It was a strangely profound experience for me: the conversion from physical books to e-books. For years, the digital book world, constructed from uninspired and ridiculous sounding materials such as epub and mobipocket, orbited my peripheral vision like a moronic satellite. I, like many others, stubbornly continued to load my shelves with good old reliable physical books with the thought that if I didn’t entertain it, it would go away. My snobbery and I were clearly not alone. For years, the volume of physical book sales endured and publishers and bookstores alike were relieved of their anxiety around what might happen should this satellite fall to earth and release its alien virus upon the planet. Those within the industry clearly did not want to be contaminated.
Working in the publishing industry as I do, I came across the topic of digital books often, in corridors, cafes and meeting rooms, and the conversation was never one of jollity or merriment. It was as if a malfunctioning sewer was threatening our water supply, endangering the purity which prevailed within the reverential realm of literary imaginings and properly constructed sentences, a purity which I, and many others, nobly worshipped. Reading is indeed my religion. Through my beloved books, I learn about life and the universe, about myself and, more importantly, about you; I am moved, inspired, thrilled, horrified, disgusted, amused, and relieved; I relate to my environment, develop opinions, beliefs, ideas, longings and understanding; I fall in love; I live, and die. When e-books appeared I feared my flawless literary universe would be sullied by imperfection, infiltrated by the ranting of imbeciles planted within pages I couldn’t smell or touch, and which weren’t really books at all. Quality of life was imperilled; standards of living jeopardized. Never would I entertain such shoddiness.
But actually, as it turns out, I would. One day, reminiscent of a profound religious conversion, I sold my soul… to a Kindle. It wasn’t a dramatic moment of enlightenment; in fact, the circumstances surrounding the event were shamefully bland. The truth is, I was going on holiday for two weeks to Greece and had a vast reading list to take with me so I did the sensible thing and bought a Kindle. But I did not expect what happened to me next. Over those two weeks I was woken from my obdurate stupor and became a true e-book fanatic, and now, I am on a worldwide mission to convert the ignorant, which of course includes most of you!
Reflecting on my initial resistance to electronic books, what I find most interesting is the impression we are under that we have sensibly considered the pros and cons in order to make our decision: for the resistors, the cons clearly outweigh the pros. But they don’t; it’s a downright lie. The shocking truth is there are no cons and this for me was a phenomenal realisation: if there is no downside to e-books what, then, was telling me for so long that I shouldn’t like them? What was causing me to feel that I would be betraying something dear to my heart should I succumb? Where exactly was this sewer? All I found during my two weeks in Greece was a glitch-free and delightfully punctuated load of books which I did not have to pay for in kilos at the airport. I am fascinated by the psychology of this situation and by my personal revelation; I have therefore laid out the pros and cons as I find them, so you too can be relieved of your physical book burden.
Pros
· Since the .epub and .mobi formats have been refined the e-book reading experience has become almost flawless. If the book has been converted well (and I know there are still those who don’t bother to do this), there should no longer be the glitches in the text that we once saw, such as misplaced hyphens, jarring gaps, and random widows and orphans.
· E-reader technology is now superb, whether it is a Kindle, tablet or Smartphone, so an e-book read can be an aesthetically delightful experience.
· Accessibility is fantastic. Log in, pay and download: three steps which take two minutes and you have your new book, sitting neatly on your virtual bookshelf and ready to read.
· E-books are now decidedly cheaper than physical books, or most are, since the huge printing and distribution costs attached to physical books are not applied. At Ravine Press, all our quality fiction and non-fiction e-books are under £5 and some are as low as £0.99. We adore being able to provide remarkable books that everyone can afford.
· Physical books need physical space, which means they take up precious room in our homes and offices, gathering dust and weighing down our shelves. You can carry hundreds of books at a time in your handbag (or man bag), which don’t weigh any more than the device you need to read them on.
· Searching and referencing is a doddle. My books are no longer filled with multi-coloured Post-it notes marking specific quotes and citations in a particular title. This is one of my favourite e-book features as I can waste a lot of time getting lost in a book looking for a single passage that I know is in there somewhere!
· The lightness of the e-reading device makes a book easier to hold. Therefore reading an e-book is more comfortable than having to manage hundreds of cumbersome pages between our fingers.
· You can choose your font size and your page view. The flexibility and control given to readers via the technology is surprisingly agreeable.
· E-books are clean. They don’t need dusting, get damp, or smell. Their covers don’t bend or tear or fade; their spines don’t split.
· They are environmentally friendly. No trees are cut down to produce them, no heavy machinery is used to print them and no fuel is used to deliver them to your door.
From our point of view as a publisher there is another significant upside to digital publishing. Ravine Press exists to support talented writers whose voices are overlooked due to their writing supposedly lacking commercialism. We believe that the digital e-book arena, if employed with intelligence and integrity, is a significant platform from which hidden voices can speak loud and clear.
The pros really are impressive, aren’t they? So what about the cons?
Cons
The only con I can come up with is an industry complaint rather than an e-book complaint, but it does need mentioning: DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. This is a technology used by (big) publishers to control the use of digital content after sale. We don’t like DRM protection at Ravine Press because it is restrictive and limits a book’s flexibility and longevity. Books should be for life, and to do with what we will, even e-books.
There is another issue, a big issue, but one which also applies to physical books. At Ravine Press we are concerned about the quality of writing in the industry as a whole. It is on a downward spiral and many in the business associate this drop in quality with the e-book revolution; this is unfortunately where we meet our sewer. However, we believe the blame should not be dumped on the concept of digital publishing per se, but instead: First, to the many (but by no means all) self-publishers who think they can write but who frankly can’t, and who are also responsible for not having their books professionally edited. Second, to the online distributors/retailers such as Amazon and Smashwords who provide the same self-pubs with carte blanche to distribute some truly ghastly books. These are the contaminants of the e-book industry, in my view, and is somewhere my snobbery continues to reside.
I think the crux of whether or not you enjoy, and therefore accept, the electronic reading experience comes down to display technology: to love an e-book you have to love technology, and I adore it; it is seductive and benevolent to the core. If you don’t feel the same, then the conversion I am after here is unlikely to occur, and the smelly old-fashioned dusty heavy book world will be yours for a long time to come.
Love our e-books at www.ravinepress.com.
Working in the publishing industry as I do, I came across the topic of digital books often, in corridors, cafes and meeting rooms, and the conversation was never one of jollity or merriment. It was as if a malfunctioning sewer was threatening our water supply, endangering the purity which prevailed within the reverential realm of literary imaginings and properly constructed sentences, a purity which I, and many others, nobly worshipped. Reading is indeed my religion. Through my beloved books, I learn about life and the universe, about myself and, more importantly, about you; I am moved, inspired, thrilled, horrified, disgusted, amused, and relieved; I relate to my environment, develop opinions, beliefs, ideas, longings and understanding; I fall in love; I live, and die. When e-books appeared I feared my flawless literary universe would be sullied by imperfection, infiltrated by the ranting of imbeciles planted within pages I couldn’t smell or touch, and which weren’t really books at all. Quality of life was imperilled; standards of living jeopardized. Never would I entertain such shoddiness.
But actually, as it turns out, I would. One day, reminiscent of a profound religious conversion, I sold my soul… to a Kindle. It wasn’t a dramatic moment of enlightenment; in fact, the circumstances surrounding the event were shamefully bland. The truth is, I was going on holiday for two weeks to Greece and had a vast reading list to take with me so I did the sensible thing and bought a Kindle. But I did not expect what happened to me next. Over those two weeks I was woken from my obdurate stupor and became a true e-book fanatic, and now, I am on a worldwide mission to convert the ignorant, which of course includes most of you!
Reflecting on my initial resistance to electronic books, what I find most interesting is the impression we are under that we have sensibly considered the pros and cons in order to make our decision: for the resistors, the cons clearly outweigh the pros. But they don’t; it’s a downright lie. The shocking truth is there are no cons and this for me was a phenomenal realisation: if there is no downside to e-books what, then, was telling me for so long that I shouldn’t like them? What was causing me to feel that I would be betraying something dear to my heart should I succumb? Where exactly was this sewer? All I found during my two weeks in Greece was a glitch-free and delightfully punctuated load of books which I did not have to pay for in kilos at the airport. I am fascinated by the psychology of this situation and by my personal revelation; I have therefore laid out the pros and cons as I find them, so you too can be relieved of your physical book burden.
Pros
· Since the .epub and .mobi formats have been refined the e-book reading experience has become almost flawless. If the book has been converted well (and I know there are still those who don’t bother to do this), there should no longer be the glitches in the text that we once saw, such as misplaced hyphens, jarring gaps, and random widows and orphans.
· E-reader technology is now superb, whether it is a Kindle, tablet or Smartphone, so an e-book read can be an aesthetically delightful experience.
· Accessibility is fantastic. Log in, pay and download: three steps which take two minutes and you have your new book, sitting neatly on your virtual bookshelf and ready to read.
· E-books are now decidedly cheaper than physical books, or most are, since the huge printing and distribution costs attached to physical books are not applied. At Ravine Press, all our quality fiction and non-fiction e-books are under £5 and some are as low as £0.99. We adore being able to provide remarkable books that everyone can afford.
· Physical books need physical space, which means they take up precious room in our homes and offices, gathering dust and weighing down our shelves. You can carry hundreds of books at a time in your handbag (or man bag), which don’t weigh any more than the device you need to read them on.
· Searching and referencing is a doddle. My books are no longer filled with multi-coloured Post-it notes marking specific quotes and citations in a particular title. This is one of my favourite e-book features as I can waste a lot of time getting lost in a book looking for a single passage that I know is in there somewhere!
· The lightness of the e-reading device makes a book easier to hold. Therefore reading an e-book is more comfortable than having to manage hundreds of cumbersome pages between our fingers.
· You can choose your font size and your page view. The flexibility and control given to readers via the technology is surprisingly agreeable.
· E-books are clean. They don’t need dusting, get damp, or smell. Their covers don’t bend or tear or fade; their spines don’t split.
· They are environmentally friendly. No trees are cut down to produce them, no heavy machinery is used to print them and no fuel is used to deliver them to your door.
From our point of view as a publisher there is another significant upside to digital publishing. Ravine Press exists to support talented writers whose voices are overlooked due to their writing supposedly lacking commercialism. We believe that the digital e-book arena, if employed with intelligence and integrity, is a significant platform from which hidden voices can speak loud and clear.
The pros really are impressive, aren’t they? So what about the cons?
Cons
The only con I can come up with is an industry complaint rather than an e-book complaint, but it does need mentioning: DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection. This is a technology used by (big) publishers to control the use of digital content after sale. We don’t like DRM protection at Ravine Press because it is restrictive and limits a book’s flexibility and longevity. Books should be for life, and to do with what we will, even e-books.
There is another issue, a big issue, but one which also applies to physical books. At Ravine Press we are concerned about the quality of writing in the industry as a whole. It is on a downward spiral and many in the business associate this drop in quality with the e-book revolution; this is unfortunately where we meet our sewer. However, we believe the blame should not be dumped on the concept of digital publishing per se, but instead: First, to the many (but by no means all) self-publishers who think they can write but who frankly can’t, and who are also responsible for not having their books professionally edited. Second, to the online distributors/retailers such as Amazon and Smashwords who provide the same self-pubs with carte blanche to distribute some truly ghastly books. These are the contaminants of the e-book industry, in my view, and is somewhere my snobbery continues to reside.
I think the crux of whether or not you enjoy, and therefore accept, the electronic reading experience comes down to display technology: to love an e-book you have to love technology, and I adore it; it is seductive and benevolent to the core. If you don’t feel the same, then the conversion I am after here is unlikely to occur, and the smelly old-fashioned dusty heavy book world will be yours for a long time to come.
Love our e-books at www.ravinepress.com.
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