Early in July Salon put up a February Barnes & Noble interview with Clay Shirky. This is a man on whom is heaped the praise, “Shirky has emerged as a luminary of the new digital intelligentsia, a daringly eclectic thinker as comfortable discussing 15th-century publishing technology as he is making political sense of 21st-century social media. I don’t know about all that, but the interview touched on the subject of the Gutenberg revolution, and the present day equivalent, so I read the interview.

The interview was not as focused as I would have liked, or as deeply insightful as Mr. Shirky was billed. That said, he manages to articulate some points well. An example:

So when I say “publishing is the new literacy,” I don’t mean there’s no role for curation, for improving material, for editing material, for fact-checking material. I mean literally, the act of putting something out in public used to be reserved in the same way. You used to have to own a radio tower or television tower or printing press. Now all you have to have is access to an Internet cafe or a public library, and you can put your thoughts out in public.

So what happened to literacy in the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s is that it went from being reserved for a specialist class to being a general feature of the middle class. The same thing is happening to publishing — the ability to put something out in public is becoming more important to society, but the delta between “I can put something out in public” and “I can’t put something out in public” is no longer so great that you can automatically make money simply by having access to the means of publication.

For more: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/07/09/clay_shirky/index.html

A few links to give an un-scientific snapshot of where ebooks currently stand in the book market.

Mashable.com⁽¹⁾ has an article up asking readers which they prefer more, ebooks or physical books. Being a tech leaning website I expected ebooks to score well with all the techno-phile readers. After all, people who avoid computers aren’t even going to participate in the survey, so ebooks have a significant edge. Surprisingly, whatever boost the gadget loving people gave the ebook, it was not enough. As of writing this article the survey stands with 23% saying ebooks are better 42% say physical books are better and 35% say both have their advantages. A survey that was not biased to tech users would have the ebook scoring even lower, so this says something about people’s prejudices, or the real life inferior experience of the ebook.

On that subject, Nielsen Norman Group discovered in a recent usability survey⁽²⁾ that it takes longer to read books on a Kindle 2 and iPad then reading a physical book. Reading speeds declined by 6.2% on iPad and 10.7% on the Kindle 2. This adds up to a significant amount of time when we’re talking about the hours it takes to read a longer book, and is the clearest evidence that the screens on ebooks are still not up to the quality of physical books.

But then, Amazon has recently said that sales of ebooks has outpaced the sales of hardcover books.⁽³⁾ While this says something, I’m not convinced it says as much as Amazon would like people to think. (It was clearly released as a PR gambit against the iPad.) Hardcover books hold a smaller portion of the publishing market than paperbacks, but I haven’t been able to get a clear figure on exactly what percentage of the market is hardcover. Also, it isn’t clear how much of Amazon’s sales were in hardcover before, compared to the rest of the book selling market. So, while yes, ebooks are selling more, Amazon’s information is very short on facts.

But, interestingly enough, the sales of physical books are doing well too. In the middle of June the Association of American Publishers released sales figures for books⁽⁴⁾ in April. Hardcover sales increased 49.2% from the previous year softcover increased 19.4% from the previous year, and ebook sales increased 217.3% from the previous year. While ebook sales are clearly experiencing explosive growth, it does not appear to be killing off either hardcover or softcover books.

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(1) http://mashable.com/2010/07/19/reading-faceoff-e-books-vs-print-books
(2) http://mashable.com/2010/07/02/ipad-kindle-reading-study/
(3) http://mashable.com/2010/07/19/amazon-kindle-sales/
(4) http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/aprilstats.htm

It can be interesting to read through articles in the publishing industry and see how different people, and companies, are reacting to the changes in the publishing world.

An example of a more embracing attitude would be David “Skip” Prichard the c.e.o of Ingram Content Group. Prichard’s attitude is that, “New players don’t know what the rules are, they simply do things as efficiently as they can to reach the most people. They will change the model repeatedly. History is an asset but also a challenge, because we need to adapt so quickly.” ⁽¹⁾

Another differentiator between those who fear the future of publishing and those who embrace it is their view on DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology. Those who truly understand and embrace the publishing future are looking beyond DRM. Those who are terrified of the future are scrambling to figure out what DRM they can use to lock down the world. TheBookSeller.com⁽²⁾ has a good article summing up some ideas presented at this years Tools of Change conference. It is a short article, but makes a brief summary on why DRM is not the way of the future. One quick quote: “You create piracy by the failure to release digital content. Don’t try to solve piracy: think about managing it.”

And then there are those who, by the very way they speak, demonstrate the depth of their failure to understand (or be willing to embrace) the future of publishing. At the BEA (Book Expo America) a bunch of prominent people in the publishing industry got together to talk about the future of publishing, and most of it was fretting, with comments like “Something’s radically wrong about the way the market has determined the value of the book.“⁽³⁾ (Ie, things are too cheap.) The article is a fascinating look into the bunker mentally of fear and fighting the future.

For more reading, check out my own, “The Future of Publishing Series.”
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(1) http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/trade-profiles/122935-looking-beyond-print.html
(2) www.thebookseller.com/news/113616-copyright-piracy-and-anti-drm-dominate-tools-of-change.html
(3) www.thebookseller.com/news/119510-publishers-express-fears-over-price-paperbacks-and-fragmentation-at-bea.html

I recently came across an article that gives a peak at the underside of the ebook publishing world. This falls under the category of “See How Much We Were Ripping You Off”:

SEATTLE — Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday it is now offering do-it-yourself authors and publishers royalties of about 70 percent on their e-books.

The online retailer in January had announced plans to offer users of its e-book self-publishing program, the Kindle Digital Text Platform, book sale royalties of 70 percent after delivery costs. Those costs generally amount to less than 6 cents per book, meaning authors will be able to earn $6.25 per copy on a book that sells for $8.99, nearly double the old rate of $3.15.

(Full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/30/amazon-increases-author-r_n_630646.html

So now we have the figures in black and white. The cost of distributing an ebook on a 3G network is 6 cents, and Amazon has graciously decided to stop holding authors over the barrel…quite as much. In reality, the author should be getting 90 or 95% of the profits. Why? Because the risk to Amazon in carrying an ebook is non-existent. There is no risk to Amazon. However, an author takes considerable risk devoting time to writing the ebook that is sold, and so deserves the majority of the profits. In the old publishing world of big book print runs, a publisher took considerable risk in publishing a book, and so got a larger portion of the profits–but that doesn’t apply to Amazon and ebooks.

I think you will see the author share of profits rising higher than this 70% because the different distributors are going to race to offer the most attractive deal, and as I’ve said it is a risk-free deal for them. It may never reach 95% of profits for the author, but I will be interested to see how close it will come.

Another thing that article demonstrates is the pressure for ebook prices to come down. The article mentions that, “Some major book publishers have demanded that Amazon allow them to raise prices on e-editions to as much as $14.99” which is completely appalling. That kind of pricing structure is clearly invented by someone rabid with fear that the old publishing model will disappear. In contrast to that, Amazon offers authors this higher profit margin if authors will keep there ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99.

The war is on, but I don’t think even Amazon’s price bracket is right. I think ebook pricing should be $2.99 and lower.

The one thing clear from the article is that neither Amazon nor the traditional publishing houses really have the author’s interests foremost in their plans. It is all about domination in the book world, and authors are but pawns in the war. So long as the contestants are fairly evenly matched, the battle will, in general, be good for consumers and authors. A monopoly win by anyone will be bad for the business.

For more reading, check out my own, “The Future of Publishing Series.”

Mike Shatzkin over at the Idea Logical Blog (http://www.idealog.com/blog) has his own opinion about the future of ebooks. In his view, he sees a more aggressive adoption of ebook readers. He sees an estimate of 50% of book sales being ebooks in 5 years as low. My current views are more conservative.

I do agree with his complaint about DRM technology, and his opinion that ebooks are a good thing. His piece is worth reading to get a different opinion.

One thing I think in particular which is worth noting is how quickly the price of ebook readers is coming down competition is a good thing. I’m not surprised that the prices are coming down. If you’d asked me earlier I would have told you that ebook reader prices would eventually come down to $100. If the prices drops that are currently happening continue, we could see ebook readers for less than $100.

But there is one fly in the ointment: I suspect that currently ebook reader devices are being subsidized by the high price of ebooks. If the price of ebooks go down, the price of the readers may need to go up. (And some device manufacturers will likely go out of business.)

There will be much change in this market.

Link: http://www.idealog.com/blog/big-publishers-have-reason-to-be-happy-about-how-the-book-market-is-evolving

PediaPress is an example of what part of the future of print on demand publishing will look like. The following is from a press release by Ingram the parent company of Lightning Source, a print on demand company:

PediaPress teams with Ingram’s Lightning Source on Wikipedia custom book application

La VERGNE, TN – Ingram’s Lightning Source Inc. today announced an expansion of its work with PediaPress, an organization that provides users with tools to create customized books from wiki content. Lightning Source will support the PediaPress Create a Book custom book feature on the English language Wikipedia site with book manufacturing and distribution.

“With our innovative Create a Book platform, we required a technologically advanced company that understood the web-to-print model, and could satisfy our requirements,” said Heiko Hees, Managing Director of PediaPress. “We needed a professional and reliable organization with high quality one-off book manufacturing and a globally distributed print network, and we found that with Ingram’s Lightning Source.”

[...]

The Create a Book feature from Wikipedia enables a user to build a custom book from the articles chosen from their search on Wikipedia and other wiki sites that are supported by PediaPress’ book creator feature. Upon the completion of content collection, the user creates a book title, adds an editor name and selects a cover photo from a group of images and photos associated with the content selected. A 30-page preview is provided to the user for review. The user purchases the book online from the PediaPress web site, and book files are then uploaded to Lightning Source for manufacturing. Printed books are then shipped to their final destination from the closest of Lightning’s networked print facilities.

(http://www.ingramcontent.com/newsroom_detail.aspx?id=291)

The technological sophistication to do this is pretty cool. The idea that you can assemble a book of material on the web and have it printed and shipped to you requires a lot of stuff working together. Just wait until this comes to public domain books via the Gutenberg website, (http://gutenberg.org,) or similar. Then what if publishers start allowing customers to make (and pay) for books with content from authors of their choosing?

Currently the PediaPress website (http://pediapress.com/) has a video demonstrating how one would go about creating a book. It’s worth watching if you want to see how easy it is, or if you are considering trying it out.

Since I have my ongoing series of essays about the current changes in publishing⁽¹⁾ I was pleaseed to stumble across an interview with Neil Gaiman in which he touches on this very subject. If Neil Gaiman says something, it has to be true, right?

An excerpt from the interview:

And what about the changing role of publishers in the book world?

[Neil Gaiman]: I feel right now as if we are at the end of something. And I am very pleased that I got in before it finished. Publishing was always predicated on the concept of the gatekeeper, and on the fact that it was expensive and difficult to get something into people’s hands. That is no longer true. We are still in a world that needs gatekeepers, but only just. When I was a young book reviewer, the early 1980s, I was reading all the science fiction and fantasy and horror that was being published in the UK during the course of the year, plus other stuff. It was perfectly readable by one person. That would be impossible today: you have gone from there to a world in which it is easier than it has ever been to get your information out there, to do your thing.

And another bit:

Do you feel it is a good time to be a young writer?

[Neil Gaiman]: It’s an amazing time to be a young author. Your options are almost infinite. The playing field may not be perfectly flat, but it’s really so much flatter than anybody every believed. The truth is, if I were starting out right now, writing short stories or whatever, I would build my little off-the-peg website, no need for a publisher at that stage, maybe never. Although I’m fascinated by how many mainstream publishers keep an eye on the web for people who are good. But just the idea that I could get stuff done and out like that, that I wouldn’t be dependent in any way on any other gatekeeper.

[Interviewer]: I think a lot of older authors have sour grapes about it: it was rather cosy to be removed from that messiness. It makes me feel we’re getting back to something like the early days of newspapers as scurrilous rags, and of authors hawking their wares, their stories, on the streets and by subscriptions.

[Neil Gaiman]: I love the messiness of it. I think in some ways we’re back even earlier than that, at the point where you turn up at the village and you say, give me a meal for the night and I’ll tell you stories. So, yes, it is a good time, a really good time to be a young writer. Any time that all of the rules are changing is a good time.

Full interview is over at the Prospect Magazine: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/06/neil-gaiman-the-prospect-interview/.

HT: 4th Guy.⁽²⁾

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(1) Rundy’s essay series on the future of publishing: http://creative-vapors.com/essays/the-future-of-publishing-essay-series/
(2) 4th Guy’s blog post linking to Neil Gaiman interview: http://4thguy.blogspot.com/2010/06/exerpt-from-interview-with-neilhimself.html

Worked late today to add my next essay in the “Future of Publishing” series. This essay is titled, “Will Ebooks Rule?” I felt I had trouble boiling the topic down for a presentation that was concise and yet thorough. Future revisions might help, but some of my thoughts simply have to be saved for a separate essay.

An excerpt:

It is all the rage now to say that ebooks are the future of publishing. There is no better way to make yourself a predictable sage then to proclaim that ebooks herald the demise of paper books, and in a decade we’ll see scarcely a printed book around. Or something like that. While I have gone on the record to say that we are in the middle of a publishing revolution, I believe these popular predictions about ebooks are wrong. Ebooks will have a part of the publishing future, but they will not cause paper books to become nearly extinct. Ebooks will surely remain a minority player in the book publishing field. (Read more.)

Read the whole article, and have your say.

Yesterday I dug four holes four feet deep. Anyone who has dug holes for concrete pillar forms knows what I nightmare this can be. These are the rare times I envy the Southern folk, those who have the soft sandy soil, and no concerns about a four foot frost line. Putting in a porch down there isn’t so much trouble.

But I’m here, not down there, and so yesterday I dug. With a shovel. With a post hole digger. With an steel bar. It is an activity that feels close to a full body workout–especially when you get near the four foot depth, when getting dirt out requires going all the way down and then back up again. You can squat, you can bend over, but no matter how you do it you must go up and down, up and down, until you are quite sick of it. All the while you must haul tiny amounts of dirt out of the hole, using your arms and shoulders in what feels like the most un-ergonomic position possible. It’s like Chinese water torture, except a lot heavier, and more sweaty.

The first three holes went okay. Life actually felt sane, then. The ground wasn’t too rocky, so I could just plug along, pacing myself. But as the day began to head toward its conclusion, and my energy began to ebb, there came the last hole. It was very rocky. Worse, my helpers were working on a very rocky hole as well, and required my assistance. So I got to move from one rocky hole to another.

This was when life began to take on a tinge of madness. Removing the rocks required wielding an increasingly heavy steel bar against objects which were getting increasingly further away as the hole deepened. And so it became increasingly harder. It was like banging your head against a wall, except in this case to reach the wall you had to shove yourself into the depths of a hole.

Fighting rocks with a large steel bar is exhausting. By the time we stopped for supper, I was utterly spent. And there are more holes to dig–hello, Saturday!

I always find it interesting how my body reacts to physical labor. I’m in pretty good shape so my situation is a little different from your average person. I actually could get out of bed this morning, and while I moaned and groaned a little about being stiff and sore, I was not immobilized, and I was only a little stiff and sore. In honor of yesterday I decided I wouldn’t lift any weights today, but I did go on my bike ride.

I am not yet so old, or out of shape, that I cannot bounce back fairly quickly. For that I am immensely grateful, because it means I can all the more quickly turn around and murder myself all over again. At the time of working, especially when I am really pounding the stone, I feel it most in my shoulders and upper arms. The next day my lower back is very sore to the touch, because when I am using the post hole digger I absorbed the lower grade digging impact there. But the award for most weird recover goes to my hands.

Digging post holes requires hand strength. The harder the digging, the more hand strength is needed. When I stopped yesterday, my hands was spent. They were achy, crampy, and trembling. I didn’t pay it much mind. Then I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and my hands felt very strange. The felt like they were on fire–or, more precisely, like a huge amount of blood was rushing to my hands. My hands felt over-sized, and in particular the meat of my right thumb, which now felt like it was the size of a very large chicken drum-stick. Of course my hands had not really swollen up that much, but the sensation was an indication of how much blood was rushing to my hands in the over-drive to repair and replenish all the damage and depletion from the work.

Today, my hands are back to normal, mostly. But after last nights experience I can see how life-long laborers get their massive hands. If I dug post holes every day I quickly would have a grip strong enough to crack every joint in your hand.

I added the essay “No Going Back” to the website. I think this essay stands out as one of the best written. It is sharp and concise.

An excerpt:

On the 4th of July, the extended family held a gathering at an RV campground in Pennsylvania. A pavilion was rented, food contributions lined up, and then the day arrived.

As it happened, I had been to the RV campground many years ago. Those many years ago Grandma and Grandpa had a camper at the campground, and for two or so summers they took grandchildren to visit. I remember the dirt paths, the swimming pool, the creek, and the waterfalls. Now, over a decade later, I find myself returning. The journey there seems so familiar, and yet vague, as I make the last few turns. Then the campground is in sight, and the memories come back. (Read more.)

There won’t be another essay tomorrow, because I have plans to dig some holes all day.