Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

We trust paper because it has been around for a long time, but digital information is easier to store and protect in the long term.

If the long term is decades, digital is probably ok. We have no idea if this is the case for centuries and millennium. Paper isn't all that great either on these time scales, but we know that some will make it through (at least they have so far). If there is a dark age and computer technology is lost, or perhaps even if an author falls out of favor, can ebooks survive? Note that most digital archives rely on copying to new media every decade or so.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

If the long term is decades, digital is probably ok. We have no idea if this is the case for centuries and millennium. Paper isn't all that great either on these time scales, but we know that some will make it through (at least they have so far). If there is a dark age and computer technology is lost, or perhaps even if an author falls out of favor, can ebooks survive? Note that most digital archives rely on copying to new media every decade or so.

You're right, that if there is a global dark age, digital information is at risk - especially if the plunge into darkness is sudden. But it seems to me that there is more of an opportunity to save a digital library of Alexandria than one on paper (or papyrus!) if anyone escapes.

The author of this paper seemed to fear accident rather than Armageddon, which I think is a misplaced fear.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I still don't understand why publishers are not giving priority to making ebooks out of their backlists.

He touches on it in the article - a combination changes in the tax law dealing with power tool replacement part inventory (seriously) and demographic changes turned publishing on its head about 30 years ago, creating a Hollywoodesque reliance on ever-bigger ever-more-expensive ephemeral blockbusters (and of course this plays into the general cultural trend of "Who cares if this strategy means the company will be bankrupt in a year! As long as this quarter's numbers look good I still get my bonus.")

Note that publishers waking up to the size of the untouched goldmine in their backlists isn't an unmixed blessing - consider Random House and their attempts (two so far) to arrogate electronic rights without paying authors a dime.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Early in the process? Huge amounts of information are already held exclusively in a digital format - including financial data, for example - for which prevention of corruption (e.g. storage with non-repudiation features), disaster tolerance and recovery, archiving and back-up of many flavours &c. &c. are a well understood science.

Well, in fairness to his point there are also huge amounts of information held exclusively in digital format that can't practically be accessed anymore because even if the media aren't corrupt the hardware to access that media no longer exists (practically speaking, anyway).

The absolute risk with digital media is probably higher than with paper, unless we take precautions.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

The absolute risk with digital media is probably higher than with paper, unless we take precautions.

I would agree for personal archives, but for published material, it's unlikely that society will lose it - because so many people have copies.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

I would agree for personal archives, but for published material, it's unlikely that society will lose it - because so many people have copies.

Doesn't matter how many people have copies if all those copies are stored on 8" floppies, magnetic tape, and punch cards

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Doesn't matter how many people have copies if all those copies are stored on 8" floppies, magnetic tape, and punch cards

My point was that, once published into the "wild", although some copies will be lost, it is unlikely that someone won't have kept it. Works are unlikely to be lost to civilisation once published digitally.

Look at how the BBC have recovered a lot of their archives that they deleted (in order to re-use tapes that were expensive!) - because there were people who recorded and retained their broadcasts. That was long before VHS even. Nowadays, what are the odds that anything on Amazon (say) isn't stored by someone somewhere, even if all their servers (and back-ups, and the publishers' copies) go pop?

The author's assertion was that the digital world was more fragile and that the end of civilisation could be a click away - and I think that this is nonsense. Two keys turned in unison away, maybe, but not one click.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Jason Epstein has a fascinating article in the New York Review of Books titled "Publishing: The Revolutionary Future." Definitely worth reading for anybody interested in the future of publishing.

It is an excellent article (I'm a print subscriber to the NYRB), but I don't think he raises anything that hasn't already been said repeatedly here and elsewhere. I think its biggest virtue is that it is a recognition by NYRB of the ebook future. I have written NYRB several times asking that they identify when a reviewed book is also available as an ebook, but have never received a response.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

Early in the process? Huge amounts of information are already held exclusively in a digital format - including financial data, for example - for which prevention of corruption (e.g. storage with non-repudiation features), disaster tolerance and recovery, archiving and back-up of many flavours &c. &c. are a well understood science.

It's not that people aren't making efforts to archive. It's that most of the archiving systems are good for short-term disruption, but need to be better-hardened against long-term data loss, major disasters and access with non-proprietary systems. This is primarily a hardware issue, not an intent issue. And it will come in time.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by rhadin

It is an excellent article (I'm a print subscriber to the NYRB), but I don't think he raises anything that hasn't already been said repeatedly here and elsewhere. I think its biggest virtue is that it is a recognition by NYRB of the ebook future.

Agreed - sometimes what is said is less important than who said it and where.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

We trust paper because it has been around for a long time, but digital information is easier to store and protect in the long term.

Actually, we trust print books for many more reasons than because it has been around a long time.

When we buy a pbook we subconsciously make many assumptions, including these: the book has been vetted by the publisher (assuming it is a known publisher and not a self-published title) so it is minimally readable and the content is minimally reliable; the author has some credibility; the book we buy exactly matches the copy we can buy next week or 5 weeks from now or a year from now; the text we read will be the same text that our neighbor will read and our friend on the other side of the country.

The digital file ebook doesn't give us those assurances. The version I download today may be emasculated tomorrow by the author or by someone else. There is no one checking that the book is really by the person named (that is currently a topic of discussion on Teleread where a Polish author's book was hijacked by somone/thing called SugarLand Press) or that it is the same as the book the author wrote. I do not know whether the book and author are credible or reliable (unless the ebook is from a known author/publisher).

eBooks have a long way to go to match pbooks in reliability, authenticity, and credibility.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Actually, we trust print books for many more reasons than because it has been around a long time.
(snip)

Science Fiction is (at it's best) a genre that makes you think about future possibilities. On this subject, I keep coming back to a series by Roger MacBride Allen that involves massive space travel and terraforming. In it, THE critical archive is paper, kept in a massive satellite in the outer Solar System under non-reactive atmosphere. Why? Because electronic copies are too easy to CHANGE!

Rather than armageddon or accident, I'd fear Conspiracy. When you can easily send an electronic archive of all or at least most of current knowledge to another star system, you can also *select* what you include, and alter that selection. When there's a physical copy, someone can at least go back and verify (and that drives a critical part of the above story.)

See The Ocean of Years by Roger Macbride Allen available in mobi and epub.

[Ben Thornton]

Electronic copies are not necessarily easier to change. There are technologies which make that much more difficult. Not only that, but you have the opportunity to keep an electronic copy separated from tampering, which alllows you to check quickly and accurately whether the access/use copy has changed.

[loly pop]

but how will the authors earn more? What's the business plan? can any one tell me ?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by loly pop

but how will the authors earn more? What's the business plan? can any one tell me ?

No one has perfected "the e-book business plan" yet. Most of the things that will impact sales and success are the same things that impact print sales and success: Quality material at a good price, and a mechanism to market and deliver that material to your potential customers. The marketing and distribution model, however, is too new and undeveloped to provide a set model for everyone to follow.

Although some authors will no doubt discover that the digital model does not benefit them as much as the print model did... I suspect their numbers may be small compared to those who stand to benefit. Remember, the vast majority of authors barely make a living wage off of regionally-limited, print-based writing. The worldwide access promised by the web could be the single greatest boon to authors. And marketing, coupled with inventive promotion, can carry the word far.

Most likely, there won't be one workable e-book business plan, but many, depending on the situation and the players involved. The flexibility of the digital world will cause that. So don't expect to see THE e-book business plan in the near future; instead, expect to see a number of possible solutions, and the author can choose which works best for them.