E books Coming to Kilmurry?
Well, just when life seemed to be settling down into one pattern here at Kilmurry house, a surprise e-mail has The Wolf scrambling about in a different direction. The jewelery business going more or less on schedule for a late Spring start up. The guys are busy designing, casting, cataloging and office finishing. Me doing paperwork and trying to keep some semblance of home cooked meals on the table. And in-between everyone working on our next SCA event, which is being thrown by our group in two weeks time. All this, was already going on, when out of the clear blue, The Wolf gets not one, but two e-mails from publishers wanting information on his books. One of them is an e-publisher we contacted but the other was a hard copy publisher and a complete surprise.
They wanted to look at different books, which is great. The downside is all books were on the old computer. The one with the broken key board. The computer that is so old that it has no US B port. A new computer has arrived but is not set up yet, and even if it was there is no direct way to transfer the material before tech minded friend visits next week. So, on the way to the dentist today, old fashioned floppy disks were bought and husband is now in the process of downloading four books onto them. Using the mouse, which he detests, because there is no keyboard.
The e-book publisher wants to see a trilogy that Husband (aka The Wolf) and I did together a few years ago, but was only published in Germany. Its a sort of dark historical fantasy Trilogy set in 14 century Germany. All the US and UK publishers rejected it because well, it was "too German" ....Go figure. They also couldn't find a category to fit it into, and these days in the new market driven publishing word, if they can't decide what slot your book goes into, it doesn't get printed. Editors couldn't decide if it was Romance, Fantasy or Historical Novel. So, the marketing departments decided it would become nothing. Except in Germany, where publishers get a lot of federal money to publish books in German, so they are still free to print what they like.
Back when we were still trying to get these books published in English, our agent sent them to a Romance publisher to see if they were interested. We got back, what must be one of the most revealing rejection letters of all time. It said (and I'm not making this up)
"The writing in this book is too good for this genre"
So ladies, next time you are wondering why your hero is speaking like Conan on a bad hair day as he sweeps his lady off her feet or why historical details of her bodice consist of "it was a lovely shade of green" you now know why. Publishers don't think you are intelligent enough to care if the history in your historical romance is even barely correct. Despite the fact that lots of ladies I know who read bodice busters really do know what a bodice is supposed to look like. Even if they don't, they would like to and that includes more information than an unknown shade of green.
Its not just us, the book publishing industry has been so taken over by sales departments in the last ten years that they seem to have lost site of a lot of their readers. Sales departments only care about profit figures, not how good or interesting a book may be. Its only a question of "can we market it so it will sell?" The result is lots of books by the same best selling authors, with the occasional unknown that they can pay a small contract too. The people that get lost are what they used to call "mid-list" authors. The ones who could make a reasonable, if not lavish, income by writing.
This has resulted in a lot of career changes over the last ten years, in our case the jewelery business. Sadly, it has also produced a lot of never written books as people drop out of the field. In the 1950's through the 1980's, most novelists that got on the New York Times Best Seller lists didn't do it until their fourth or fifth book. Practice helps in book writing, just as it does in any other field. Now, even a lucky author gets about once chance with major book publisher. Since most books are not going to be best sellers, this produces a large attrition rate.
Enter to the rescue, e-books. The latest way to get books published. Higher percentages to the author, can even mean better money for the writer. Provided there are enough sales to matter.
I've been doing a lot of research on e-books and their publishers the last few weeks. So The Wolf could decided what he wanted to do. First i l learned that they can be anything from the electronic versions of "vanity press" sites (the sort you pay to have your book published on) to electronic book sections with in established traditional publishing houses. In the middle, was the group we sent the letters out to. These are what may be some of the new up and coming businesses of the twenty-first century. Professional publishing companies that edit, encrypt, market and maintain e-books on the world wide web. A few (including the one we are submitting to) also do limited runs of popular titles in paperback for specialty markets (like science fiction book stores). Either way, e-books greatly limit the up-front costs to a publisher. Only the best known authors usually get money paid in advance, but the royalty payments are much larger than hard-back books generate. The publisher isn't risking a lot of money on wasted paper for books that don't sell. And marketing is mostly done on the web.
And, as The Wolf pointed out, it means that effectively books no longer need to ever really go out of print. This is good for readers in general, but could be vital in some academic fields. In the last few years, a lot of academic presses have been in big trouble too, and some books need to be published somewhere, even if only five scientists in the world can use them. With an e-book, this is a lot easier. Even better if there's an option to pay more and have a printed copy made. After you've read the book in the first place and known you really need a hard copy.
I gather one of the things that has stalled the use of e-books has been the inability of the electronics industry to come with a really good e-book reader. Which is strange, considering how many gadgets they tend to come up with. I think it may have something to do with the relative nerd factor that exists among computer people in general. Everyone I know who works in the industry has a PDA, Palm Piolet or souped up Mobile Phone they can already read their e-books on. And my younger friends, seem to have no trouble reading their e-books glued to a large computer screen. But those of us getting a bit older, really need a larger screen than three inches to read a book on. And, the thought of carrying even a lap top computer around is not ideal either. I gather that the computer industry has had a really hard time figuring out how to make a relatively simple, light weight and portable device with a large enough screen to read books on.
Personally, I think this is partly because they are distracted by the challenge of trying to make ever more powerful hand held computers that have more features than anyone could figure out in a life time. The result are smallish objects that in theory can balance your check book, keep a million addresses, surf the web, keep gazillion family photos, do your e-mail (by typing each key with a pencil shaped device), act as a mobile phone, hold hours of music files, and provide hundreds of games for you to play while you are in line at the supermarket. Oh, and by they way, you can read e-books on them. ....
They also are trying to do so many things at once, that their batteries tend to die out, long before you can finish the book. At least with the older models.
You know, my mother always hates buying appliances that are designed to handle more than one thing. She claims that each added feature, just gives you one more thing to go wrong. These complicated PDA devices have a reputation for this sort of trouble in spades. And even when they are working well, are far too complicated for the average person to buy just to read an e-book. Their tiny screens and high cost insure e-book reading is only going to be a result of already owning the device. Not the reason for its purchase.
But things may be starting to change. One new book club is providing a "free" e-book reader when you agree to join for one year. The cost is about the same as a traditional hard cover book club, except you get two e-books a month instead of hard copies. The other catch is that while there are a lot of competing e-book formats out there (another thing that makes e-books confusing) only their book club books will work with their reader. In the name of research I have joined this club and can give further reports on the the device when it gets here.
I'm sure that if this book club is in any way successful, other e-book publishers will get the same idea. And start looking around for suitable devices. I hope so, it would be so much easier to carry one e-book reader on a plane than the seven or eight books we have to carry now. I wouldn't want to see electronic books replace hard cover ones altogether of course. Printed Books can last centuries with proper care and climate control. Even the best electronic devices are lucky to last a decade. And they are considered hopelessly outmoded (like The Wolf's computer) by that time anyway.
So, while I am very glad we have a shot at an e-book contract, I'm also delighted that Wolf is getting some interest from a hard copy publisher as well. There are benefits and drawbacks to both systems. But I am so glad that e-books are providing some competition for the mainstream publishing industry. Maybe now my friends and I will be able to find something to read!
More Updates on this as they arrive,
Disaster Cat