E-Books of Wonder

Fast Company has a fascinating slide show on the evolution of the e-book.

I'm e-lusting after an iPad, but willing to wait on edition 2.0. Still, the scroll idea in the slideshow is astonishing.

As ever, I'm curious how the commercially-driven e-innovations can open opportunities for creative communities (aka literature).

Email. Listservs. Online magazines. Blogs. Social media. E-pads.

Been reading Sina Queyras's Unleashed, a book that emerged from a blog. More on that later. I like it. Among other things, it made me wonder about the difference between the e-book and the blog. The book has a couple "broken links." Words that were hyperlinked on the blog, but that sit flat on the page.

Can the e-book be more organized, coherent, focused than a blog - and also enable the sparks of insight from well chosen hyperlinks? (Hyperlinking, to my mind, is just as potentially brilliant today as it was in 1995, nearly the whole point of the interNET, to my mind.)

I've never read an e-book, in actual fact. The Kindle couldn't interest me less. But the iPad, with its rich media and multiple apps ... yummy.

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RELATED ... I received the following pitch, which I will share here as it is related to the above speculating....

Dear Michael Bryson:

Celebrated novelist Blanche Howard, 87, has released her new novel Dreaming in a Digital World as an original e-book. ....

We hope you will review Blanche Howard’s new novel on your blog and provide a link to it. We can also arrange an interview with the amazing Blanche Howard.

For a free download, click here http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/29176; go to the cart to purchase, then open a free Smashwords account and use the coupon code LZ25D. The e-book is also available for $4.99 at Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Apple e-bookstores. But you can offer the free download to your readers until January 15, 2011.

Book Publisher's Crisis

A report by Gordon Lockheed on Dooney's Cafe:

Are we approaching some sort of cultural Armageddon that will wipe out our book publishing industry while transforming Chapters/Indigo into a purveyor of cultural bric-a-brac and scented candles in which a few novels aimed at the diminishing stock of novel-reading little old ladies occupy a small corner of the floor?

Discuss.

Copyright Debate

The following was shared with Access Copyright Affiliates.

You might also want to check out an interesting post on this subject at John Degen's blog.

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By now you must have heard about the federal government’s summer-long consultations on reforms to the Copyright Act.

Like other creator and publisher organizations, Access Copyright will make formal submissions to the government on our priorities as your rights collective. Nevertheless, it’s vital that you also get involved to ensure your voice is heard.

This is because an important aspect of these consultations is being expressed online, and that debate is dominated by individuals who do not agree you should get fair compensation for digital and other reproductions of your works.

It’s a simple fact that users outnumber us. But Canadian users involved in the online debate are so adept at leveraging the Internet and social networks to their advantage, there’s a danger that your voices as Canadian creators and publishers will be drowned out by the chatter. Your interests need to be expressed as forcefully as possible, and it’s up to you to get involved to make that happen.

So what can you do? To begin with, go online and tell people who you are and what you do. Before posting a comment online, you do need to register, but not to worry, registration takes all of one minute. Tell them you need and deserve to get paid for what you do, and tell them why it’s in their interest as Canadians that you do. The more you make your presence felt, the more effective you will be.

What else can you do? Use social networking tools to generate discussion of your perspectives. Shoot a video of yourself, post it on YouTube and then Twitter or Facebook the link. We won’t even try to offer suggestions on being imaginative and provocative as that’s your domain, not ours. But do what you can, as often as you can, as loudly as you can, and encourage colleagues and friends to do the same.

Here’s a sample of the sort of message that needs to get out there:

“My name is Jane Doe and I’m a writer. I’ve published xx novels and xx plays in Canada, and I am read all over the world. This is my livelihood. It pays the rent and puts food on the table. I have a right to benefit from my work and get paid for it. I need to get paid, or I can’t go on. When someone reproduces my work for free, it destroys the market for it, and I suffer the consequences. Don’t let them make that legal. It’s not right, and it’s not fair. Creators need to get paid.”

That’s the bottom line: It’s only right, it’s only fair. Creators need to get paid.

Over to you!

Book Camp

Ack.

I missed Book Camp in Toronto on June 6, 2009, but I have caught up a bit online.

More here and here and here and here and here.

John Degen blogged about the event, which led me to another comment on his site: If Dan Brown can't make e-books work, who can? Which reminded me of a similar story involving Stephen King back in 2000.

Has anything really changed? I gotta think, yes.

Book Camp looks like it was a fabulous event -- and part of a vibrant, urgent conversation.

Wither books?

The Perilous Trade

Let's confess: Writers are odd. We have this strange view of literature, that is it something significant unto itself.

Literature qua literature, as the graduate students might say. It makes nothing happen.

This dysfunctional view has been stoked by the academy, though the englightened among us (read economists) know truly what's what.

Which is that, it's the economy, stupid.

Which means literature is subservient to the publishing industry, otherwise known as The Perilous Trade (M&S, 2003, 2007).

This rich and rewarding reference work by Roy MacSkimming is subtitled "Book Publishing in Canada 1946-2006." Reading it, one is likely to be amazed that there is any such thing as Canadian literature at all.

Perilous trade? More risky than rum running, readers are led to believe.

The ups-and-downs of the industry are all here, and surely this book is required reading in all Canadian publishing programs. The high level advice will surprise no one: Non-fiction makes money, trade publishing (i.e., literature) doesn't.

The publishing industry in Canada has weathered massive storms in the past six decades. A few people got rich, most didn't. It's all here: the Chapters debacle, the Stoddart debacle, the multinationals debacle, the rise of the internet, the rise and fall and rise (and fall?) of government supports, the post Expo 67 boom.

What isn't here (it's not what this book is about) is an analysis of how the forces of the industry picked winners and losers among Canadian writers. The book makes clear that there were many strong winds blowing. Surely this chaotic market influenced "Canadian literature" (I throw this category out there at the risk that it actually exists).

MacSkimming quotes the always striking John Metcalf on the recent state of publishing in Canada: "the manufacturing of celebrity by ignorant media and the manipulation of the audience by publicity budgets" (371).

He also quotes Karl Siegler, who "prophesied ... the great flowering of Canadian owned publishing since the 1960s will eventually prove to have been a one-generation phenomenon" (372).

One tries to remain optimistic. Is it about who owns the means of production or about the ability of Canadians to tell their own unique stories? Or just about the best writers being able to get their work in front of readers?

One just hopes the age old questions go on and on.

Is it good enough that Canadians maintain an ability to write best sellers and sell them internationally?

I say no. What kind of culture is that?

A boring one. But I'm just a literary snob.