Do You e-Book?

Sarah T. Schwab at Sunday OBSERVER (HERE) has at least one very strong opinion. . . “I dislike eBooks,” she boldly writes.  There it is, in clear black and white print.  Well, actually, it’s on my computer.  Go figure!  It’s a column on the internet declaring her dislike for ebooks.

She points out that Stephen King recently announced he would not be publishing Joyland as an ebook because he loves paperbacks so much.  I hope that doesn’t mean King will also refuse us the audio edition.



This is an interesting turn, because as Schawb points out, King was an early pioneer of the ebook.

I love to have a good hard copy of the text.  I understand those who actually want the book in their grubby hands.  In fact, I even  like the smell of some books.  A paper copy of a book is great for study, since it allows me to highlight and write in the margins.  However, I hold not animosity toward the ebook.  In fact, here are a few strengths of the ebook:

Ebooks

1. Easy travel.  You don’t need a bookshelf to bring your library with you.



2. Quick purchase.  No more long trips to the bookstore, hoping they have your book.  Now we find it on Amazon and buy it in a single click.  Hey, Amazon doesn’t even make you retype your password and buyer info. . . it really is “one click.”



3. No more retyping.  This is especially true of Bible commentaries.  It is nice to be able to cleanly copy and paste from book to word processor without having to retype the whole thing.  I mean, God Bless my PC Study Bible!  Used to be we preachers had to type the Bible passages word for word into sermon notes.



4. The ebook saves trees.  Why does a conservative need to bring this subject to the table?  Shouldn’t the liberal writers be the ones taking this up?  Oh well, I do believe we are stewards of the earth and should manage it wisely.  However, I don’t actually think a few more copies of The Stand in print is going to cause much more global warming.



5. The ultimate concordance.  Ebooks allow you to search them, giving the reader very quick results and the ability to dig through the book on a given subject much faster.  We used to have to rely on others to catagorize subjects in the book, hoping they found the same things as important as we did.  Now we can just type in the search word and go.  How many times does “M-O-O-N” appear in The Stand?  Well, you can find out pretty quickly now that The Stand is an ebook.



6. The ebook is cheaper.  I know, that’s not always the case.  And it opens a can of worms in the Stephen King world, since his books are sometimes the same price as the paper copies!  And, while I’m on that subject – shame shame on those of you who write bad reviews of the book on Amazon because you don’t like the Kindle price!  I thought I would miss the bookstore.   But now I just wander the bookstore aisle thinking, “I’ll bet this is cheaper on Amazon.”



7. Returns are easy.  Buy the wrong book?  Simple. . . you don't have to stand in line and explain why the book was a poor purchase decision.  Now you just fix it with a click.



8. Preview.  I  love this!  Amazon lets you preview the book before buying it. What drives me crazy is that so much of the copyright and opening pages suck up the preview portion.  Sometimes it's 20 pages of copyrights and "this book is for my cat" and prefaces to the introductions, that the preview is only 3 pages!  But still, the preview gives a glimpse of what you are about to lay money down for.

And here’s the deal: I don’t own a Kindle.  I don’t even like e-readers!  But I have the Kindle app on my computer, and it’s pretty handy.



Not only are books by King abudnant in the e-book world.  So are books about King.  In particular, Cemetery Dance has almost all of their books about King as ebooks; Quigley, Lilja in particular.

So tell me. . . what do y’all think of the ebook?


Reposted from July 1, 2012

JOYLAND comes to ebook

From stephenking.com:

On May 27, Hard Case Crime will publish the book for the first time in the classic rack-sized “mass-market” paperback format typical of pulp crime novels in the 1940s and 50s. The company will also release the novel for the first time in an e-book edition, in April 2014.

JOYLAND pirated

photo credit: www.guardian.co.uk
(From M John Harrison's review of Joyland)

That's just rotten!  And illegal.  . . . oh, sorry, story first:

The LA Times posted an article that Stephen King's novel Joyland has been digitally reproduced and pirated.  Amazing, since Joyland wasn't even published digitally.

Carolyn Kellogg's article, "Stephen King's 'Joyland' pirated as e-book -- like all the rest," notes that Joyland is not alone -- almost all of King's work is pirated in the digital format.  She points out that one site offers "The Shining," "The Stand," "Pet Sematary," "It," "The Green Mile," and "The Gunslinger." Sound like a lot of King?  Kellogg then points out that "and that's all just one bundled package."

King said in May that he was hopeful people would go out to real bookstores and buy a copy of Joyland instead  of downloading the digital version.  Kellog notes, "The problem is that to some people, a pirate site looks like a digital bookstore -- one where everything is free."

The full article by Carolyn Kellogg is at www.latimes.com/features/books

mediabistro.com posted Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai full statement:

We’ve seen dozens of websites over the past year purporting to offer pirated downloadable copies of JOYLAND, and so far they’ve all been frauds – if you try to download the file, you get malware or a virus instead.  But inevitably the book will eventually be pirated for real, just as every best-selling book and popular movie or TV show or piece of music is.  As a publisher, you try to prevent it or to stamp it out when you discover it, but it’s like the “war on drugs” – good luck.  Seize a boatload of heroin, and what does it get you?   There are more boats, there’s more heroin. 

But all of that would be equally true regardless of Stephen King’s decision to release JOYLAND initially in printed-book form only.  Books that do have e-book editions get pirated, too, and I’m sure JOYLAND would have been pirated just as quickly either way.  There were pirated copies of HARRY POTTER before J.K. Rowling decided to release electronic editions and there were pirated versions after. 

In the end you have to rely on the good behavior of the vast majority of the audience – I see no reason to think that pirates represent more than a small fraction of all consumers.  That doesn’t mean we don’t care about piracy – we do.  But it’s just one of the many punches you have to learn to roll with in the rough-and-tumble world of modern publishing.

JOYLAND print only

Stephen King pioneered e-publishing with Riding the Bullet.  However, he seems to now  want to support "brick and mortar" book stores, encouraging people to get out and actually buy the book.

According to NY Daily News:

King told the Wall Street Journal that he hopes to inspire fans to buy the print edition in bookstores and said he does not know when he will make the book available digitally. 

“I have no plans for a digital version,” King said. “Maybe at some point, but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one.”

Does this concern me?  Nope.  But it does seem unusual.  One author who wanted us to get excited about ebooks now seems concerned about stores.

I really like a hard copy of a book.  I like the way books smell, I like to feel the book in my hand.  I'm surrounded  by books -- both at work and home.  For work, I still like opening a Bible commentary and using my highlighters as I find important passages to remember.

And, I still love book stores -- but I don't usually buy anything when I go in.  See, what I do is walk around, smell the coffee, look at books and mentally note what books to go home and buy on Amazon.  Do I feel guilty?  NO!

So what's strange about King's move?  That he -- who is so big on literacy -- would block out an entire vehicle because it's so popular.  It seems that Kindle and other e-readers are younger, which is exactly the age group King is hoping to get excited about books.  Moves like this could count him out among the younger audience I suspect he hopes to reach.

How Important Are Ebooks?

Joe Wikert has a blog post titled, "Can You Force a Customer to Buy Print Instead of E?"  

For some popular books, the idea has been that the ebook would follow the hardcover much the way a paperback does.   Wikert points out that Stephen King's JOYLAND will first appear in print only.  However, he notes concern that this approach could lend itself to piracy.  

Wikert writes:

I wonder how long it will take for someone to scan King's Joyland and post it on all the torrent sites. I'm not encouraging that, of course, but I do believe that you can reduce piracy if you offer your content at a reasonable price in all the popular formats. Although King's intent is to provide a reading experience from the old days I'm convinced it will only increase piracy of the title and cause him to complain that ebooks and ebook customers are evil.

Speaking of ebooks. . .

Do you use Scribd? It's a document sharing site that some colleges are looking to as a platform for publishing books.

I saw this interesting note in a recent article: In 2009, Simon & Schuster signed a deal to use Scribd as a potential Kindle competitor, offering excerpts and complete works from Stephen King and others. (HERE)

Check out the Los Angeles Times article from June 2009 (HERE)

Ya know, I really like books on good ole paper.  Hey, give me a scroll, I'm happy!  I remember King once saying he didn't like his word-processor because he felt like his words were under glass.  I like to be able to mark a book.  The words do feel more real in print.  But that doesn't change the fact that the e-book is so much easier!  They come to us quickly,  they're a lot cheaper and they allow us to have access to all kinds of tools inside the book itself -- like "search" and text to speech (something King, for reasons unknown to me, usually disables.) 

McCammon Releases ebooks

Open Road Media has released nine of Robert McCammon's books as ebooks.  Exciting news!  Now, about that Swan Song audio. . .

Here's the press release:

Open Road Media is pleased to announce the publication of nine terrifying tales by New York Times bestselling master of horror Robert R. McCammon, including Swan Song, his first novel to win the coveted Bram Stoker Award. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, McCammon, an Alabama native, contributed significantly to the reemergence of the horror genre by crafting intense, character-driven narratives that blended elements of magical realism, science fiction, fantasy, and Southern gothic literature. McCammon’s wonderfully ambitious Swan Song tells the story of a post-apocalyptic world in which a girl with psychic abilities struggles to evade a mysterious force intent on destroying all remaining traces of beauty and hope. The novel is regarded as a horror classic in the same league as Stephen King’s The Stand. Recently Amazon.com called it “a monster of a horror book, brimming over with stories and violence and terrific imagery—God and the Devil, the whole works.”

You can get Swan Song on Kindle here at Amazon.


THE FIVE on King's Summer Reading List:

From robertmccammon.com

King briefly included Mccammon's new book "The Five" in his June 3, 2011 summer reading list.  King wrote in Entertainment Weekly, “The Five isn’t just Robert McCammon’s best novel in years; it’s his best novel ever. Terrifying, suspenseful, unputdownable, and full of rock and roll energy. It’s also uplifting, a book you’ll finish feeling better about your world, your friends, and your music. Here’s one you’ll beg friends to read.”

Five McCammon Novels Worth Adapting
And while we're on the subject of Robert Mccammon, I really enjoyed the article at Shock Till You Drop titled "Five Robert McCammon Novels Hollywood Should Be Adapting." 

After listing the five novels he thinks should be headed to the screen, Ryan Turek shares, "These are just my own personal selections I'd like to see brought to the screen. Frank Darabont has been trying to get an adaptation of "Mine" off the ground for years. "Swan Song" and "Baal" might be a fan faves, but I don't know if a filmmaker can properly pull these off."

Cemetery Dance ebooks

Cemetery Dance is now offering ebooks.  This is exciting stuff! 

I'm new to the ebook world (always a day late when it comes to technology), but I have arrived!  As of. . . yesterday.  Don't laugh at me. 

My wife owns a Kindle, and she's been on it constantly ever since her birthday.  But I like the feel of a book in my hands.  It just doesn't feel the same when you fall asleep reading -- the pages are supposed to mash over your nose, but a Kindle just smacks you in the eye. 

Yesterday I discovered I can read the Kindle books on my computer.  Awesome!  (Or, in California terms, "Far Out, Dude!)  I am totally sold on the ebooks.  I mean, come on, you can read the suckers on the beach. 

A few benefits:
1. I didn't have to drive 100 miles to get the book I need. 
2. Don't have to wait for the mail.  Amazon has always been an option -- but then there's that long eternity checking the mail box every day hoping my books arrived. Can the mail get any slower in small town America? 
3. The price is a lot less when purchasing an ebook.
4. Oh, this is important -- The pages turn quicker! I must have it set on some old persons blind setting, because I was breezing along.  It was the same day I saw the news story that Borders was closing.  So long brick and mortar stores!, You'll be missed. . . a little.

A few titles familiar to King fans:

• Lilja's Library.  This is a must read for any King fan.  More than just a typical companion book, Lilja's Library is chalk full of his reviews and articles.  The sheer diversity of the book -- all things King -- makes it noteworthy.  And, it's just $6.99.   http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/e_lilja01
• Stephen King: The Non Fiction. http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/e_wood01
•  Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished REVISED EDITION.  http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/e_wood02
• Dark Forces.  This offering really hypes the wow factor.  Dark Forces is the collection The Mist was first published in.  The special edition eBook features a new afterword from editor Kirby McCauley.  So if you don't see me for a while, I've dived back into the world of The Mist.  http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/e_mccaul01

Cemetery Dance page for their ebooks: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/CTGY/ebooks

Serial Novel and The eBook

Nick Eaton at Seattlepi.com has an article titled, "E-books and the return of the serial novel."

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Eaton sees the revival of the serial novel (via ebook) coming from The Huffington Post, which has said it will begin publishing serial novel's. Their first novel, "Seeing Red" by Claudia Ricci has had two chapters and the prologue published so far.

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He notes that King has been a recent pioneer in the genre, with both The Green Mile and The Plant.

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Eaton doesn't really seem too enthusiastic about serial novel's, though. For instance, why did Dickens write so much? Well, Eaton says it's because he needed to string the reader along and stretch the novel out. Eaton writes, "Authors such as Dickens liked the serial format because it meant more money. The more stories you have published in a magazine, the longer you draw out a narrative, the more cash you get. And a serial novel can hold the audience captive for months, even years, as the story plays out issue by issue. It's guaranteed long-term income."

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We'll not tell Mr. Eaton that A Tale Of Two Cities is not really considered one of Dickens' "biggies." Try: Our Mutual Friend, David Copperfield and so on for the really big-uns.

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I was surprised that he so blatantly argues that Dickens was in it for the money.

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Consider, please, that the later novels (which are larger) were written after Dickens was already very successful. His money problems related to a publishing issue with the United States. See, American publishers did not honor the copyright and stole his material. Thus he was not paid for his work by the American readership.

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King has stated often that he never wrote a single word for the money. Should we think less of Mr. Dickens'? And let's me clear, okay? Eaton is not saying that Dickens wrote the books, and a publishing decision was made to market them in a manner that would make more money. He is saying that Dickens actually stretched out his novels for the money; he was influenced by money, and thus the story itself was changed because of Dickens desire to get more money.

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The argument that writers publish in installments for the money falls completely apart when Mr. Eaton gets back to Stephen King and The Plant. He writes, "Starting in 2000, King experimented with the e-serial format with his yet-unfinished novel "The Plant"; he posted installments of the story on his website for $1 each, though the plan fell apart thanks to hackers in the early Web 2.0 days." Well, I doubt then that Stephen King was doing for the money!

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Like Stephen King, Dickens did not just write one size story fits all. Anyone remember a short novel called "A Christmas Carol"? And that was just one of several Christmas novels.

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I'm not saying Dickens didn't need the money. I am saying that I have trouble with the idea that he allowed his need for money to dictate the direction and pace of the novel, which in Dickens case is always genius.

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Then Again. . .

Hold on! David Todd says this about A Christmas Carol: When Dickens’ publishers required him to pay back advances due to the poor sales of Chuzzlewit, he knew he needed some other means of income. At that point in his career, 1843, Dickens was doing well, but had not reached a level of financial security that would allow him to go for a stretch of time without income. Years later he could have managed through, but not that year." Charles Dickens' Christmas Stories: More Than Just “A Christmas Carol” Over Twenty-Three Years

So, after all that ranting, maybe Eaton is right. But I don't like it. And I would point out that the book written to generate quick cash was not published as a serial novel. It was printed as a booklet.

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http://www.seattlepi.com/books/435444_ebook14.html?source=rss

Stealing Stephen King

Randy Cohen writing for the New York Times "The Ethicist" section was asked about illegal downloads. The question was pretty simple, the answer long and surprising. Simply put, the question was: If I buy the hardcover, can I steal the download? Here's the full question:

I bought an e-reader for travel and was eager to begin “Under the Dome,” the new Stephen King novel. Unfortunately, the electronic version was not yet available. The publisher apparently withheld it to encourage people to buy the more expensive hardcover. So I did, all 1,074 pages, more than three and a half pounds. Then I found a pirated version online, downloaded it to my e-reader and took it on my trip. I generally disapprove of illegal downloads, but wasn’t this O.K.? C.D., BRIGHTWATERS, N.Y.

a few great quotes from the answer:

1. First quote -- A new brand of ethics:
An illegal download is — to use an ugly word — illegal. But in this case, it is not unethical. Author and publisher are entitled to be paid for their work, and by purchasing the hardcover, you did so. Your subsequent downloading is akin to buying a CD, then copying it to your iPod.

2. Second quote -- A swipe at King:
Your action is not pristine. Downloading a bootleg copy could be said to encourage piracy, although only in the abstract: no potential pirate will actually realize you’ve done it. It’s true that you might have thwarted the publisher’s intent — perhaps he or she has a violent antipathy to trees, maybe a wish to slaughter acres of them and grind them into Stephen King novels. Or to clog the highways with trucks crammed with Stephen King novels. Or perhaps King himself wishes to improve America’s physique by having readers lug massive volumes.

A violent antipathy to trees? This guy is writing in a newsPAPER.

3. Third quote -- the bottom line:
Your paying for the hardcover put you in the clear as a matter of ethics, forestry and fitness training.

So. . . if I buy a copy, I can steal a copy? As a consumer, I really like this new brand of ethics. As a collector, this is great stuff! Buying the hardcover of a King novel should give me the download? Really? Unfortunately, I don't think so.

Follow the logic, okay. If buying something in one format should give me access to all other formats then. . .

• When my parents Beatles vinyl records became 8-tracks, they should have been able to get free 8-tracks. Wait. . .
• Then when the audio tape was released of the 8-track, then they should have been able to get a free audio tape. Wait. . .
• Then when the same recording was put to CD, they should have gotten a free CD. And. . .
• When the CD became an MP3 they should have gotten a free MP3. All for buying an 8 track back in 1960--something.

Or, let me put it this way:

• My wife had a video of The Lion King.
• We bought a DVD of the Lion King.
• Soon we will buy a blue ray.
• But according to the new ethics, we are in our right to steal a copy from the publisher.

Here's the thing: The Times is not saying you can transfer your existing copy to another format. That is generally accepted. IE, there's nothing wrong with transferring your tapes to CD's. But there is something wrong with taking it via download. You're not transferring your item, you're taking a new copy in a new format. That, I'm sorry to say, is stealing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04FOB-ethicist-t.html

Under The Dome eBook

Do you read e-books? I haven't yet. There was recently some frustration expressed about the price of the UTD novel. King put a message out on his site that said in part, "Please don't believe the press reports that the e-book reader price for Under the Dome will be $35. This was the result of confusion from a press release from the publisher, what Big Jim Rennie would call a clustermug."

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That was October 28. I was just at Simonand Schuster.com and noticed that they did have a listing for UTD ebook. Want to guess the price? I'll just copy and drop it right in:

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This edition: eBook, 1120 pages

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Availability: This title is not currently available from SimonandSchuster.com

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Our Price: $35.00

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It seems they are waiting to put out the ebook to boost hardcover sales. Of course, think about this. . . if they can sell the ebook for $35 and not even have to mess with book stores, why aren't they moving quicker? I would think (I'm not a publisher) that their profit margin would be a lot higher an a digital download than on having to actually physically produce the book.

Clarification About Under The Dome e-Book price

The moderator of the Stephen King message board published this comment about the recent price war and surprising high cost of the e-book edition of Under the Dome:

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From Scribner:

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ABOUT THAT UNDER THE DOME eBOOK

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We want to clear up a misconception that has made its way into news stories regarding the eBook of UNDER THE DOME: the ultimate price paid by a customer for a book -- whether in print or digital form -- is actually (and has always been) set by retailers. While publishers can *suggest* a list price, retailers frequently discount from that, and neither the author nor the publisher has any say over the final cost to the consumer.

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[Bottom line: any news story or internet chat that emphasizes the eBook list price of UTD overlooks the likely reality that it will be sold at retail for much less].