Paper or Plastic: Is an ebook still a book?

(THIS ARTICLE CAN BE BORROWED, HACKED, POSTED, STOLEN, PUBLISHED, PIRATED, TRASHED, ERASED, DOWNLOADED, KINDLED, PIXELATED, NOOKED, PRINTED, AND REPROGRAMMED, AS LONG AS MY NAME AND WEBSITE ARE USED)

Reading paper books is an emotional experience for which many of us have developed nostalgia. We remember our Dr. Seuss books, our early school readers, our library adventures, then the teen years and really ranging into our individual tastes. Right now, most of us did that with paper books. Ten years from now? I think not.

My first music of my own was a scratchy Rod Stewart vinyl LP I found in a dumpster (yeah, we were poor and didn't have much besides my dad's old-school country 8-tracks). I have a cassette tape of that scratchy vinyl LP, and that is my version of the experience--right down to the skip in the middle of "I'd Rather Go Blind." Even if I hear the song on a CD, my brain puts in the skip, because that's the way I know the song. If I sing it to myself, the skip is in there. That's my experience and my nostalgia.

Have you ever tried to play a vinyl album for a kid? They think you're nuts. Some people get fighting mad over the very idea of ebooks, as if this were Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." Paper books are "real books" or "true books," they say. Yet they still call CDs and iPod downloads "records" or "albums," the same name they used when the format was a large vinyl disc. And music wasn't harmed in the least. In fact, most of us who aren't crotchety old fuddyduds will allow that music is vaster, broader, and more experimental than ever because it is more easily shared and experienced.

I remember in the 1990s when a few Chicken Littlers were warning about the death of paper books. I laughed at them. I remember in the early 21st century when writers first started wondering about whether they should protect their electronic rights. The industry laughed at them. On Christmas Day, Amazon sold more ebooks than paper books. I'm not laughing anymore. I am selling ebooks. And I am writing books with the expectation that they will be ebooks. And I am planning the long arc of my remaining career with the intention of staying "in print" and viable. And passing that to my heirs for the life of copyright. It's not only realistic, it's stupid not to do it.

And, as with the ease of music proliferation because of technological advancement, I see reading returning to the working class. You know, those people who can't afford $25 books and can barely afford time to read them because they are busting their chops to feed and house a family. A $2 ebook they can read in small chunks, and the convenience of carrying around 1,500 books at all times, will get more people peeking "between the pages."

Since I became interested in this issue, my research has shown that Kindle, Nook, and other ereader-device owners not only buy and read more books than they ever have before, they are trying genres and subject matter they never would have picked up otherwise. One man on the Kindle Boards hadn't read a book in 30 years because of visual impairment. Because he can now blow up the text size, he has read four books since Christmas. Teachers are taking their Kindles into classrooms and making reading cool again. Kids already have their own personal devices and are used to them. That's their nostalgia.

Publishers are trying mightily to stem the tide because they are invested in an old model in which they control and dole out content and lock up writers' rights for as long as possible. It's a central and overlooked element of the current ebook pricing wars. That's a side issue for readers but it's going to become critical if you believe the author is why we buy books, not the physical means or channel through which the story travels.

I fully appreciate those who defend the smell of pulp and ink, the tactile sensation of pages, the brilliance of a four-color paper cover and foil-stamped title logo. Many book bloggers fiercely defend paper books and most won't review ebooks at all. But if you look closely, the blogging phenomenon took over the role of "real newspapers" in reviewing and announcing books, to such a degree that many bloggers now are on the reviewer lists of major publishers, and obviously have a vested interest in preserving the current model because they are getting cases of free books. I don't blame them for not reviewing ebooks, because then they are left with nothing but the experience, and everyone loves free stuff. Already, there is a new model developing in which ebook bloggers may be readying to take over for "real book bloggers."

I love paper books, and I believe they will be around for the rest of my lifetime. There will still be bookstores, but they will be specialty shops and antiquaries instead of mainstream commerce centers. How much money have you spent at your local indie bookstore lately? Can you even find an indie within a two-hour radius? Here in my small university town, we have one indie bookstore and one specialty store that sells vinyl records. We no longer have a store that sells CDs, and only one chain video store. Are vinyl records the only "real music" or VHS tapes the only "real movies"?

I still have plenty of paper books. Some I keep because of nostalgia. I look at the object and feel that same attachment as I would with the old Rod Stewart album if it were still around. Other books I give away, but I still have the experience of the story. The "paper book" object is separate from the "book" experience of the story. Objects are ephemeral and paper crumbles to dust. The experience endures. The story lives on.
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Scott Nicholson is the author of eight "real books" and six "fake books" (er, ebooks). Some of the real ones have the same stories as the fake ones. The difference is the "real books" have often been declared out of print by the publisher and removed from store shelves, so his dedicated readers must take extreme measures to find them, including prowling garage sales and stealing from the library. His ebooks are easily available and cheap. The Skull Ring and The Red Church are two such cheap books at under $2 each. But, as the commercials say, the experience is priceless. Visit Scott at http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com
and Write Good or Die
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The Skull Ring

Ten years ago, anyone publishing a book themselves was either foolish or an unrealistic fanatic. Two years ago, you were still snubbed by the professional writer's organizations and labeled "vanity press." Today, if you don't do it at some level, you're almost assuredly going to be left behind or turning over control of your content to a major corporation. I know, because I was right there laughing at the writers who used Xlibris and Publish America and turned out awful books that lost them hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. I'm not laughing anymore. I am smiling all the way to a cottage industry.

Inspired by success stories like JA Konrath and Lee Goldberg, and thinking of all the different books I have on submission in traditional routes, and grasping this incredible moment in publishing history, the time has come to try an original ebook release. The Skull Ring will be out March 1 for Kindle at Amazon and in most other ereader formats at Smashwords. Because other writers have inspired me with their honest accounting and war stories, I am encouraged to tell the story of this novel.

I wrote this in 2000, and it actually got me my first agent at William Morris. Long story short, The Red Church sold through the slush, the agent liked The Skull Ring, but we were busy with other titles for Kensington and somehow THE SKULL RING never really came up again, because it was a suspense novel and didn't really fit the brand we were all trying to build. The other issue was it featured a Satanic cult, and Satan isn't exactly a hot topic these days--though in the book, Satan isn't assumed to be real, though the cult is real, just as in "real life" there are people who worship Satan and most of us have never seen much direct evidence that the pointy-tailed red dude exists. I even rewrote the novel several times, updating it because back in 2000 cell phones weren't ubiquitous. The Full Moon Press was supposed to publish it in hardcover but the press dissolved after I waited about three years.

Here we are, 10 years later. I love this character, Julia Stone, and if readers like it, I have other adventures planned. There's no way anyone can dismiss it as a "horror novel," because it's clearly suspense, it has a spiritual theme, romance, and no supernatural elements besides a little psychological mindplay that induces suggestion. Sure, readers can dismiss it because it's crappy, or dated, or any of the thousand wonderful reasons that make us all individual readers with perceptions and opinions.

As for my career, though I have been regularly submitting projects and I'm confident a new direction is ahead, I have felt out of the loop the last couple of years, waiting, waiting, waiting. I have five books finished, three more underway, and plenty of ideas. Even if I got a traditional publishing deal, I doubt if all of those books would ever come out, because editors and publishers rightfully like to shape the direction of their investments.

My ebook sales of The Red Church have not been spectacular, but they have been inspiring. The new ebook story collections ASHES and FLOWERS are finding readers while the print versions languished. With the increasing royalty rate for ebooks, it's now a viable way to a professional career, assuming you connect with readers--which still is and always will be the final payoff. If I had 10 books out right now, doing as well as The Red Church, I would be making more than I do in my day job as a newspaper reporter (health insurance aside).

Lastly, there is something satisfying about developing my own vision for my work. If you've known me for a while, you know I love my organic garden, my laying hens, my wood stove, and my simple, low-cost lifestyle. Today I can imagine a cover (with talented support from Neil Jackson, the incredible force behind Ghostwriter Publications in the UK), categorize the book myself, handle the format, do everything a major publisher would do, and take all the blame! I am not sure what the future looks like, and perhaps it will turn out I should have sat on The Skull Ring (there's an image for you...) for another 10 years. But right now, on March 1, I am stepping out onto the ice. I hope you stand by with a rope and a warm cup of joe.

Because this will require either caffeine or a noose...
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The Great Kindle Wars of 2010

One totally overlooked aspect of this is that the Big Six are actively nailing down authors for the Long Tail. I am intimately aware of several contracts that give the publisher eternal ebook rights as long as a laughable minimum royalty is achieved...$50 earned in six months in some cases, $200 or so seeming to become a new standard. Authors should be outraged. I have suspicion part of this high ebook pricing is to get more time to rope authors into these eternal deals and build up a huge catalog of ebooks while only paying authors 10-20 percent forever.

And it's an issue authors really don't want to talk about, and publishers certainly won't. Authors are getting screwed worse than anyone, however this goes. I understand many authors are reluctant to reveal contract details. But I can say with Kensington I simply licensed my work in the US for seven years, getting a shifting percentage for various formats. For ebooks, it's a 50/50 split of proceeds, which actually is fair if the publisher is backing you in print. It was fair to me at the time. I would certainly think differently now, especially about the seven years, and especially if the titles are not made easily available as ebooks at reasonable prices (only one is currently available for Kindle). The way I look at it, my partner publisher and I have lost (and are currently losing) a ton of easy money and potential audience. How can that be good for either of us?

We're taught to be so grateful when we get a book deal, and that we are so lucky, we shouldn't question anything. And, I know the delirium of getting accepted can leave one not worried about the fine print. Even as much as two years ago, I thought electronic rights were no big deal, and I think these are matters of personal perspective--because I read on a computer all day, the thought of doing it for leisure just gives me a headache. I didn't foresee screens without backlighting. I didn't grasp the convenience that would cause people to want a library of 1,500 titles on their hand-held, portable readers, or that they would vastly expand their subject areas, genres, and interests.

Authors who are signing pittance royalty deals on their ebooks are really going to regret it, and I think it's going to be a factor in the Great Kindle Wars of 2010 when a few megasellers break ranks. I still seek print deals and good partners because I believe that's the success model of the future. Yet I also value myself enough not to be a lifelong indentured servant who is not fairly compensated.

By the way, did I tell you I had a new ebook out?