A Million Open Doors

One of the most exciting things about the digital publishing revolution is the sheer variety of publishing possibilities that are opening up for writers and readers alike. Science fiction has long imagined that the future would change the book, but it tended to be part of the "furniture" of the future world, background rather than the focus of the story. A character may read a "filmbook" or the like, but its mechanics are glossed over. It's just there to provide a sense that We're Not In Kansas Any More, rather than a serious extrapolation of the future of publishing.

When digital publishing first became a practical reality as a result of the growing popularity of the personal computer, the first forays were simultaneously excited and hesitant. Excited because it was seen as the realization of generations of science fiction readers' dreams. Hesitant because of the enormous uncertainty about how to translate the experience of the printed page into digital format.

Some of the problems were simply the immaturity of the technology. Physical media such as floppy disks and CD-ROM's required distribution networks, which imposed their own limitations, especially since there was no easy way to piggyback onto existing print book distribution. But even as more people gained access to the Internet and distribution of the intellectual good no longer required the movement of a physical object, problems remained. Concerns about digital piracy tended to be the most publicized, and led to a great number of counterproductive digital rights management schemes that effectively punished the legitimate user for the possible crimes that might be committed with the technology. But the real problem was that most people didn't want to read for pleasure on a computer screen. They wanted something they could carry with them and read during random bits of time here and there, something for which even the lightest laptop was too bulky and awkward.

Various companies produced dedicated e-book readers, but all of them were bulky and expensive, and their proprietary formats meant that you could only buy books from the company's bookstore, and if the company went out of business, you had an expensive, useless brick. Sure, you could keep reading and re-reading the books you had loaded on it until the device stopped working, but you couldn't get anything new for it. As a result, people were reluctant to buy these devices, ensuring they would fail in the market.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, several changes converged to finally realize the possibility of the e-book: Baen offering DRM-free e-books through their Webscriptions system, Amazon.com creating the Kindle e-book reader that wasn't entirely tied to their bookstore, Apple producing the iPad and iPhone (which opened the way for Google to offer the Android OS for other companies to produce tablet computers and smartphones). Suddenly readers had the possibility of an easily portable and relatively seamless reading experience, which made it easy to move from the familiar old paperback to digital format not just because of the cool factor, but because of utility considerations.

As a result, we have not only conventional e-books that are effectively digital versions of paper books, but also a wide variety of other formats. For short formats, publishers have been experimenting with e-zines ever since the Web really took off. Serialization is another distribution model that has come back into fashion through digital media.

Such a wide variety of possibilities can be overwhelming, but it can also be liberating. A writer who doesn't find success in one model of fiction distribution can try a different one. If serialization proves disheartening when readership dribbles off to nothing after the first several chapters, publishing whole novels via Kindle Direct or some other e-book publisher may reach a greater audience. Similarly, a reader who prefers bite-sized reading can find a wide variety of short-form and serialized novel formats, while a reader who wants the substance of a book can download full e-books onto a reader.

And it's quite probable that we're only seeing the beginning of the digital publishing revolution. The futures imagined by even the most innovative and imaginative writers may actually prove short of the mark, for the simple reason that they had to write a world comprehensible to their contemporary readers.

Cause For Concern

Recently Vera Nazarian announced that several Norilana anthologies would be postponed due to the worsening economy. In addition, another anthology would be published under a different arrangement.

Shortly thereafter, she announced that another anthology editor had decided to take her lineup to be published elsewhere, albeit under a new title, since the old title had belonged to a series.

Now another editor who had previously announced a one-year sabbatical in his annual anthology for purely personal reasons is looking at the possibility that he may go to another publisher for future volumes.

This is worrisome to me because it is looking very similar to what happens when there is a run on a bank. That is, concern about the future of the institution leads to an increasing number of people to decide to get out while it's still possible, resulting in an escalation of the institution's erosion.

Of course a publisher isn't quite like a bank -- editors deciding to pull their anthologies and seek other publishers isn't going to directly deprive other titles of their existence the way a large number of people withdrawing deposits can make it impossible for the bank to make good on the remaining depositors' money. The biggest question will be how book buyers behave -- if they keep buying existing Norilana titles, the situation can still be turned around.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Traditionally the used book store has been a dusty little place of shelves crammed tight with books, generally off the beaten path and quite unlike the new book store with its bright lights and carefully arranged shelves of pristine copies. But with the advent of the online bookstore, the distinction between sellers of new and used books has blurred. Amazon.com's Marketplace program enables used-book sellers to sell right on the same page as the new books Amazon itself is selling, thus allowing used books to compete directly with new ones.

As a result, there has been increasing concern that the sales of used books are depriving authors of their rightful royalties. After all, if a person can surf onto Amazon's webpage and find the same title that is sold brand new by Amazon itself sold instead for half or a quarter that price by a used-book seller, it would seem obvious that people would be likely to buy the cheaper one. Thus an organization called Novelists, Inc. has begun pressuring lawmakers to require used book sellers to remit royalties on each book sold, or at least books published in the last two years.

Paul Biba of TeleRead has suggested that requiring used-book dealers to pay royalties could have surprising consequences, including making books even less available to the poorest decile of the population, for whom used books and other inexpensive reading options, including libraries, are often the only way to obtain books at all.

In fact, I would suggest that he has not gone far enough in his discussion of the unintended consequences. In fact, it's very likely that the necessary overhead in recordkeeping could actually kill the secondary market for books altogether. Most used-book dealers operate on very narrow margins, often on a mom-and-pop basis. The sellers aren't getting rich, and often are barely scraping by. And that's just sellers who specialize in books. The generalist secondhand store will decide to no longer carry books at all, even those that are well beyond the two-year limit, for the simple reason that ensuring that nothing recent slips in by mistake is too much of a hassle. Thrift stores such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army will also find it impossible to justify such overhead, and will decline to accept book donations, thus hitting the poor twice -- by eliminating a source of very low-cost books and by the loss of the revenue those sales generate that are then applied to various good works.

In a world where royalties must be collected on (recent) used books, only the largest used-book dealerships and a few specialist collectible bookstores would be able to stay in business. Otherwise, the only venues at which used books would be found would be garage sales, which generally fly under the regulatory radar altogether. Most books that are no longer wanted by their owners would most likely go straight to the trash, needlessly burdening landfills and resulting in further resource destruction as trees have to be pulped to produce new copies. Worse, many old and out-of-print books would become even more difficult to find, making it even more likely that their authors become forgotten altogether.

Which means that what is intended to help authors get more money will instead result in many authors losing out altogether.

Correction The actual article is by Chris Meadows -- Paul Biba is the overall site owner, who has various guest writers posting as well.