

Charlie Stross on Common Misconceptions About Publishing: Ebooks - bensummers
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/cmap-9-ebooks.html

======
patio11
_I get this a lot from dedicated ebook readers: "I don't care about formatting
and design in ebooks!"

I think this is a peculiar kind of brain damage or mental scarring..._

As someone who shares this "brain damage", these lines puts me in the mood of
a designer who, seeing objective statistical evidence that his redesign was
outperformed by the older, uglier website, dismisses the metrics and rants
about art for a few hours.

~~~
petercooper
Except, the most significant layout and typography issues involved in book
design and usability _have_ been studied. A basic example would be in the use
of fully justified text versus ragged right:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1286700> .. that topic not scream
"design" to you, but it's all part of producing a high quality book. So are
choosing the right typeface(s), the right text size(s), page layout, and more.

Authors and book designers who have high production values aren't all arty-
farty designers who just want things to look cool. To many, just getting it
_right_ objectively (versus the subjectiveness of design as "art") is
important, and there are ways and means of doing that. For example, the
average Edward Tufte book shows a high level of attention to detail in matters
of underlying design and usability, rather than pure aesthetics.

Readers _should_ care about book formatting and design at a basic usability
and readability level. You might not want pompously "designed" books, sure,
but having easily read type in a usable layout is paramount (in the sense that
a Web surfer wouldn't like to read beige text on a yellow background). Sadly,
it seems not to be as big an issue as it could be as the jaw-droppingly bad
typography on the Kindle demonstrates:
[http://redubllc.com/2009/01/a-typographic-critique-of-the-
ki...](http://redubllc.com/2009/01/a-typographic-critique-of-the-kindle/) \-
[http://qwan.org/2009/05/17/kindle-typography-goes-
craptacula...](http://qwan.org/2009/05/17/kindle-typography-goes-craptacular/)
\- [http://www.teleread.org/2009/05/05/kindle-page-layout-and-
ty...](http://www.teleread.org/2009/05/05/kindle-page-layout-and-typography/)
(and oh so many more)

------
URSpider94
There is an interesting meta-discussion going on here, over whether content
curators add value. Most of the hackers that I've met tend to believe that
they would prefer to latch onto a raw content stream, then filter and format
it to their liking. No surprise -- that is the way of hackers, after all.

However, I do think that it's a conceptual mistake to assume that the public
at large would like to filter their own content. Even music sales, which are
pretty far down the road towards an openly accessible market, are still driven
by the major and minor labels. For books, I see an even stronger incentive to
keep paying others to filter our content. Reading is a big investment, time-
wise -- when people curl up with a book, e- or paper, they want to know that
it's going to be worth their time. And, yes, they probably want it to be
nicely typeset and proofread as well.

~~~
joubert
I think there are many books out there that aren't exactly masterpieces, put
out there by big publishers. Conversely, works that are big commercial
successes were for a long time shunned by publishers (JK Rowling).

Perhaps user reviews & ratings, and previewing books would be a good enough
filter? I mean people can already publish anything they want for free online,
and non-techies seem perfectly capable in filtering out.

------
MWinther
I don't agree that the reason people think an e-book is worth less is
overvaluating the cost of paper and ink. People feel that an e-book is worth
less than a paper book because the physical experience of handling a book is
worth more than the experience of reading a book on a computer or e-reader
screen. The e-book has other advantages, but we're not used to those and thus
it feels to many people like they're getting less.

Also, I believe that the author under-estimates other values inherent in a
physical book, such as the ability to lend it to someone else, at least as
long as DRM is the norm.

~~~
jacoblyles
I dislike the experience of reading a physical book. I tried to read a
textbook while I ate lunch today but I couldn't because it kept flipping shut
on me. Books require one hand (or a heavy object) to constantly hold them open
in order for them to be readable unless you're in the middle section of the
book. The alternative is to crease the spine, which will hurt the book's
resale value.

So I gave up trying to read the book at lunch and read something on my iPhone
instead.

Also, I dislike lugging around the bulk of books or multiple books. I really
can't wait until someone releases an eInk reader that can handle academic
books and PDFs. I might get impatient and buy an iPad.

But I suppose there are some people that fetishize the smell of wood pulp and
who love signaling how smart they are to the world with shelves of impressive-
looking unread books, and who therefore overlook a reading experience that is
superior in every other way.

~~~
mos1
_But I suppose there are some people that fetishize the smell of wood pulp and
who love signaling how smart they are to the world with shelves of impressive-
looking unread books, and who therefore overlook a reading experience that is
superior in every other way._

I'm a voracious reader, and have an iPad, a Kindle, and shelves of (mostly
read) books.

Out-of-print -- with e-books, that means it's _really_ out of print. With a
traditional book, it means you need to talk to a used book store.

Used -- you can't save money by buying your e-books used. Nor can you sell
them if you decide they have no further value to you.

Unanticipated Reading -- e-books are great for unanticipated delays where you
brought an e-book device, but didn't bring a book.

Outdoor use -- you can take a paperback up a mountain, onto a lake, or into
the jungle knowing that if it gets wet your losses are capped at $25, and if
you fall down, it won't be damaged. With the e-book, a fall or weather could
result in expensive damage.

Travel -- the paperback book doesn't need to be charged, doesn't need a power
plug converter, works during takeoff and landing, and doesn't immediately mark
you as a person who is worth robbing.

Portability -- you can carry a lot more e-books than books.

Search -- e-books are great for reference texts, where you intend to do a lot
of searching for content, rather than linear reading. paper indexes are good,
but not as powerful.

Markup -- e-books have a 'highlight' capability, and some note capabilities
that seem like they'd work nicely in an academic context, but I generally
prefer my system of post-it notes, scribbles in the margin, and underlines,
which doesn't cleanly translate to e-books.

Disaster Recovery -- e-books are replaced from backups, or not at all. books
are replaced by homeowners insurance payout.

Public Image -- my iPad and Kindle both mark me as an early adopter tech guy.
a book likely says nothing about me, unless the person looking has an opinion
about the title in question.

Permanence -- I'm relatively confident that my paper library will endure for
as long as there's somebody who values the content of the books. I'm not
confident my e-book library will be usable in 10 years. (between DRM, format
incompatibility, and accidental data loss.)

Images -- books currently beat e-books pretty solidly when it comes to
imagery. I can't really imagine getting a Photography book as an e-book at
this point in time.

Visual ease -- e-books let you adjust the font, but paper books are often
(though not always) easier to read.

\----

Or maybe e-books are superior in every single way, and I only buy books to
fetishize the smell of wood pulp, whilst filling shelves to signal to my wife,
kids, pets and good friends that I'm intelligent.

 _sigh_

~~~
jacoblyles
Many of your points in favor of paper books exist because of flaws in the
Copyright regime, not the eBook format itself. Fortunately there exists ways
to (partially) circumvent the copyright regime. And hopefully market norms
will evolve to be more open and permissive over time.

Books are the next vinyl records. Sure, there are some advantages to them.
Enthusiasts will cling to them for a long time, mostly because of feelings of
nostalgia and the desire to mark themselves as members of a particular
subculture. But the advantages of digital formats are so large that books are
going to be relegated to niche markets. Considering my own personal reading
habits, I can't wait for that to happen.

Indeed most of your arguments in favor of books can also be made to support
CDs or vinyl records over digital music.

Lastly, you forgot to mention the environmental impact of books and eBooks.
Books have to be manufactured and carted around. eBook devices also have this
drawback, but eBooks themselves do not.

~~~
mos1
_But I suppose there are some people that fetishize the smell of wood pulp and
who love signaling how smart they are to the world with shelves of impressive-
looking unread books, and who therefore overlook a reading experience that is
superior in every other way._

Your original statement was not set in a possible future, or in an
theoretically different copyright regime.

Today, in the world we live in, books and e-books each continue to have their
own strengths and weaknesses, with substantial portions of the market being
better served with paper books, and a growing portion being better served by
e-books, as reader technology improves.

Your comment was wrong. It was very, very wrong. And it still is.

And now I'm going to go curl up with a paper book, and fall asleep. I'm not
using one of my readers, because that's a recipe for a broken reader.

------
joubert
Even though editorial, typesetting, and publicity costs may be comparable
between ebooks and physical books, the ebook medium overcomes the problem of
inventory costs, which, I understand from author friends are substantial. Many
books go out of print every year because, although there are still willing
buyers, the cost of producing lower volumes and keeping warehouses stocked
outweighs the benefits in the traditional book publishing model.

I'm also surprised the author of this piece implies (?) the cost of setting up
and maintaining a physical press is basically zero. Swish offices on 6th Ave
would possibly also be less necessary in an ebook-dominated world where there
is a more direct line between authors and their readers (customers).

~~~
URSpider94
There are a lot of data points on the web for these costs, here's one example:
[http://journal.bookfinder.com/2009/03/breakdown-of-book-
cost...](http://journal.bookfinder.com/2009/03/breakdown-of-book-costs.html)

So, for a mass-market hardback book, printing costs represent about 10% of the
list price, less than just about any other component. Certainly, eliminating
the printing costs alone would not knock a dramatic amount off of the consumer
price of the book, assuming, that is, that book pricing is based on a "cost-
plus" model, which it clearly is not.

------
jacquesm
That piece completely turns my intuition about how the writing world works on
its head. I always thought that writers wrote books, editors trimmed them and
publishers sold them.

I never thought that publishing an e-book required as much work as a 'regular'
book, other than the removal of the printer, but it does make sense.

In a way it's a pity, but maybe this could be cured by writers hiring free-
lance editors and marketing on a performance basis?

~~~
mechanical_fish
_writers hiring free-lance editors and marketing on a performance basis?_

This idea is a common trap for newbie writers. A very _very_ common trap. To
the point that there are an absolute plethora of scam artists lying in wait to
"accept" your manuscript in exchange for a fee, "edit" it in exchange for
another fee, send it to Lulu.com for you in exchange for a fee, get it listed
by Amazon for a fee, and "market" it for a fee.

The non-solution of self-publishing was discussed at length during the
"amazonfail" incident a few months back. Here's a novelist on the subject:

<http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/563086.html>

~~~
joubert
Interesting. I wonder if it doesn't make sense then for an authhor and editor,
when they work on an ebook together, share the revenue, instead of an upfront
split? That way, both are incentivized to put the best work out there.

~~~
sethg
When a manuscript for a novel—especially a novel by an unknown writer—hits an
editor’s desk, neither the author nor the editor really knows for sure whether
the story is going to be a hit, a bomb, or something in between. The current
publishing world is organized so that the publisher, which has much deeper
pockets than the author, commits money up front (not just the author’s advance
but the salary of the editor and other personnel); if the book turns out to be
a hit, the publisher takes on a better-than-50% share of the profit. This risk
structure, as far as I can tell, is independent of the medium in which books
are published.

Also, when a publisher associates a certain imprint with a book, it advertises
something about the book’s contents. (What image does “an O’Reilly book” or “a
Baen book” evoke in your mind?) That kind of endorsement is extremely valuable
to an author who hasn’t already become a celebrity, and an author-editor team
working independently couldn’t duplicate that effect unless the _editor_ was a
celebrity. And by the time an author or editor becomes a celebrity, he or she
has already built up a mutually profitable relationship with a publisher. (You
don’t see Stephen King or J.K. Rowling offering their next books through
lulu.com, do you?) Again, this effect has little to do with the medium in
which books are published.

~~~
joubert
JK Rowling is a great example where big publishers can miss the boat. She was
rejected by no less than 12 publishers for Harry Potter. Bloomsbury, Rowling's
independent publisher owes much of their success to the Harry Potter series.

~~~
dagw
The interesting question is how much of JK Rowling's success does she owe to
Bloomsbury? If she'd given up after her first 10 rejections and tried to self-
publish would any of us ever have heard of her? I think a lot of people
underestimate the amount sales and marketing work publishers do.

~~~
joubert
I suspect it was highly symbiotic, in addition to winning all those writing
contests.

------
donaq
_My prediction is this: ebooks will kill the mass market paperback
distribution channel._

Hmm. I usually prefer to read paperback novels than their ebook counterparts,
the main reason being that there's a barrier to reading something I don't know
about and then looking it up on wikipedia and hey, there goes 30 minutes of
link following, after which there's a 50% chance I don't return to the book. I
wonder how many readers are like me?

------
icefox
Publishing is an industry full of turmoil at the moment it seems like, what
opportunities are being presented as a result of this?

------
ableal
Two mostly factual items:

\- E-ink readers seem to be coming down in price - Borders will be selling the
6 inch Kobo for 150 USD ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1328438> ).
There are also various recent, cheaper, models with 5-inch e-ink screens, but
same 800x600 pixels, which I think will do fine for fiction.

\- Elsewhere in these comments, jacoblyles said "I really can't wait until
someone releases an eInk reader that can handle academic books and PDFs". In
my opinion, the 10-inch e-ink readers do an acceptable job. I have a KindleDX,
and PDFs of books, papers and theses can be read sequentially fine. Skipping
around and jotting annotations are not so convenient ...

Handy overview of devices:
<http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix>

~~~
ahoyhere
I have the Kindle DX also, and it's too low contrast and the type on most
academic papers (that I read) is far too small.

I'm 25, so it's not as if it's my eyesight that's the problem.

On the other hand, reading them on my iPad with a tool like iAnnotate, I can
not only make the text bigger, but mark the PDFs up with highlights, boxes,
and notes (which are PDF format standards -- not special to the app itself).
And transfer them over wifi.

------
jbrennan
eBook readers have a clock and a dictionary. Paper is dead to me.

~~~
jteo
You don't own a watch? =)

~~~
jbrennan
Not any more. Clock at the top of all my displays. If I'm not staring at a
display doing work, I'm reading on my iPad or iPhone; clocks abound.

------
Raphael
He forgot my favorite book formats of all, HTML and plain text.

~~~
joubert
Epub, arguably the universal ebook format, is really just a fancy zip-based
Package of html resources. IBM has a nice guide for hackers about creating an
epub file:
[http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/tutorials/x-epubtut/in...](http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/tutorials/x-epubtut/index.html)

------
ahk
Authors like Stross or Scalzi need to see this bit about "Learned
Helplessness" here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness>

Their attitude of publishers being all-powerful is one that needs to die.

~~~
EdwardCoffin
I'm not sure how to interpret this. I get the sense that you believe that
Stross and Scalzi are rationalizing what you believe is learned helplessness
on their part? If so, that isn't what I believe they are saying. I think that
Stross is mostly expressing that publishers contribute significantly more to
the bookmaking process than most people think, and that these contributions
are actually useful.

~~~
ahk
What they have said and are saying is that the publishers are so powerful that
they, the content creators, don't even get a say in setting prices or
demanding better returns, because that's the way it's always been done.

Any requests to them to stand up for their readers (like the recent pubisher
price control mechanisms on ebooks or DRM schemes or region controls) results
in a "Haha, you're kidding right? We have zero control over what the
publishers do with our output".

I'm saying, the publishers have nowhere to go if you dont write the books. The
relationship is a total inverse of what it should be. Even music artists,
normally thought to be clueless/careless on real world matters, are already
taking big stances on DRM and their ability to distribute/sell etc and
sticking up for their fans. The writers' backwardness (and plain old
ludditism) in this regard is mighty strange.

~~~
Avshalom
Music and writing are two very different industries though.

For musicians record sales have never been the revenue stream, a musician gets
paid an advance and then they make more money touring selling merchandise and
eventually from licensing royalties after the advance and marketing gets paid
back.

For writers book sales are pretty much the only revenue stream, they get an
advance and a cut of every book sold, then what? Writers can occasionally
swing speaking engagements but by and large there's no merch, no tour, movies
don't pay people so they can read passages in the background.

If writers aren't in a hurry to drive ebook prices down to $0.50, it's not
because they think publishing houses are powerful, it's because they like to
eat.

EDIT: Another problem thing to remember is that a song, at 3 minutes or so,
can be rapidly iterated hundreds of times, and done so at paying gigs.
Listeners can stand in for the editorial process to a degree.

A 400 page novel has a minimum iteration speed of probably a week, and
normally several weeks, which the author is not getting paid during, and how
many people are willing to read the sometimes subtly different 400 pages a
dozen times.

~~~
ahk
Granted that they are different industries, but still you'd think the putative
intelligentsia of our times, our writers and story tellers, especially in sci-
fi, would be ahead of the curve and not so far behind it.

