitchy tracking problems and warbley sound. (not to mention white subtitles that disappear into the image but it hardly matters cause most of them didn't fit on the screen anyway)
new technology is always going to outpace our ability to adapt and reconcile it.
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And my record player - it's about 50 years old - claims to be "stereo" but has this lovely mono ring to it so that I can pick out all the different instruments, voices, etc. Very cool.
My parents had a huge record collection when I was a kid, too. That makes me sentimental, I think.
In fact, I'm off to listen to the Dinah Washington now. :)
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A few random thoughts here too. Talking about efficiency as the reason for these things is a bit strange, since books are probably the least efficient form of entertainment. Their point, in fact, is to be inefficient. You can't really read on the run. I mean, unless it's something pretty lame and all you really need is an outline of the plot. Is this going to "lighten our load"? Might work very well for schoolkids (that toughening up stuff is goofy, whoever mentioned it), but an actual reader who reads for fun rarely carries more than two books around I would think. Is it going to save us trips to the store? Yes, but is that a good thing?
And yet, in the long run the digital will probably become the standard reading "platform." I expect the basic, one-app readers to cost around $9.99 in about 5 years, while the multi-app hardware like Apple products will probably remain as overpriced as they are now.
Those who like to read books will use the former, those who like gadgets will use the latter. I don't see paper staying the mainstream for much longer. Collector's editions, maybe, but that's about it.
Pavel wrote: "Might work very well for schoolkids (that toughening up stuff is goofy, whoever mentioned it), but an actual reader who reads for fun rarely carries more than two books around I would think. "Unless they're going on holiday or moving, then they have to carry around boxes of books.
I guess I'm going be to a "collector."There's also a quality about the "tactile"-ness of a book that I like . . . and prefer.
But, then again, I miss the "simplicity" of the typewriter.
I do not miss the drafts and drafts, erasure marks, and carbon copies of that process. And, laptops, etc., have cleaned up that process considerably— which is great).
I mean the incredible efficiency of the typing table—where keyboard and "printer" were one. No extra table; no raised shelf; no placing the printer behind or around something.
There were some word processers that "kept" this economy (not very portable, true); but, they too, have faded away.
It sometimes feels that I always am configuring or re-configuring placements of things. Nonsensical exercises that block writing.
And, there's something great about what I call "puttering." Some folks have a different term. It's that state of being surrounded by books (and/or your writing) where "they pull you." Seemingly haphazard, a book pokes out from the shelf, and one picks it up, reads only here and there . . . and then another . . . then "putters" around, waters this or that plant . . . then "Bingo." Something happens. Some synthesis. Some analysis. Some metaphor that incites a wonderful idea.
Unfortunately, I've never had the "puttering" experience with a computer, despite the links and threads and seemingly "net" parallel with that bookcase.
Oh well . . .
"The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way; we this way." (V, ii).
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I have no problem with e-books. In fact I think that project Gutenberg is one of the best things that has developed in the internet age. Suddenly, I have access to books that were once only available in library archives. And not only that, but I can often use a search function to find material in e-books that I didn't know existed.
Portable e-reader devices are not for me. But then I don't have a cell phone, either. If they are useful to some people, they should have them. My only worry is about the dissappearance of the book STORE. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I like to browse. I like finding books I didn't know I wanted to read. I like bookstores. I like bookstore people. Bookstores are dissappearing quickly. e-readers, controlled mainly by the same companies who are largely responsible for the dying out of bookstores, will limit the variety of books that are available. Those companies already have a huge amount of control over what people read. I don't want them to have more control.
At the same time, there are a lot of books in the world. As long as people don't start adding them to the recycling bin, I think there will be copies around at least for the remainder of my lifetime.
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This is a fantastic explanation I need to use to describe why I do not put my books away. I have a whole piece of furniture dedicated to recent purchases that make up my to-read list. They are stacked in the order I bought them. I look at them all the time. I remember why I bought them, what pulled me to them in the first place. It helps with the writing to have those words so nearby. Puttering.
This is a fantastic explanation I need to use to describe why I do not put my books away . . .Happy to oblige . . .
I did see here, once, that someone had another name for it. I like "puttering," though. It describes the relaxed state of it—indeed joyous.
"To the pen and paper!"
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I have no problem with e-books. In fact I think that project Gutenberg is one of the best..."
. . .patty, dear, you are the voice of reason . . .lose the store and you lose the "local," the voice and pulse of the community . . . online storefronts can never replicate that . . . don't you wish we could go back and re-think this digital revolution a bit? really, WEREN'T record stores worth saving? . . . i-tunes in no way, shape, or form, touches the experience of the record store . . . "progress" can be merciless, and not always for the better . . .
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My record store is for musical... adventure. iTunes is - oh, someone told me about this or I heard it on Pandora, so I go find and buy it. Totally different experience.
Oh, and at the Lit Fair last weekend I saw someone in an Elliott Bay tee-shirt! :)
Jonathan wrote: "Patty wrote: "I still buy CDs. Usually from "record" stores. The problem is, there are hardly and record stores left. I have no problem with e-books. In fact I think that project Gutenberg is one..."
Exactly! Not every technological advancement is for the better. Why can't we reject it instead of slavishly sticking our dicks into computers. It'll end up like that Cronenberg flick ExistenZ where we plug our bodies into new artificial realms as a substitute for real life. Well fuck you, Steve Jobs! I like my books printed on paper!
here's an interesting link to an article in The Guardian on the future of publishing, author rights and the death of the book.I've been wondering about e-books and promotion. For example, JE, can you envisage yourself travelling the US going to bookstores and reading a chapter of your novel from a fucking Kindle or Ipod?
Essentially, you'd turn up, have a placard of advertising and no pile of books ... just the e-reader. Next they'll probably turn you into a CG avatar so you don't have to travel and they can beam you live around the US simultaneously from the comfort of your own home.
amazon
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http://www.wylieagency.com/CLIENT%20L...
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