Atomic Fez Publishing

Continuing on from yesterday’s calm, cool, collected, and logically argued… ahem… rant, it’s fair to expect we agree that electronic books need to have a distinct advantage over printed books if they’re going to stop being seen as ‘not a real book’. When compared to any version of a title in printed form, e-​​books need to be cheaper than the edition in Mass-​​Market Paperback (or MMP), easier to get hold of than trying to locate a used copy for an out-​​of-​​print title, and DRM–free so there’ll be no problems down the line with file formats. All fine so far, but it is easily argued that this set of requirements is not exclusive to the electronic book format; the same list could be applied to making cheaper paperbacks more widely available.

Is there any distinct advantage to digital books instead of what we have now? Is there anything wrong with printed books; something that doesn’t work?

Yes, frankly. The fact of the matter is that the printed book is incredibly destructive, filthy, wasteful, and generally ecologically offensive. The pages of a novel carry disease like no one can imagine, they are vastly over-​​priced, they take up far more space than they ought, and they add incredible amounts of dust and detritus to our already filth-​​filled homes.

This is obviously taking the matter to the extreme, but hear me out. There many things we have come to accept about books, when we wouldn’t do so about any other object or part of our day-​​to-​​day routines. I’m not arguing the worth of the printed book per se; far from it! But to say that the format is perfect ignores a few aspects of the matter.

Placing tongue firmly in cheek, let’s go through those ‘evils of printed book ownership’, shall we?

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The pages of a novel carry disease like no one can imagine…

Anyone who has either read the book The Name of the Rose, or seen the film which was adapted from it, is already aware of the pestilential potential of the pocket paperback (or any binding, I just used the soft-​​cover option for its alliterative appeal). Not only can a page be specifically treated for the murderous provision of poison, occasionally books are soaked in opium for the purposes of smuggling the material in a seemingly undetectable form. If a drug-​​sniffing dog were to begin ‘signalling’ when pointing at a book, who would consider it anything but a ‘false positive’ caused by the romantic smell of paper and paste?

To return to the germs, however: when you walk into a storage room in the basement of a library, “that old book smell” is you sucking mould into your nasal membranes. That’s right: bacterial growth, left to create who knows what sort of form of multicellular filaments – or hyphæ – that prompt you to say “ahhhh… the smell of old books…” and may also be responsible for you contracting a debilitating lung disease such as pneumonia that is still a leading cause of death among the young, the old, and the chronically ill.

So, if you hear that someone’s ageing mother has just returned to her home after having surgery, you might want to re-​​think giving her that first edition copy of Bleak House.

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They are vastly over-​​priced…

Actually, they probably ought to be far more expensive than they are. The Recommended Retail Prices (RRP) are kept artificially low through production costs based on discounts being applied for larger volumes of initial print runs. Sometimes, it’s actually cheaper to run twice as many books as you need; not just on a per-​​unit cost basis, but over-​​all cost of the entire print run.

Thus, most books, especially MMP editions, are produced in quantities that permit low RRPs to be achieved, yet it is pre-​​planned  that a goodly portion of the now considerable production run will be literally thrown away. It would cost too much to store them, yet their being made lowers the cost due to the volume of the numbers of copies.

Now that we have the books made, they then have to be shipped all over the world in ships and vehicles (some of them possibly using Wankel Rotary Engines… see yesterday’s post for more on that), which cause air pollution; they’re re-​​packaged by the publisher into their own boxes, after first throwing away the original ones; then they’re either mailed to you or to a store via more vehicles and creating more exhaust; you then drive to that store, creating more even exhaust; the store’s employees had to get to the shop somehow, and may have added their own exhaust to the atmosphere; then the copies of the book that the shop didn’t sell are shipped back to the wholesaler (more exhaust); and then they’re pulped, being the second lot of pulped copies of that title, as anywhere from 10%-35% of the original run was budgeted to be chucked from the word ‘go’.

Essentially, all of those wasteful practices, which are so much an anathema to how we urge corporation and citizen alike to proceed into the future with their behaviour patterns, are subsidizing the price you’re paying at the cash register. Yes, the extra copies being made mean that some poor sod in India, South-​​East Asia, or China have more work, but what is the real cost of that book you’re only willing to buy if it’s less than ten dollars? We’re willing to pay more for the ethically fair-​​traded, organic coffee, are we not?

Returning to the ecological concern, consider the newspaper and the ink which gets on our hands that we all love to complain about. You can have your newspaper delivered to your Kindle each day – advertising free, by the way – meaning that you can stay just as up-​​to-​​date as always without involving the needless destruction of trees, individual door-​​to-​​door delivery, etc. The first “R” is “Reduce”, don’t forget, not “Recycle”.

Kobo has announced they’re doing the same sort of thing later this summer, and this could very well be the only thing that will save the modern newspaper from extinction. Having my news shoved at me every morning in a convenient package on the doorstep is the only thing that keeps me from digging through web-​​sites for news coverage (although I do that as well sometimes). The contrast of an E Ink screen’s very light grey background and the black lettering is a perfect match to the black ink and very light grey newsprint of the daily paper, so there’s no change of experience there.

Magazines are the same thing, really: yes, instead of having my monthly issue of PC World mailed to me I could dig through their web-​​site for the latest reviews or tips on how to do things on and with my computer, but if the same content could be plonked onto my Kobo eReader where I can browse through it at my convenience, then that’s far better. That’s why magazines were invented, after all!

The principle advantage to this electronic delivery method – instead of printed paper being monthly mailed or delivered each morning – is the sheer reduction of production waste, paper, and hopefully a better profit line thereby keeping more writers, editors, photographers, and so on, employed and creating more things for people to read. Cynics can form a line on the right at this point, but if a news organization has a choice of shutting down altogether or finding a new way to do things and keep going, I can’t see anyone being laid off in the same amounts they have been in the past three years in the news and magazine industries.

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They take up far more space than they ought…

I’m not alone when I say “I need more bookshelves”, am I? At some point I may have to increase our wall space, as there’s little room to put any more up as it is!

One doesn’t want to have a copy of every single book one reads constantly around, some books are disposable. [INSERT YOUR OWN DAN BROWN /​ BARBARA CARTLAND /​ GLENN BECK JOKE HERE] Certainly, there are books that you want to have around permanently and refer to time-​​and-​​time again, yes; we all have many books like that which are valued beyond their cost for their possession. However, what if you just want to read something for idle curiosity’s sake? I’d wager that makes-​​up at least 33% of all recreational reading, if not more. You could certainly go to the Public Library and borrow a copy of whichever dead Swedish author is hot at the moment, but what if all the copies are out? Additionally, you have to get there somehow, which might mean causing more air pollution again, then you have to go back there to return the book, plus there’s the borrowing time limit that might be in conflict with something you’ve just had take place in your life.

Let’s face it: sometimes you just want to read some ‘mildly entertaining crap’, or you’re only vaguely interested in what book everyone’s chirping away about this week, and if you can get it as an electronic book for less money than buying the paperback – even ignoring the above wasteful production methods – and it’ll take up no more room in your home… well what’s wrong with that?

I read the entire “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Philip Pullman on my Kobo eReader, had no difficulty doing so at all, enjoyed it, it cost me less than the printed books would have, and now have no need to return to the books themselves. If I wish to, they’re still there in the reader’s memory as well as duplicate files on my hard-​​drive, but other than file space, they require no room to be assigned in my home. I’m not suggesting that this is in any way superior to owning the printed versions, I’m merely pointing out that it worked fine and my needs for the books’ enjoyment were met fully: provide me with words, tell me a story, entertain and enlighten me. All is contentment.

The fact that “you haven’t got anything to hold in your hand after plonking down your money” is precisely why spending anything over $15 for an e-​​book is ridiculous. Yes, formatting for e-​​books is specific to that format, and I spend a goodly amount to get it done for each of the Atomic Fez titles so that it’s done correctly, but once that’s done my production costs are complete; no matter the number of copies that are sold. People are far more prone to help you spread your costs out if the books are $5 each than if they’re $50 a pop.

An advantage of not having a printed book to hold in your hand is not having to work-​​out a way of disposing of a copy of The Undead Kama Sutra by Mario Acevedo that involves running through the middle of the night to leave the book on the steps outside of the local charity shop. Think about that the next time you shove your way through a stack of paperbacks you keep meaning to give away to someone.

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The one re-​​curring question about e-​​readers is “but I hate reading from a computer screen!”, or the other one I wholeheartedly agree with: “you can’t drag your PC into the tub!” Both of these things are reasons to use an e-​​reader like the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony, or any of the others. They are all self-​​contained, dedicated, hand-​​held reading units about the same size and weight as a paperback, utilizing low-​​energy E Ink screens that are identical to the same visual demand on the eye that paper requires.

If you’re considering getting into e-​​reading for the first time, and are considering various options, let me encourage you to avoid the iPad at once. Apple’s iPad, shiny though it may be, is the worst way to introduce e-​​reading to someone who is concerned about eye-​​strain.

There’s a fairly simple reason for this, and it’s the same reason that staring at a computer monitor of any variety, iPod Touch, or smartphone screen is similarly bad for these people: you’re staring at a big, bright, light emitting surfacfe. No matter what their feelings are on the use of computer monitors, anyone staring into a direct light has their eyes blink at a slower rate, which makes them dry out, which then causes the pain and fatigue typically called “eye strain”. While the new-​​fangled Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-​​LCD) monitors – those are the bright, flat-​​screen ones – are a vast improvement on the Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) of a few years ago – those are the big, heavy ones – the effect of a ‘reduced blink rate’ is the same. I heartily agree with Mr. Jobs about the incredible potential of the iPad’s use as a video device, as well as the wonderful possibilities of other visual media. The fact of the matter is, however, when one is reading text for an extended period of time, the most comfortable way to read is with the use of reflected light; just like paper or the E Ink screens of the Kobo eReader, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and so on. Sure, colour is exciting and spiffy, and the ability with the iPad to read graphic novels in their full tones as the artists originally intended you to is far superior to the varying number of grey tones of any E Ink display, but with that ‘advantage’ of colour comes a ‘disadvantage’ of eye strain, so we’re in a net position of ‘nil’ with the expensive iPad… plus you need to set-​​up a wireless coverage plan for the thing, so perhaps we ought to consider it a solid ‘loss’ when viewing it as an e-​​reader.

Yes, the people at Kobo have created an application for their books to be used on the iPad [HEAD HERE TO GET THAT], and there’s some pretty cool ways to use the iPad with any of the various applications designed for the unit. However, the only way you can possibly do anything about the ‘my eyes are burning’ effect is as follows: lots of bright light shining at you [left], or small amount of bright light shining at you [right]. Another way to describe it would be “bad” and “less bad”. Not really a choice wherein you actually like any option, is it?

Kobo’s iPad Application, showing ‘normal’ reading screen	Kobo’s iPad Application, showing ‘night time’ reading screen

Don’t get me wrong: this is not meant as a comment on the lack of ability by the people who developed the Kobo application, or any other of the iPad applications out there. This is the best that can be done, given the variety of screen the iPad uses: one that employs direct light. As is often the case, when a piece of equipment is used for a number of vastly different things, everything gets accomplished to a quality of ‘pretty good’ but nothing gets done ‘perfectly’. If you really are looking to try e-​​reading, you need to try an e-​​reader which is dedicated to that activity, and therefore uses the reflected light of E Ink.

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These are the days when electronic books start to actually ‘work’ and make sense for so many readers. Just as the Stanley Steamer wasn’t the end of the development of the self-​​powered motor-​​car, so too the e-​​readers of a decade ago were only the “proof of concept” items from which we’ve now developed the advanced formats and superior e-​​readers of today; and where the price has plummeted from the four-​​figure prices only interesting to the techno-​​toy addict, to that of the $150 Kobo eReader, which could easily be compared to the Henry Ford’s Model T, described by its maker as “so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one”.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 at 08:31 (UTC) and is filed under Books, Business, Industry Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.