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Biting The Bullet: Publishing And The Net
Like the newspaper industry, publishing thinks it can enter the digital age by switching formats. It shows little interest in examining, dismantling and re-assembling its own rusty culture, something admittedly tough for any entrenched institution to do. So like newspapers, book publishers are making it clearer by the month that they would rather die than really change.
For nearly a decade now the newspaper industry has been using the Internet as a pretext for committing cultural suicide -- for cannibalizing its own form and attributes in a panicky response to new information technologies. Some of these once-influential papers may evolve into profitable information Web sites. But increasingly, it appears that most newspapers will not survive at all, at least in their familiar form. We'll never know how interesting or successful newspapers might have become if they'd have taken all the money they've spent on tepid Web sites and simply made their papers better. All that's really clear is that year by year, papers have become more marginalized, less vital.
Newspapers never grasped that interactivity isn't about technology, but rather about attitude, not about the form in which content gets but the means by which the content changes. Interactivity is about the increased power personal computing gives to consumers of information. The industry has spent billions of dollars throwing up sites that mostly underscore the idea that newspapers aren't very important -- that much of their content can be moved online, or given away.
Recently the newspaper business's cousin in industry, book publishing, has indicated that it's about to go the same sorry route. Rather than publish interesting new kinds of books that reflect the intensely interactive cultural ethos sweeping the United States, book publishers are tossing away the very qualities that makes them unique and valuable, and showing their customers that even they don't value the very forms they are trying to sell and, presumably, preserve.
All over New York, unnerved publishers who until recently held their noses at suggestions that the Internet would affect their industry, are rushing to figure out how to move publishing online.
Most recently, Simon & Schuster made available, at the enthusiastic urging of Stephen King, what it called "an electronic book," King's latest novella, Riding the Bullet. The demand online was so great -- more than 400,000 orders -- that would-be readers trying to download the digital horror story into their computers, electronic readers and Palm Pilots overwhelmed retailers' Web sites within 48 hours. If nothing else, King demonstrated how much people love free online stuff. What that means for book publishing isn't quite as clear, other than an indication of the trouble it's in.
King's novella, which will not be published as a traditional book, was promoted both in print and on Amazon and Bn.com. The release week saw a wave of publicity as several other authors publicly made the leap from print to monitor. For advances of up to $100,000, Fatbrain.com hired ten authors to write short essays about the Bill of Rights. The first of these essays -- by Coretta Scott King, Newt Gingrich, Pete Hamill and Doris Kearns Goodwin -- began appearing last week. Fatbrain has now demonstrated that online publishing sites can be pretentious and boring too. Fatbrain (doing this mostly to hype its new site MightyWords) also announced that it had signed a contract to publish Toni Morrison's l993 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Fatbrain didn't seem to grasp the inherent irony in its promotion -- a site devoted to new ways of publishing new writers launches itself by signing up some of the best-known traditional ones it can find. Like the e-publication of the King novella, it's obvious what MightyWords does for Fatbrain, but what it does for writers, readers or publishing is a puzzle. Maybe the New York book publishers don't have as much to worry about as they think.
This hype about e-publishing made for lots of heat, but little light. It wasn't clear why readers would find this preferable to reading books in their traditional form, or help publishing in any measurable way. You might be holding your breath to hear Newt Gingrich's or Pete Hamill's take on the Second Amendment, but will any of this make books more interesting, relevant, affordable, or vital? Like the newspaper industry, publishers are rushing to embrace a lose-lose model of 21st Century innovation. If they don't change the way they do business, they lose. If they change in the ways they seem to be, they'll lose even more.
Closer to a fat e-mail than a book, King's story ran the equivalent of 66 pages. Its publisher was startled to learn that some booksellers were giving it away for the first day, (this isn't what publishers have in mind when they talk about innovation) and sometimes thereafter, to spur the fledgling e-book market. The 400,000 figure, according to Simon & Schuster, included both paid ($2.50) and free downloads, as well as orders received but not immediately filled because of the heavy demand.
Simon & Schuster made front-page news all over the country with its "e-coup." Innovation in publishing is so shocking it's a major story in itself. But publishing executives weren't certain whether the enthusastic response marked (A) the official beginning of commercial Net publishing on a grand scale, or (B) was simply the result of offering a work from one of the world's most popular authors for little or no money. [Here's a hint: B.]
Simon & Schuster's stunt (these days, almost anything relating to the Internet will end up on the front page of the New York Times or leading NBC's Nightly News) was a textbook example of how to render one of the world's most valuable and cherished commodities -- the bound book -- less valuable, significant and lucrative, virtually overnight. As the Net traumatizes one institution after another, some appear to be eating their young.
Interactivity is one of the world's most powerful cultural forces. it transforms the relationships between consumers and sellers in everything it touches -- publishing, auctions, stock-trading, music. It doesn't eliminate the power of institutions and agenda-setters, but it alters the length of the levers they hold. Individuals now have more options, information, technology and ways to participate. They're more powerful. The institutions remain more powerful than individuals, but less powerful than they used to be. Just ask the music industry.
People selling things on the Net -- whether books, newspapers, chocolates, banking or ideas -- interact with their customers in jarring, often invasive ways. But both sides can benefit. The vendor is better informed, the consumer more involved.
Analysts like Francis McInerney and Sean White, two technology-investors and the authors of Future Wealth: Investing In The Second Great Wave of Technology, argue that this principle -- understanding interactivity -- is the key to corporate survival.
Throughout history, they write in Future Wealth, the falling cost of information has driven change by shifting the balance of market power from producers to consumers. The availability of cheaper information makes it easier for customers to voice -- indeed to force -- their preferences on producers.
"The Internet," write McInerney and White, "has given consumers with PC's the power to exercise market control as never before. On electronic networks of every kind, from television to the Internet, consumers exercise the new power they hold. Consumer reaction is instant, be it through the Internet, at the polling booth, or most important, at the cash register. It is no accident that the companies that have managed to profit most from the information revolution are the ones that devote the most energy to maximizing customer responsiveness."
That would be mean neither the newspaper nor publishing industries, both of which have made it a sacred virtue to be disconnected from and unresponsive to their customers.
Institutions like publishing are among the least interactive cultural entities on the planet. Run by a handful of canyon-dwelling executives who study tea leaves and frog entrails to decide what's "hot" or worth buying, they rarely interact with the people who buy their products. Book buyers face significant hurdles in reaching and influencing publishers, or even the authors who work for them. Yet as book chains (and book-selling Web sites) like Amazon and Barnes & Noble demonstrate, online and off, the enormous public appetite for books persists.
The ferocious interactivity of almost all successful Web sites -- hives of linked, communicative exchanges between dispensers and consumers of information -- or technology companies (think Dell, Amazon, Microsoft or even Wal-Mart, which uses technology intensively to monitor inventory and move products) is completely alien to the way newspapers or publishing work.
Most publishing Web sites don't aggressively link to other sites. Few publishing executives would dream of opening up their corporate processes and decision-making to public inspection, second-guessing and dissection in the way that truly characterizes interactive media. Yet the open source ethos spreading all over the Net and the Web suggests that such openness is the economic model of the future, the real way to prosper in the new century.
For companies like Simon & Schuster, entering the 21st Century doesn't mean moving its corporate culture into line with newer, profoundly interactive, techno-driven companies. It simply means distributing its usual product in bytes instead of paper and ink.
The message to its customers: We don't think the traditional book is worth publishing any more. If Simon & Schuster doesn't think so, why should readers? Why not wait a bit until AOL (and Deja.com and eBay) are peddling "used" downloads of new novels for pennies? Or for nothing at all.
Publishers are buzzing about book-form digital tablets that download text and can store books, magazines and files, but this assumes that consumers are ready for the book itself -- something that is personal and individualized, and can be stored, passed along, re-read, saved -- to disappear. There's no real evidence to support that conclusion.
That a celebrated author is making a sought-after work available online at little or no cost to anybody who wants it, is a brilliant PR stroke. And it doesn't matter that many people got it for free -- it was always more of a promotional giveaway than a book. It doesn't mean much that Stephen King, one of the world's most-read authors, is downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people in short story form. He'd sell that many books anyway.
What would mean something is for a publisher to scrutinize itself and its culture, its corporate hierarchy, its channels of decision-making and creativity, its secret processes of purchasing, editing and distribution -- and yes, its models of distribution. That would truly be novel.
splooge! jon, you are the most pitiful fucker in these parts. please die.
Hell, I bought the first edition based on the Omni excerpt of Firestarter.
Assuming you're not just a troll, what about specs for the CHM format?
I don't get that stupid Glassbook program at all. It took forever to download the stupid thing (I only have a 56K modem) and then it had to go and download Riding the Bullet for me! I guessed it was some sort of sophisticated copy-protection scheme, and it would be a good cracking challenge to retrieve the plain-text.
Well, you can cut and paste the whole thing out of it if you want to! Tedious, yes, but not really secure. So it isn't really copy protection of any sort - and is a pain in the butt to use compared to PDF or ASCII -
Why did they even bother?
As a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), I am a very tech-savvy person. IMO, Microsoft's CHM (compiled HTML) file format is the ideal medium for publishing. It allows web pages and their embedded objects/images to be transported as one file, without the risk of losing JPEG or GIF images as is the case with traditional HTML files.
Now that Internet Explorer is available for Macintosh and Solaris, this is truly a platform-neutral means for distributing authored works.
dear jon katz, please bite a bullet and fucking die. and then i will come along and will your coffin with hot bowls of grits. thank you.
I believe that trend will not stop there. First and below, the press forgets. Each writing is above and up. Where does that leave up?
seems like he's a good author for geeks...
This isn't it for you. You're still a first post virgin.
There's are first time for everything.
Trolling for Scooby doo!
Shut up. I am awesome. I can suck my own penis and let me tell you, it is yummy, yummy for my tummy! :)
Whoa, I think you've e-coined an new e-buzzword!
I'm not a troll. I just like to suck on Cocks.
HE ALREADY ATE HIS DESK AND CUBICAL
WAY TO GO BILL!
I really want to read a novel by Stephen King where Jon Katz is slowly tortured and then publicly humiliated before being executed in front of thousands of chanting Slashdotters.
I took a look at OscarTech, a new site that lets you publish on the web for free, and was fairly impressed by the ease of which nearly anyone can put up an article and make some cash (if its viewed). Budding authors may want to give it a try.
I get the distinct impression from the article above that you think we'll have "e-books" OR printed media, but not both.
Currently, we have ordinary books, large print books, books on CD, books on tape, books in braille, movies, TV, newspapers, magazines, Xerographic copiers, town criers, etc. Along comes "e-books", and you're talking like the world is kidding itself into thinking this is going to take over all of it.
I think YOU'RE the only one who thinks this, Jon. Adding one more option for media is just that: one more option. Why you're threatened by this or ticked off that it's happening is beyond me.
Personally, I like the idea. There are times when I'd rather not lug around a book and would prefer to just start my Palm V and do a little light reading (on trains, busses, etc.). What's wrong with that? I still buy real books, but I don't think there's anything wrong with having alternatives.
We're in an age where people download their e-mail to their PDAs so they can read and respond during the bus ride in to work. We also have web clipping apps which -- albeit not popular yet -- will likely be very popular in the next few years as clipping devices become cheaper. If we can have this, I welcome the addition of electronic books. Sounds great to me.
I looked at the encryption briefly, but the decrypted version showed up before I got any further.
The basic encryption model is the same as with DVD's CSS: If you have software on your machine that decrypts the data and presents it to you without an active internet connection to the publisher for authentication, then the cyphertext and the key to it are both on your machine, which means that the key is either embedded in the software, or sits around on disk somewhere. Also the glassbook reader uses the M$ encryption API. So it's just a matter of tracking the calls to the API to find out what the key is. I think that the key is different for each glassbook installation, though.
More information on EBX, Glassbook's encryption scheme, can be found at http://www.ebxwg.com.
nigga pleaz!
So why not post the EBX-handler? I would prefer to download an EBX_HANDLER plug-in. I already have the encrypted book. I just read the ebx.* file that I downloaded as "the book" and then "wget"-ed the .pdf.
How did they crack the pdf? Or was this an inside job?
Some time ago I went out looking for for .xm's and .it's and other free downloadable mod-alikes. I listened to litterally hundred of songs, and found a few dozen to put out on a two cd set. I advertised this to my friends, charging only for the basic media and a very nominal duplication charge which I waved until demand got quite high. They loved this music and soon it wasn't uncommon to hear it being played at local parties. Which Wow I've been part of the mod scene for several years now and haven't seen this sort of adoption in the "outside" world, but hey all the better for it. But in making a good point here you actually spur another one which possibly wasn't even part of your initial argument. Firstly let me say that for those still around in what is now generally called the PC (or otherwise) mod/music scene, that despite myriad newer groups popping up like mushrooms, the quality seems to have settled around a handful of groups, well-known groups. So let alone the real reason, it's already not hard to find a lot of very good quality music among this base of well-established mod groups (most of which have adopted mp3 in varying degrees mind you). But the second point I wanted to introduce, somewhat ironic, is that the very nature of the typical "scene" attitude (with which you'll find a large overlap with the linux/open source community) is one of thwarting the commercial aspect of the art, (yeah the same buch of idealist socialists you'll find around these parts =) ) remaining wary of outsiders' intentions. You won't find mainstream-targeted ultra pop tunes here; anyone that bothers to learn the format and the art does it its own sake, and in that respect, the general quality
The specific point in case is technical works. On the internet, you can basically say whatever you like, no matter how exageratted it may be.
In the case of a book on a technical or scientific subject, it must be subjected to a proof reading process by several people who are regarded as being knowlegable on the subject. Any tabulated data that it contains is compared to accepted values and any errors are drawn to the authors attention for correction.
This mechanism of "error trapping" is missing from the net. I have personally seen many instances where web-sites and other online systems have hosted material that can be shown to be false and/or grossly exagerated simply by checking any of a number of standard scientific references.
The interactive nature of the net is important and it will probably go a long way to replacing the current function of books, but it is unlikely to ever completely replace it.
Call mke old fashioned if you like. There is something about an information storage medium that doesn't require power to operate that appeals to me.
Don't you see, moron?
The world doesn't revolve around you. Stuff isn't free. I'm so sorry. You're not informing anyone of anything when you say "WINDOWS SUCKS. LINUX IS THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE!" If anything, you're giving them statistical material that'll go on some statbar titled, "Percentage of Americans Who Don't Understand Business."
Get a clue already. jeesh
Sorry to burst your bubble... But JonKatz doesn't use his precious time to moderate idiots like you... So I decided to moderate you myself.
I'm sorry if you were offended, but your post seemed to be a bit 'trollish', so I moderated it as such. If you care enough about your AC karma (although I doubt there's any hope to raise it significantly, considering that it must be at least negative 50k by now), my username is 'ASCIIMan'.
Christ man, don't let that get out! If the publishers get ahold of it they'll start publishing "disposable books" where after you turn the last page the print all dissapears and you have basically a diary!...
(my page with the unencrypted PDF is at http://mypage.goplay.com/slashdot999
Glassbook reader is an Embedded version of Acrobat Reader + the EBX_HANDLER plug in + the other EBX stuff (http://www.ebxwg.com), all wrapped up in a weak little Interlok by Pace Anti-Piracy - 14 years with their heads up their ass bundle. You will eventually get a 40bit standard PDF key (you can find the PDFSPEC.PDF file somewhere on the Adobe web page).
Softlock is similar, using a plug-in, with a filter instead of an encryption method. Fortunately for the budding hacker, Softlock doesn't use anything that disables your pirated copy of SoftIce, so you can rip out the 56-bit DES password very easily., and use LibDES (softlock isn't too proud to steal the OpenSSL code base, might as well use it yourself). I expect that Softlock will get in trouble with the FTC or whomever for exporting their plug-in.
Both systems use some variant of public key to encrypt the symmetric key for the document. Who cares -- some kid can buy all the books with a stolen credit card and distribute them on some IRC channel. Once obtained, you save the document out and you no longer have to worry about the encumbrance of Softlock or Glassbook.
Remember the mantra - if I can see it, I can save it.
Wow I've been part of the mod scene for several years now and haven't seen this sort of adoption in the "outside" world, but hey all the better for it.
But in making a good point here you actually spur another one which possibly wasn't even part of your initial argument.
Firstly let me say that for those still around in what is now generally called the PC (or otherwise) mod/music scene, that despite myriad newer groups popping up like mushrooms, the quality seems to have settled around a handful of groups, well-known groups. So let alone the real reason, it's already not hard to find a lot of very good quality music among this base of well-established mod groups (most of which have adopted mp3 in varying degrees mind you).
But the second point I wanted to introduce, somewhat ironic, is that the very nature of the typical "scene" attitude (with which you'll find a large overlap with the linux/open source community) is one of thwarting the commercial aspect of the art, (yeah the same buch of idealist socialists you'll find around these parts =) ) remaining wary of outsiders' intentions. You won't find mainstream-targeted ultra pop tunes here; anyone that bothers to learn the format and the art does so for its own sake, and in that respect, the general quality doesn't suffer the limitations of targetting it at a bunch of sheep that don't ask if anything else exists in the way of music than the crap shoved down their throats on yer fave top20 radio station.
:)
:) i'm telling you work is tiring the crap outta me!
yeah, i could bollocks on forever... excuse the rant eh..
ps. excuse the last message, fsck it i swear that button said "preview" not "submit";
King already played that line in "Misery"...
...interactive fiction will mean we have big wall-sized TVs, with two Dieter-like human icons, asking, "well, what is the next line, Janet?" with gaping watchers wanting to "be in on the action".
(see "Fahrenheit 451" movie. It's not exactly the same in the book, but what will come to pass for interactive "fiction").
No, CHM as is currently implemented blows.
The WinHelp viewer would reasonably wrap text.
As anyone who has gotten a recent MSDN Library subscription, Visual InterDev 6.0, Office 2000, etc., can tell you, CHM via HTML does *NOT* wrap text, so it is IMHO far worse than WinHelp. So that means if you're unfortunate to get to use one of these FINE products on a less than fine machine (like a 166 MHz Pentium MMX w/ 32MB RAM...yee haw), the CHM viewer (bastardized IE) is a marked step down in user-friendliness compared to WinHelp 4.0.
Besides, it doesn't sound like you are very familiar with WinHelp files. Web pages traditionally do NOT have embedded graphics files in them, but are dynamically linked via the tag. So you are fundamentally wrong there. So with WinHelp you had to create a multi-resolution bitmap (like having a 128x128 bit thumbnail gif of a bigger gif, but unlike two separate GIF files, MRBMs are one file. whoopdee)... Also, the old Help compiler inlines those MRBMPs in the final "compilation" of the help file.
Where CHM is nice is that most people "know" HTML. While CHM does seem to allow a bit more design freedom compared to WinHelp in current content, the drawback is that the user, due once again to a constrained interface application, is screwed.
But it's hard to see how the process is better with CHM (must use GIMP, PhotoShop/Illustrator, etc. to mess with graphics, vs. lame bit-map windows tools, and the MRBM generator, with its limited Win3.1-inspired mini-color pallete), and various text tools (MS's Help Writers workshop, RoboHelp, etc., vs. FrontPage et al). While some might call this "better", all one can realistically say is that the process is the same, the steps are different. Both processes end up going through the help engine babelizing tool from MS. Seems hard to extract "better" from this reality.
I signed up to get the book on the first day, at multiple sites, even attempting to purchase it, with no luck. Saturday at around 11pm PST I received an email from bn.com saying that the book could be downloaded. First you had to download the almost 7MB 'Glassbook Reader', (Windows only) then you downloaded a small 'signature file' which authorized you to download the 'real book' in a locked .pdf format, (after the 'Glassbook Reader' was installed, of course). After reading the book on a Win98 laptop, (ya gotta be multi-platform these days), I removed both the Glassbook Reader and the book. I also sent an email to bn, which conveyed my thoughts on the book not being ported to linux, (I think I used the word 'dolts') and what I thought about their 7MB 'Glassbook Reader', with no response back as yet. So, bottom line, wait a week for a book which was electronically published, only to have it show up in a proprietary format readable only from a piece of bloatware on a limited platform. There's a business model that's doomed to fail (I hope).
sorry, didn't mean to give credit to Jon. I'm not offended, I expected it to be moderated down. I don't care about karma... it's not such a great thing compared to slamming another piece of crap that took "precious time" to puke out. What's funny to me is that the score raised back up from -1 to 0. Have a great day.
e-commerce, e-tailing, e-mail, and now "e-publishing" and "e-books". I am sick and tired of all these buzzwords with e's slapped on them.
even worse are the ones without e's, like "'net", "web", "cyberspace". heh, just a thought.
Katz seems to be advocating that the age of the book is dead, that "interactive" media are the future. However the REASON that books are quality is because they are the product of one mind.
Whenever you force a number of people to collaborate on something, the result is garbage. Look at your average movie. The few movies that aren't trash are generally that way because some strong individual (perhaps the (SOLO}screenplay writer, perhaps the director) managed to stamp his will on the production.
There are already books produced interactively by large numbers of people. They are called standards documents, and they uniformly suck. No-one in their right mind would read one by choice.
There are certain media that lends themselves to a certain type of interactivity, but this will not turn out the way Katz seems to think.
The premier interactive medium of the near-term future will be the dramas on the WB network, and the interactivity will be of the very mild sort whereby the producers stick polls on fan sites asking people whether they would prefer to see more or less of Xander and Anya. (BTW the correct answer is that Anya is really hot, so we want to see lots of her, and who cares about Xander.)
Note that we will not see (by successful shows) more than this. Yes people can put together gimmicks like shows where everyone votes during the ad break for which direction the show goes. But the fact of the matter is that
(a) this is horrendously expensive--lotsa footage needed but never used for possible cases that might, but didn't arise and
(b) I very much doubt that people want to control their shows this way.
Again going back to Buffy, if everyone were voting on the direction the show should go, rather than just Josh Wedon, after Willow broke up with Oz we'd probably have had her finding a new boyfriend right away, instead of the current, so much more interesting and so much sweeter storyline where she appears to be gradually falling in love with another girl.
This is not meant to be a Katz flame, but...
I think he tends to do a good job analyzing technology and its effects, and usually does a good job of analyzing and describing how clueless some institutions/groups are (usually with a hint of contempt, I might add). But how about providing some new ideas? For example, if Simon & Shuster "doesn't get it"... please, John, be our guest, tell us how a successful e-book should be!
Analyzing something is far, fat easier than actually creating it, I think John appears to be an intelligent guy, I don't know why he just limits himself to criticize the status quo. In the end, after a lot of articles, I have to conclude that he is as clueless as the groups or institutions he so openly looks down to.
No, it's not. It's simply seen as a "better" tool by MS for making Windows help files. It's like saying MS wanted RTF to rule the world instead of HTML (WinHelp files are compiled from RTF files, btw, and CHM files are essentially compiled HTML and their graphics the same way).
...but how many web pages do you apply your criteria in #2 on?
...these days, almost anything relating to the Internet will end up on the front page of the New York Times or leading NBC's Nightly News...
"YOU'RE A DORK!"
:-)
You just contributed to the NOISE portion of this broadcast. Why? Of course asciiman could be joking, he could be a troll, he could really be a dork, who knows? However the fact that you took the time to let him know that you think he's a dork, and post it LOGGED IN only makes it worse. Of course I know neither one of you so maybe you're freinds sharing a private joke, I don't know (you have a lot in common, anyways, ever notice how the two of you munge your email addresses so that only your own family who aren't techies would be fooled?).
Anyway there's a point to this and I think I'll get to it now. Oh yeah- I hit the Post Anonymousely button, which accomplishes 2 things.
1. By posting anonymousely I keep the fact that I am shitfaced between AC and World as opposed to "my karma bearing account" and World.
2.(the point I'm really trying to make here) When you have something to say that isn't contributing to the discussion in any way whatsoever, be it offtopic, reduntant or abusive, it's always better to hit the "X" button instead of [submit], but that if you must, please do so anonymousely so that those of us who browse at +1 won't have to wade through even more noise than we do.
Anyway HAND and good luck with the Flaming
You can't keep a good Linux user down. http://mypage.goplay.com/slashdot999/ By the time you read this, the PDF file should be up there. Enjoy while it lasts. I also summarize how to break it, but the details are still obscured!
I usually like Katz's stuff, so don't lump this in with people just Katz-bashing, but this article makes no sense at all: The publishing industry is dead because one company's early entry isn't innovative? What the Hell!?!
This doesn't kill their profits, its nothing that hasn't been done before, in magazines and papers and even on the web (essays, excerpts, etc available for free).
Also, print will not be dead until a technology exists that not only conveys the information we read on paper but also has all of paper's other functionality and is widespread. I need to be able to write in the margins, fold down pages, and take the book with me when I take a bath. Added functionality (maybe the ability to turn pages with just a spoken command) is welcome, but it must be secondary. I don't see this happening until we have working, cheap nanotech (yes, the Primer from The Diamond Age is my inspiration for this hypothetical replacement).
There is no replacement for having the physical carrier of information in your hand where nothing (power failure, obscure bug in your e-reader, etc) can take it away. Also there is the feeling of intimacy actually holding a book creates. That's why I spent the money for a hard copy of _In the Beginning Was the Command Line_ and why most people will be reading off paper for a while to come
Somebody moderate this up! This is the most useful and interesting post in this wwhole thread!
I've been going back and forth with tech support at glassbook about their crappy product, trying to get it to work so I could get my copy of King's novella, and this guy saves me having to deal with that hassle anymore AND tells me some useful information as well.
"But publishing executives weren't certain whether the enthusastic response marked (A) the official beginning of commercial Net publishing on a grand scale, or (B) was simply the result of offering a work from one of the world's most popular authors for little or no money. [Here's a hint: B.] "
The fact that it was for little money (2.50USD) is the whole point. No paper == little cost == lot's of interest.
I personally have read Riding the Bullet, and I think it was a great place to debut an e-book; not quite long (or meaty) enough to sell in print, even as a novella, but more than a short story you'd find in a collection of short stories. The Glassbook reader (though Win32 only) wasn't too hard on the eyes (verything looked suspiciously like Adobe .pdf), either, so maybe this is a format we'll be seeing more of.
It was another stupid, worthless piece by Jon Katz so there's nothing to get. I just read his crap to get a big laugh out of it.
OOG NO LIKE PRETENSIOUS CRAP BY KATZ!!! KATZ NO KNOW WRITING SKILLS!!! OOG TIRED OF UNINFORMED BUZZWORD CRAP!!! OOG BREAK KATZ HEAD!!!
Oh make me laugh!
I too tried for several hours to reach the free download server before (and after) giving up my email address for the PDF version. But by the time they got around to emailing me with a glassbook download link, I had already picked up a PDF version somebody posted to alt.binaries.ebooks! (Now I have both.) Ask politely in that newsgroup and I'm sure someone would be willing to post it for you.
Although I have some serious issues with the glassbook reader itself, there has to be some control over copying if writers are to get paid for what they write. And the file format that the glassbook uses, as well as the voucher/key exchange protocol, is an open (pending) standard which means you don't necessarily have to be locked into one platform or reader, so there may be some light at the end of this digital tunnel. But if you've already loaded RTB into the glassbook it's too late since the security settings won't let you even transfer it to another reader on the same machine, much less transfer it to another platform (or even give it to a friend)!
It could be argued that the security setting is valid since this is a free "promotional" copy and subject to limted rights, but I'd be willing to bet that the purchased copy has the same setting which would be a serious property rights violation! If I purchase copyrighted material, printed or electronic, the law says I can do whatever I want with it, including transfer of ownership, as long as I don't make copies. Someone who actually purchased a copy needs to check their security settings and raise a stink with the publisher if "give" is disabled.
All opinions expressed are those of an Anonymous Paranoid and should be taken with a whole shaker of salt (unless you're on a low salt diet, in which case Potasium Chloride may be substituted).
Yes, that's right. Paper publishing and electronic publishing are different. That is why electronic publishing won't kill books, but it will supplement them. Ever read the book after watching the film, now read the book after browsing the site! At least this is what will happen. Television didn't kill cinema, video didn't kill television. People still prefer to buy classics than download them from Project Gutenberg. As an experiment for what we can do, I've tried to set up a site showing a new form of literature. OK, this is a bit of an ad, but look at http://www.seditiousdiaries.com and tell me what you think. Will the new e-publishing look like this (but with better graphics)? PS can't log in to Slashdot so this will be posted as anonymous coward. I thought my nick was paul_the_man, but apparently it doesn't exist, I'm setting up a new nick.
Instead of having to work at Microsoft.
Hey Zico, is that you? or is it your evil twin, TummyX.
The Orkin man wants to know.
>Jon said mentioned "attitude", I beg to disagree.
;)
>Attitude may be important, but it is not
>everything.
You obviously need to spend more time watching the
WWF. Attitude is all that matters...
Everyone seems to need to hang on to something.. Ride the latest wave, do like everyone else. In a world of imitators and phonys, we need innovation and development.
** This comment was reproduced by a non-creative mind. The original comment was from an Anonymous Coward.
What are you trying to say? Suggest a new type of literature that would have benefitted from the e-book model as opposed to a print medium? And if you don't think much of e-books in general, then hey, you have the entire web to choose from. I'm sure it can't be that hard to save a webpage for view (text-only) on a palm-pilot.
Um... Who got the book? I don't read Stephen King but one of my friends tried to get the book and he couldn't... Another of my friends only got the book because he signed up for some PDF mailing list somewhere. More importantly, if new distribution methods are supposed to provide us with more entertaining, um, entertainment, who downloaded the short story expecting to enjoy it, but didn't?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
firstpost
Whoever put a "troll" on my score thingie, go fuck your self.
------------ I like trance music.
sounds intreasting. but just too plain thick to read.
------------ I like trance music.
Does anyone else see the irony in Jon Katz lecturing on producing quality electronic content?
The decrypted PDF can be downloaded from alt.binaries.ebooks. The story is pretty weak, though.
But your post suggests you are getting old. You value content over hype. You can recognize crap at 30 paces, even when standing upwind.
It takes a lot of time for most people to develop these skills.. some never do. (they invest in beanies instead).
On the bright side, it is a good thing that most people just "go forth and consume", otherwise the economy would suffer. Marketing people would have to get real jobs, like mowing lawns and spreading mulch.
The sale of SUV's would plummnet, and the resultant reduction in gasoline consumption would reduce the profits of oil companies..
Well, you get my point.
Are you a Mac or Linux user? Jobs.com does not want your resume!
I suppose Samuel Clemens isn't literature, either.
:^)
*sighs* guess I'll have to throw away my collection...they seem so happy on the bookshelf, though...and yes, there are a large number of O'Reilly books there, too.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
That's why the old-fashioned models fails on the net. Consider who the author of this thread is? Is it Jon? Not really, he just started the thread.
When Jon posts an article I'm more interested in the comments people make than in the actual article. The comments are often more insightful.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
"a summar of an article may cover the
essential facts of an event but leave
out responses of those involved statistics
etc. it still funtions independently
from the complete article."
True, but please don't forget that a nicely done fiction sells itself.
Our reading habits differ, but in general, the way we read fiction is different from the way we read non-fiction.
For non-fiction, the time we re-read them is when we need to find out the details embedded in it.
For fiction, the time we re-read fictions is when we REMEMBER the nice feeling (or horror, or shock) the first time we read it, and we want to RE-EXPERIENCE that feeling.
So, we re-read it.
We may remember a nice fiction we read online, and if it is in print as well, if the fiction is so nice that we do need to re-read it, we will go and purchase a copy.
The thing is that most of the publishers are afraid that people will not buy the printed copy of the book if they have read them online. What the publisher forgot is if they publish trash, NOBODY would want to read them in the first place.
The thing is that if they (the publishers) concentrate on publishing GOOD fictions, they wouldn't have afraid people not buying the books, because the more people read them online, the more people will remember the stories, and the more of them will want a printed copy of it.
Sure, there are some cheapskates that would download the whole thing and print it on their own printers, but then, if those people really know how to calculate, they would find that it is cheaper and easier for them to just buy a copy from the bookstores.
The moral of the whole deal to the publishers is - publish GOOD STUFFS and you won't have to afraid people not buying the books you print.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Frankly the only system of book publishing that's likely to genuinely work (without evil draconian curbs on book use freedom) is "niceware" - a license that says "do anything you like with this except distributing versions with modified text, if you like it please pay me what you think it's worth".
Anything else, even shareware, brings with it the whole scummy mess of "piracy" crackdowns, unfree usage, and most everything RMS predicted.
Note: GPL-like licenses are good for documentation, but for fiction works you'd want to keep the text constant - although allowing translation and visual redesign)
By posting to the same thread as you moderated in, didn't you just undo your moderating?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Are you sure you didn't mean Microsoft Certified Pimp? or Prostitute?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"First off, I'd like to thank Mr. Katz for yet another well written and thought provoking essay."
Oh, wouldn't we all.
When's he going to post one? : )
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
And as for interactive fiction, if someone else can't write better stuff than I can, why would I be reading them in the first place?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Jon ends his essay with a challenge to traditional publishers, to "scrutinize itself and its culture, ... and yes, its models of distribution. That would truly be novel."
I don't think that traditional publishers are into introspection, but I can point out one "conventionally published" book that gained value from being on the web and enhanced the printed version.
Once upon a time I worked on the O'Reilly Samba book, which contained a chapter on troubleshooting. The largest part of this traditional chunk of paper was a trouble tree, derived from Andrew Tridgell's short paper on debugging Samba. A trouble tree, for those who haven't used one, is a bunch of numbered tests, with lists of outcomes. If the test succeeds, you're sent on to a particular page where the next test is described. If it fails, you're sent to a different page where there's instructions on what to do next.
I hear you saying "Aha!", don't I?
That's right, this was automagically converted into web pages and links, so you can just click to go to the right place. An example lives here.
The interactivity here is only moderate: the reader can traverse a pre-existing tree. By rights they should also be able to add annotations, hints to themselves and suggestions to the authors. And the web supports this, so it's at least possible...
However, even though the trouble tree isn't very interactive, it adds enough value that this section of the book is more convenient on the web than on paper. This is the first economic gain the user (and publisher) sees.
The next comes from making individual, bite-size sections available on the web. You can't read the book continuously, but my eyes hurt when I try to do that from a screen anyway. You can, though, go from Samba Book to Configuring Windows Clients to Setting Up Windows NT 4.0 Computers and review the steps you need, quickly and conveniently, before or during setting up a PC.
This is pure packaging: it's not interactivity at all. It's just a classical publishing truism: making it easy for the reader to find the information they need. A gain for the reader, and indirectly a gain for the publisher.
So now we can get to economics, and why my pocketbook likes having the book on-line.
O'Reilly tells me that Samba's selling well. People tell them they've referred to the book online and then bought copies. People tell me the same thing. Other people want to contribute corrections and updates, and have. This, to me, is wonderful: I'm both in a traditional market culture, hawking my book in town square for money, and in a "gift culture", contributing my time to making other people's work easier, and having them give me back their efforts to help the next person.
So I've added a little bit of human interactivity to the mix: like other folks with web pages, I follow the newsgroups and mailing lists, and when someone asks a newbie question that my work answers, I mail them a URL. And I get back replies like "Cool, I used your tip and I've bought the book".
So it fits my culture, and my publisher's actual and corporate culture. It nicely dodges questions of hierarchy, as I now don't have to ask the publisher's permission to mail sections to folks with problems. It's an adaptation of classical publishing techniques (trouble trees and packaging), and the editing and distribution models of the publisher adapt easily to the new medium.
For right now, I really couldn't ask for more.
--davedavecb@spamcop.net
Internet is a new Media for the world to deal with. When a new Media hits the block everyone gets scared they say the guy is going to take us out. Newpapers thought Radio might do that, Radio thought Televison would do that, and now the Internet people are looking at it as a old media killer. Like anything new in this world people have hope of the changes it will bring to all. All the internet is going to do is make things go faster. That is all to me technology has seem to do for us.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
This is called Slashdot. Of course, Stephen King must continue writing. And you are, clearly, an idiot.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
He's great and I love his books. Maybe you ought to try reading the column, for a refreshing experience in fact-based opinion.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I guess I don't think that much of e-books in general. Every medium doesn't replicate perfectly online..I read the King Novella, which isn't, remember a book at all. I think just because something is available electronically, doesn't automatically make it better. It's the content of the book that ultimately counts, not simply the format.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
..it makes my hair grow back. I agree with this post. Publishers can play around with e-writing i various forms, which is a good idea, but if publishers begin go put all their money and energy into forms other than the book itself -- then they will repeat the newspaper disaster. Lots of mediocre websites, weaker and more marginalized newspapers. And for the record, it's a shame you have to fear getting glamed for expressing your opinion. That's the small but ugly little Communistic element at
jonkatz@slashdot.org
A friend of mine is building such a site at ReaderResponse.com, currently available at rresponse.virtualave.net until its out of testing stages.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Network Administrator
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Why do we all come to Slashdot? For me Slashdot does a reaonable job of summarizing the content available on the web and bringing forward gems or hot news that I am interested in, along with some interesting and occasionally educational commentary. I won't even get into the trolls, the stories, or hot grits and Natalie Portman.
What I look for in a portal site is something that is scouring for what I am looking for. Dead trees aren't bad, I greatly enjoy reading the commentaries on washingtonpost.com.
Maybe some of Jon's energy would be better spent pointing out examples of web publishing from old media that do meet his standards and ideals of "The New Information Revolution" instead of just belittling sites that try to find new publishing paradymes.
chris
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
>Record labels, if nothing else, provide a filter that while it doesn't ensure that everything is quality, gets rid of a great deal of chaff. Book publishing is the same way...
why does publishing (or music) have to be done the same way? Have you looked at mp3.com lately? Sure you can browse through everything and listen to a lot of stuff that you don't like, but you can also peruse "top 40" lists and recommendations and pull out a lot of real gems.
I see no reason that you can't have a book site online just like mp3.com. Think of all of the unpublished authors that are letting their stuff rot through rejection letters or unread personal websites. Give them, give anyone, anywhere, the ability to be published. You will get a lot of crap, but you will also get some really good gems.
Slashdot does a good job of sorting throught the web for me. mp3.com does a good job of finding new and original music for me to listen to. There is no reason that a moderated web site for writers could not do the same. Split the test up into reasonably sized chunks and place the innocuous web banners that are easy to ignore on every page. The authors are paid based upon the number of unique IP page views. If people read two pages and give up, and make a bad rating, the author will not get much traffic or pay. If many people read the book to the end, or order a hard copy (printed and sent for 48 hour delivery) then the author could be very well paid. Split all of the revenues 50/50 with the author.
Tell me why it can't work! Most people buy books based upon reading the first few pages or chapter, if not just the cover blurb. People don't like to read online, so they read the beginning, get hooked, and order the book.
Just try it,
chris
- The IP created by this post is covered under the GPL. If you do it, at least let me know, but I wouldn't mind a job offer... 8->
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
I prefer the book the way it is. I don't need to interact with it or have it be some screwed up MTV gameshow. I downloaded the King novella in Rocket eBook format (this thing kicks ass) and I have to say that I am glad I didn't pay for it. Not that I'm saying that it sucked but, I probably wouldn't have paid for it if required. I personally enjoy being able to download any of the TONS of free books from the Rocket Library straight to my eBook and reading it in bed, on the couch, etc just like any plain old book. I would love it if O'Reilly would release some of their books in this format. Just imagine having your favorite "Nutshell" book handy when you need it without the extra baggage. Yeah, those old world book formats sure are boring :P
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Sooner or later, someone had to load it in softice. Thanks. And I hope this would finally teach some people that thre is no such thing as "more or less secure".
I believe that eventually, peer review can be enacted, as it has been here on slashdot with post moderation. Love it or hate it, it is a system for peer review of content and it appears to work from time to time.
I only lightly read Katz's article, but I didn't get the impression that he was advocating interactivity in text as much the kind of peer review I have mentioned and incorporation of new media. Furthermore, the OED which you mention is a wonderous example of a moderated open-submission system which appears to have worked =). Yea yea, it's not fiction, but you get the point. On a side note, I thought last I checked, the online OED was around $300.00 per year... I should check again. Anyway.-rt
======
Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
and CRUISE for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!!
-rt
======
Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
and CRUISE for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!!
No flame intended, but I just have a problem with this.
I don't quite understand at this point why we as geeks seem to think that everything under the sun must be somehow distorted or twisted away from its original form to be worthwhile in the digital world.
Novel writing in its purest form is simply telling a story. The writer controls the flow of the story because, in all but the simplest instances, creating a cohesive story is based on the synthesis of myriad details. Interactivity shatters this, or at the very least greatly debases this. It's just somewhere between extremely difficult and downright impossible to make a great story in Choose Your Own Adventure style.
Why do we think things have to be interactive to be worthwhile? Why can't we occasionally, just once, be happy with a digitized version of the (far superior to anything else available) status quo?
There is a large space for conventional books, and will be into the foreseeable future; posters on this article have a done a fine job of explaining why. But there are two things intensely disappointing about the distribution of King's story, but first I would just like to mention that even static text transcriptions are useful -- because search & analysis tools may be applied to them, like any other digital document.
/requires/ interactive fiction is to suggest that the net is somehow something more than a communication medium, that it is required to mutate what is transmitted across it. (Being able to talk back over a phone does not change the nature of broadcast radio; if you had all the radio station's CD's, all you need is some way for the choices of the DJ (ha! try the top-40 list and advertisers -- but that's another story) to be communicated to your CD player, you'd be set. Similar thinking is behind the astounding popularity of play-list based mp3 players and very large collections of songs...) True, static broadcast is not utilising the abilities of the 'net as a communication medium, but it is premature to suggest that a medium of communication /ought/ to affect the form of that communication. (For technical reasons, it usually does -- but that doesn't it make it good or proper...) That a new medium for communication allows new forms of communications does not mean the best way to generate those forms is by modifying the old ones.
The first disappointment is the lack of any of hypertext. Hypertext is a very basic form of a interactivity, and it shouldn't be too hard of a job authorial to add it. I can understand why the story itself wasn't presented as a hyperlink web -- a position with which, as a writer, I sympathize. However, I can easily imagine that hyperlinks to commentary, or sections of the story which are well-written but not relevant enough to include, and so on, could be very interesting; a scheme along the line of those web-annotation devices could very interesting -- especially if those annotations were moderated! (It shouldn't be too hard to adjust the slashdot code to allow contextual responses, right?)
Interactive Fiction is a different beast that normal fiction, and much more difficult. Not only are all the technical problems of writing a story present, and the efforts of imagination necessary to create a scene, but that imagination must extend to interactions that wouldn't occur in a linear plot. Reading interactive fiction is not the same as playing a text-based adventure game -- you must play the role of the character. (well, conventionally. Sufficiently advanced AI techniques might allow you to play a secondary character, cause plot events to happen, etc.) Not everyone role-plays well, and some don't enjoy it; for these people, interactive fiction doesn't do it. But playing a role can itself be entertainment; and playing that role in scenes with talented direction (the game-master or a well-written AI) is even better -- especially if the prose is well-written. (Actually, interactive fiction is close in spirit to pre-built adventures, where the computer is a rather unimaginative game master...) For folks who don't enjoy role-play, writing a script to run the game through on the 'normal path' (the author's cut, so to speak) would generate the normal, book-form novel.
More closely concerning Jon Katz's contentions: interactivity on the 'net is primarily driven by the desire for interaction with others. For effectively every other form of interaction, the internet is a 'mere enabler', a way to solve some technical problem. (How do I interactively control my stocks if I can't be in NY all the time?) The novel as a story-telling form is already strongly divorced from person-to-person to communication -- though there is still some demand for professional (live) storytellers, for much the same reasons that movies have yet to displace live acting, and CDs live bands. But the lack of interactivity in a novel is a concious 'design' choice now, not a mere accident of history. (e.g. you used WordPerfect and Ghostview instead of Inform and Frotz.) The demand for interactivity around the novel, then, can only be satisfied by interaction with other readers, one form of which I suggested above.
This has been an important first step toward 'net-enabling' the novel, but to suggest the net
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
I'd moderate you up, but I just used my last moderator point on another "f1r57 p057!" AC...
Better luck next time ;)
I'll chime in with my say here. I too recieved the letter saying that my free copy was available. No mention of the fact that it was a link for the Glassbook till I reached it.
I made the comment on the story about this a week or so ago that Barnes and Nobles and Amazon couldn't possibly be doing this just to milk a few bucks out of their customers. I now stand corrected. I'm going to start using my old neighborhood book store again and I encourage others to do the same. If it costs a extra buck here and there, screw it. I'll live with it. The above comment is correct. These sights have basically lowered themselves to the level of bad porn sights. They don't deserve my business and they won't be getting it anymore.
What's wrong with traditional books? Why does the tried-and-true method have to be replaced? I personally really enjoy books. I think the idea of selling the book in a digital form is wonderful. What I don't understand, is why abandon the print media too?
The articles on fatbrain are quite interesting too and I think there is alot of promise in the kind of publishing, but why should it replace the old methods? In such a free and open community, why can't both exist?
provolt
-----
Pround supporter of the million node LAN party on the Washinton Mall.
I carry my Psion 5mx with me all the time. I don't carry books all the time. For me, etexts are more portable!
A fault of some current implementations, not of the medium itself. I've read many whole books on my 5mx's screen, and like any good medium, I'm unaware of it when I get absorbed in the story.
With scrollbars, percentage jumping, chapter/section marks, bookmarks, text searching... etexts are more accessible!
Sure, your set-up might not give you a better reading experience than a dead-tree edition, but many set-ups now do for many uses, and this will increase in future. You don't print out Slashdot to read it, now, do you? :)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I think what is being overlooked here is the nature of books as a communications medium. Books are a means of communication from the author to his or her audience. They are inherently one-way communication. The push for interactivity in any communications medium overturns this model and attempts to establish two-way communication.
In many ways, much of this two-way communication is no better than a choose-your-own-ending novel. We, the readers, aren't actually communicating back with the author; we're really just communicating with an agent the author has created, whether it be a simple choice of storyline thread, or something more interactive like the classic Adventure game. (Caveat: perhaps I'm not understanding what Jon means by interactivity.)
I don't believe that books should be retrofitted with an interactive model. We love books, magazines, and newspapers precisely because they provide this one-way communication. While a "choose-your-own-ending" Tom Clancey novel might be fun, there will always be a greater market for the non-interactive variety.
Storytelling is important. Granted, it's not given as much importance by Western culture as in other cultures, but it's still a very central part of our lives. I think that moving books to the web will in the end change very little about the way in which stories are told -- not because we're merely accustomed to it but because it's how we're wired. Though the delivery medium has changed much over the past centuries, stories have always been -- and always will be -- loved for their narrative form.
I believe that more interactive forms of communication will be important as the new media continue to metamorphose. However, I think these will grow parallel to the digitization of books, not at their expense. Attempting to retrofit two-way communication onto books may work, but in the end will be unsuccessful; completely new means must be developed for this purpose.
Katz has been ranting about the impending downfall of traditional media for years. Thus far, time has proven him wrong (yes, Katz is wrong again). Well established, traditional sources of news are still valued for their depth of coverage.
Of course, the savvy Internet weenie makes use of a variety of news sources. Some are specialized, such as SlashDot, GoVote.Com, Voodoo-Extreme, Skinz.Org, etc, and provide information uniquely tailored to meet the user's interests. However, sites such as these cannot begin to match the depth of coverage on numerous issues that organizations such as the BBC, New York TImes, Washington Post, Times of London, etc offer. When I want to spend some time chewing on world events and politics I go to the BBC, New York Times, or equivalent websites. No other site/organizations can provide the level of coverage I seek.
Katz's ridiculous arguments are perhaps illustrated by the following statements:
"It is no accident that the companies that have managed to profit most from the information revolution are the ones that devote the most energy to maximizing customer responsiveness."
"That would be mean neither the newspaper nor publishing industries, both of which have made it a sacred virtue to be disconnected from and unresponsive to their customers."
Now, what large, mainstream English-speaking metropolitan newspaper does NOT provide free access to most, if not all, of it's news content? The Wall Street Journal is the only one I know of and it can be argued that the WSJ is actually a specialized publication, rather than a standard "big-city" paper.
So, the newspaper industry is 'disconnected' from and 'unresponsive to their customers' yet they provide free access to their entire publications to every Internet-capable human being on the planet? What a load of crap!
One of the most fascinating things about the Internet, IMHO: people complain constantly about FREE STUFF! A couple of examples that I've seen repeated often: "Hey, these girlie pictures I downloaded from the Centerfold newsgroup don't have indices, so I'm forced to wade through all of these pictures of beautiful women to find out which ones I want to keep. Post indexes next time, A-Hole" "This freeware doesn't do this or that, so the author is an idiot" Check out Skinz.Org: All of the thousands of skins/wallpapers are free, but there's usually a rude whiner or two that beats up on the artists, with no attempt to provide constructive criticism.
Now, Newspapers that give away all of their content gratis are somehow disconnected from and unresponsive to their customers. IT'S FREE KATZ! HELLO! It doesn't get more responsive than that!
Katz is, as always, simplistic, whiny, predictable and sensationalist. However, in the past year, he's finally punched through my irritation barrier and has entered the "boring" zone. I'm not even sure why I've wasted time responding to this piece...I'm convinced he'll rehash this material (a favorite topic, based on his record) in a year or so, with the same illogic and "shoot-from-the-hip" stance.
Why in the world does SlashDot continue to provide Katz with such a high-profile venue? Are we so hard-up we can't find anyone capable of rational argument and original thought?
CHM isn't portable, but I still think that we need an open CHM like format. A simple standard archive format for a group of html pages and their associated graphics files. I sometimes save a web page as mht in IE. This format is designed for mailing web pages. It shouldn't be too hard to make other browsers support it since is merely tacks the images onto the end of the file in base64 format. However I would still like to see an open binary format that included compression and support for multiple pages.
PDF is overkill for many cases and it's a bitch to read on screen.
Maybe a compressed file using the fairly unecumbered zip compression routines? Flat zip files UU encoded are great in terms of how easy they are to transfer around...
:-P
I don't like those annoying 8.3 habits which chop off the L from HTML, though
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
you're a dork
i hate dorks like you
why are there so many dorks on slashdot?
dork = geek? geek = dork? i think so. notice how i didn't act dorky and use ==? that's because only a dork does that. the english language isn't a programming language. i'm sorry. also notice how i didn't use !=? YOU'RE A DORK!
Wow, what a dork
Back in the late 80's, Marc Stiegler wrote a book called David's Sling. While it was published in "book" form (long since out of print), it was also available in a form to be read with a Macintosh 'Hypercard'. In the latter form, one could read the story in a traditional linear fashion, or switch viewpoints, or branch off to links about specific topics, etc. I didn't have a Mac myself, but I did find someone (only one someone) who did and had read the hypertext form, and he thought it was a much better way to present the story. (The paper version was pretty good too.)
When I check out /., I don't start from the top and read the first story first post and work my way to the end; I pick out the stories that interest me, read the posts, branch off to an occaisional link, etc. The web gives us the ability to do the same with fiction, but the only example of this I can think of is over a decade old.
Actually, we used to do this on BBS's back in the 80's and it was a lot of fun.
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
That's Sturgeon's Law...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
This was a profitable stunt for King surely He will reap hundreds of thousands for the teaser. Question is we really can't expect artists to work for free full time can we? Breaking encryption so that we *nix users have equal access is one thing, but expecting to just download everything for free is another.
Clearly any encryption system that allows export to text isn't going to be accepted by the writing community. Most authors stick by their guns with the "no unauthorized electronic reproduction whatsoever" clause. Possibly using something like the Intel approach of encrypting all the way to the screen would be more palettable?
As long as it is easy to distinguish the "authentic owned version" from an ASCII pirated version some of the writers might try distributing more works online. The difficulty of pirating then becomes similar to OCR scanning of a paper copy and distributing the pirate version electronically. I think the writers guilds have recognized that the internet is not going away, and will become more of a threat/friend in the future when the other 80% of us get online..
"Ride the Bullet" is a ham bone King has tossed over the wall. They are listening as we snarl and bark.
I like interactive branched role playing games, but as has been better expressed in other posts they require a different totally kind of writing then a does good tightly knit novel.
Lets say publishing continues without any major paradigm shift for now. Publishers continue in their spotlighting role, but gain important interactive feedback from their buyers. Printing and binding is supplemented/replaced with the distribution of copy protected electronic media. The cost savings could be split between publisher and purchaser.
The real problem is that there is a general perceived risk for the arts, losses due to pirating, initial cost for new equipment, resistance to change etc. It really just boils down to taking some of the risk out of online distribution, making it profitable and we will be on our way.
"Did anybody get the PDF, or was it just a pack of lies to get loads of email addresses to spam? " Yep, Same situation. I filled out their "/dev/null" comments form and all, but I don't think they care. The worst part was after getting the damn things, and deleting my email, the f-ing file turned out to be a SERVER-ERROR html page from gl"assbook"(I shoulda looked at the filesize, oops). There was no freaking book. Just a stupid proprietary, 'prevents copying'(set your files to readonly before opening, I'm sure it will modify them somehow) bookreader. If anyone actually DID get the book, either .ebf or .pdf, *please* put it on gnutella or email it to my college address. I normally don't advocate piracy but that just plain stinks. I also forgot to follow their link to remove myself from their spam list. Porno-site spam tactics, a bait-and-switch advertising scheme and to top it all off I still don't even have my bill-gates-edition copy of the new book. Mr. King(I'm a big fan BTW), if you are reading /. right now, please take note-DO NOT allow your publishers to do this in the future. If they cannot keep up with demand from the start then they have no business distributing your work. Myself and I'm sure several other /.ers would be much more capable of setting up a download system that would insure fairness for all. Anyway I learned two things from this. John Katz *can* call 'em sometimes, and never trust an online bookseller any farther than you can throw them.
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
Not alien to all publishers. Baen (no. 2 science fiction paper publisher) has a discussion bar with Jim Baen present in almost all the discussions. Some of his authors also participate. They actually listen to what people say there too. Of course Baen has been epublishing his books in HTML for several months now. His latest best seller "Ashes of Victory" by David Weber was sold in HTML for $2.50 as part of March's eWebscription before it was available in paper. It's now number 14 or so on the NYT best seller list. Some publishers know what they're doing.
Greg Weeks
Also, despite what some may think, reading off a monitor is a tiresome experience. I can go a whole day non-stop reading a book and not feel tired. Imagine spending that much time reading one e-mail or article for comparison. Make sure you have a bottle of aspirin nearby.
What's needed is a better display medium. I saw someone earlier mention reading Gutenberg texts on his Palm on the way to work. This is where print is going. Maybe not full length novels, but its clear that portable technology like the Palm is where the evolution of print and downloadable reading material is going. In a culture of people on the move, this is the perfect application of technology.
-----
"I will be as a fly on the wall... I shall slip amongst them like a great
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
See the eink.com web site.
How about this: cheap; instant access; portable (if you have a Palm or PDA); cool. Not bad for a first try.
Simon & Schuster's stunt... render[ed]... the bound book less valuable, significant and lucrative, virtually overnight.
And yet authors have been publishing short stories and book excerpts in magazines for a century or two without killing off the industry. Are the people who downloaded "Bullet" now less likely to buy the next Stephen King hardcover?
The ferocious interactivity of almost all successful Web sites... is completely alien to the way newspapers or publishing work.
Is this such a bad thing? Artistic genius is non-interactive: consider Thoreau at Walden. Maybe we don't want every segment of our culture polling the Internet for an instant response. In any case, 400,000 downloads is ferocious interactivity of a sort - perhaps the publishers need to begin somewhere.
For [publishers,] entering the 21st Century means distributing [the] usual product in bytes instead of paper and ink.
No. On the contrary, it means distributing the usual product both in bytes and in paper and ink. Here, I hope, all Slashdotters can agree: the pressure to distribute digital content will fast become irresistible. S&S was only experimenting, on a small scale, with one way to make digital distribution real and profitable. (Note: They succeeded.)
Yet... online and off, the enormous public appetite for books persists.
Exactly. And just as Project Gutenberg hasn't gutted the market for Shakespeare, making selected bits and pieces of books available for free download isn't going to kill contemporary book publishing.
I don't see what's wrong with customizing literature to fit your needs. Me, I read from my computer fine; the first time I read Turn of the Screw was online (thanks to Project Gutenberg). Others might be more comfortable by the fire place, but they can be by the fireplace with the book they want in the format they want cheaper than otherwise. People with sight problems can change the font or have the book read to them (the whole thing, not just a book on tape). Heck, they can probably go to Kinko's and put the book in the nolstagic paperback or hardcover form for cheaper than they could get it with all the shipping and distribution costs involved in traditional bookstore buying.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the printed word will ever die. I think that publication an the effort involved adds a level of legitimacy to a text that can never be achieved by purely online means. I just don't see any problem with online novels as an additional, flexible, inexpensive form of publication.
-ac
I don't know if he's attempting to convince us that he was right all along by pretending the emporer actually had clothes, but it's not a terribly honest dialogue either way.
I just had to comment. I think you are right on target here. The whole online craze is (pardon the pun) insane. I mean when is the last time something substantial came along, that made the internet more enjoyable than real life?
Sure sure, mp3, Linux, Slashdot (well...), etc. But when was there something on the internet that made it REALLY great? All the time, I see companies doing partnering with this online, hyped up product, or developing that hyped up prodcut, but all in all, its just hype- just to make them look like they are "embracing the future". But its all noise to me.
When I go to a website, I go looking for information, not pretty pictures, flashy java scripts, and loud, highly contrasting colors (been to computershopper.com lately?). In fact, Slashdot is the most complex page I normally visit. Most of the stuff I look at is plain text ( ie digested information, hold the fluff).
I know all that stuff is great, but does it convey the information any better? does it make things easier to look at? does it help me find what I'm looking for? If not, then throw it away, and give me plain old text; in fact, just give me a book, and go away, so I can concentrate on pure data, without distraction (or Java, or shockwave...).
Lets get back to basics here. If it doesn't improve things (read make more enjoyable/easier to use), then chuck it. Serve me data, with a good interface on the side-oh, and hold the hype!
Fish
Try reading the New York Times on Sunday morning. If it takes you less than three hours to get through it, I'll be amazed.
The one thing that paper rags *do* miss on a lot is technology reporting. But then again, that's why I read Slashdot and ZDnn... I think I'll always be a fan of quality, printed newspapers, though.
There will continue to be a market for books until a reliable, useful, robust technology is invented to make reading online a more enjoyable experience than staring at a monitor. The paper medium tends to add a sense of weight to the words, and a sense of contemplation.
Despite all arguments to the contrary, a deep focus on content and lack of "interactivity" can prove a more worthwhile experience than a flashing news banner and cute graphics.
In my best dreams, the Internet will become the Brain of the World, connecting all the neurons (us) to fire up terrific new ideas.
In my worst nightmares, Internet becomes Just Like TV : few will control its contents and the rest of people will passively absorbe them .
Ciao
----
FB
This was an excellent essay describing the current state of play.
/. for summing current state of play, particularly with respect to the effects that technology is having and may have on our lives and industries. These sort of essays encourage debate and thought about where we are heading. They encourage useful ideas. They make me think.
/.ish - becoming more of a community conversation than they have been.
I see that once again there is a theme of Katz-says-the-obvious. Before I begin I'd like to say that I think that this is unreasonable. There is a place on
Jon, thank you for sharing your thoughts and research with us.
In a previous existence I worked for a large publisher of excellent repute. There is indeed a serious discussion in the publishing industry about the effect of the net on publishing.
The current consensus is that the medium is good for publishing content that has a short shelf-life: newspapers. But that current screen technology makes it a bad medium for longer pieces and those that are not immediate. This seems obvious now - but it hasn't always been so.
The online newspapers are still experimenting. It's pretty clear to most newspaper publishers that they are being overtaken, and that is why they are going online. But like everyone else, they are still developing the model. Expect to see newspapers becoming more
Books. Some important but subtle points. The current form of the book and the forms of story are inventions. Part of the reason that these are successful is that they meet the social needs in a useful form factor. It is likely that the way that stories are presented will change in response to the internet form factor. There are many experiments running now of which Glassbooks, PDF publishing, etc are just a few. The most important thing from the point of view of publishers is not the way that words are presented, it is the income they generate. Publishers are businesses - this may seem self evident - but the point is to make money. If in the process publishers can publish great and worthy material then they will. But the form factor that material is delivered in is not sacrosanct.
What do publishers do? There is a line of thought that says that publishers are middlemen that the net will cut out. This has a grain of truth. But in fact publishers provide many more services to the public and to authors than are generally recognised. Some of these have been mentioned already - they act as filters - there is an enormous amount of work out there. Lots of it is not worth the cost of the paper it could be printed on. They act as valves - publishers aim to release work to a schedule - this means that readers to some extent are not going to be overwhelmed with important works at the same time. They act as quality control - most books contain flaws that people find annoying unless corrected. They act as distribution - very important while books are on paper. They act as PR. Promoting a work to ensure sales is a critical part of making sure that authors have money to eat and write. Now some of these will drop away/reduce with the advent of electonic publishing on a serious scale. But the others are reasons why publishers are unlikely to go away. (But they will change.)
Profit. Publishing is a business. The point is to make sure that you and your employees eat and sleep well. So publishers have to keep up the margins. To some extent the prices on books are artificial - for instance hardback vs softcover price depends on the value people vest in hardcover and not just the cost of manufacturing. But a portion of the coverprice represents the cost of of the dead tree and the cost of distributing the dead tree. With electonic publishing you can cut these out of the price, drop the price and sell more - goes the argument. The problem is that electronic publishing as the music industry is finding out makes the object that much more copiable. Now there is a fundemental problem; when people buy a book they have something physical. They associate the price with the physical item and not the content. When you have electronic publishing you no longer have the physical tie, and hence you lose the value that people ascribe to the physical. Furthermore - for a particular book there is a market of x people, by putting the book in a more copiable format you are guaranteed that you will lose some sales that you would have made. A way to pull back those sales is to reduce the price. But by reducing price you cut margins, and you decrease the value that people associate with the work. Potential for a nasty spiral if you are a publisher or author. And all because we've broken the stable price/content/value/form factor that is embodied in the publishing industry currently.
So this goes back to the notion of format. Current publising formats are likely to change for electronic publishing. It is hard to defend your margins when your publications are easily copied. It will always be possible (easy?) to circumvent technical locks on content - like those that Glassbook provides. the likely solution will be that the format of the story changes. Perhaps more stories will be presented in a eposodic fashion, to increase the revenue that publishers can gain from advertising. They may involve some realtime experience - for instance, at crucial parts of the story you may have to connect to a server for an update of key plotlines - rather like a Soap. Perhaps discussion between the author and the audience will be a key element. There are lots of experiments out there.
The trick will be to etablish a new *stable* price/content/value/form factor.
There is another view of the future - some of this drive towards different format is because of the form factor of current display technology. It is particularly unpleasant trying to hold a monitor in your hand while you are in the bath. But a lot of people have seen the obvious advantages of having cheap thin light flexible screens with book-level resolution. There are a number of groups working on this sort of tecnology and it is virtually certain that one of them will be successful, if only because there is massive demand. How the format of the book changes will be driven in part by the availability of this technology. If it takes 2 years to arrive then books can still be associated with a physical element, and I would expect to see a gradual shift in the the format as people discover that epaper is not paper. On the other hand, if it takes 10 years to arrive, then you can expect large changes in the publishing world as margins are eroded.
The sort of changes: an explosion of small publishing houses offering ewares. More mergers between large publishers in an attempt to cut costs. A drop in the number of fringe books appearing on paper. A drop in the investment made in first time authors. An diversification in other format books - for instance book on tape, book on cd, readings of book streamed across the net. (But note that these are harder-to-copy formats).
That's all. Publishers reading this - I am prepared to give my opinion for a fee. Other entrepeneurs and angels. I am thinking about this stuff. I welcome your thoughts.
For better or worse, the electronic publishing of "Riding the Bullet" (RTB) will be considered a landmark event. (Disclaimer - I was raised on "the classics" and have no intention of ever reading a Stephen King novel.) I now see in the mainstream news that the posting of various bootleg copies of this is being reported, in a general tone of shock or outrage. I think this whole thing presents some very interesting issues. According to one account I read, King will make as much as $450,000 from this one work which otherwise might only have gotten him maybe $10,000 or so. Granted, I would rather King himself get the money for his work instead of publishers or bookstores, but isn't that more money than many, many writers might make in their entire careers? King makes literally millions for each movie of his work that is made - in the grand scheme of things, is it really so terrible that a few extra copies of RTB are posted here and there? Gosh, I almost want to read it now myself just because of this controversy, so these bootleg copies might possibly get him a new "fan" To take a broader view, I think the entire greed mentality that has taken over the Internet, moving it from a technical arena into a business medium of CEO's and IPO's has made us lose sight of things. Clearly, the entertainment industry is trying to use the Internet, but at the same time trying with various lobbying and litigation efforts to preserve the same profit margins as before. I would like to suggest that the economies have now changed forever, and the business models (God, I hate that phrase!) are going to have to change as well. Why should we have to pay $15 for a CD? Sure there are promotion and production costs, but do we really need to see any more pictures of Ricky Martin or Britney Spears, attractive though they may be? We are certainly nearing a point where artists (in a very broad sense - one could claim I am actually "publishing" as I write these words) can reach their public directly. With negligible production or distribution costs of digital content, why should we try to preserve the same profit sturcture as before? I am not a cheapskate - I don't mind paying for music, for example, but I know at the present of that $15 per CD, only a much smaller amount actually goes to the musicians themselves. Anyway, I am not trying to criticize Stephen King per se - he has certainly helped modernize communication. But I would like to suggest that in the future some (many?) artists will be content to offer their work at a lower cost directly to fans. Without having to produce a physical compact disc, book, or even videotape, more and more people will be able to participate without having to spend years trying to break into the established channels. Tom Rombouts, Torrance, CA (one time would-be screenwriter who may attempt to make his own digital movie - where did my paragraph breaks go?)
Perhaps this is why I thought his stories were such a pile of cack.
Rich
How long until they think, hmm, the internet is interactive? There are small attempts at 'choose-your-own-adventure' style books (I hesitate to call them books as often they are light on the text and not of any great depth.)
What about the step beyond into true Interactive-Fiction? We have the Infocom 'zmachine' as a Java app.. When will ole Stevey King is 'programming' inform to create true online interactive fiction?
Are we going full circle to the point where old verb/noun advneture games evolved into prose filled literature into the realm of 'book publishing'.
Some IF authors (iirc, some of the Infocom guys) have already won literary awards for their writting in some games. Wouldnt it be great to see a merge of traditional novel authors and IF?
Taking authors that next step of 'fleshing' out characterisations to the point of 'talking' and getting an 'AI' response.
Now that would be fantastic future for authors and the book reading public.
How would publishing companies make money tho. An Image of a 'corporate' mud type system comes to mind. (Anyone played IFmud/ZorkMud, etc...)
Write your Own Operating System [FAQ]!
no sig for you
Katz would be correct to criticize television, but not books. TV has created a culture of the lowest common denominator. If people had the choice to watch whatever they want, whenever they want, they wouldn't be watching ANY of the stuff that occupies most of the current broadcasting bandwidth. The Internet will eventually create a new culture of first-choice viewership. Luckily, that culture has existed for thousands of years among literate people who have sufficient attention span to read books. Books are the ultimate interactive media. You can find a book an practically any subject that interests you. You can choose to read it cover to cover, or just skim the sections that interest you.
Whether read on paper or electronically, the fundamental nature and purpose of books will not change. Katz: Books are fine as they are.
...you are dealing with online fiction that strives both be popular and distinguish itself from print fiction in some significant way. Summaries of books don't work the same as summaries of news paper articles. the importance of form and content is vastly different in the two genres.
a summar of an article may cover the essential facts of an event but leave out responses of those involved statistics etc. it still funtions independently from the complete article.
but what good is the summary of a story? or even excerpts? It is usefull for deciding if you want to buy the rest of the book. Its like a 45 second mp3 of a 4 minute song. It has a commercial significance but mostly it is annoying.
I think what Jon is wondering is when will a large publishing company attempt to publish fiction on the web that could not exist in book form. books are generally more convenient for most people's reading habits that a monitor. But what if a particular work could ONLY exist in an electronic medium? texts that include images, sounds or video (a broad definition of text is "source of information or authority" websters ninth).
texts such as these already exist (see my post "hypertext" further down this page) but many of these experimental works are self-reflexise, confusing and, yes, pretentious to the point that they will never have a large readership. I believe that formal innovation precludes a large readerhsip. How can a work of fiction be necessarily electronic without driving away readers?
attitude.
I'm sure somebody will come up with a way of incorporating some streaming media and pattern of links into a basically linear mimetic piece of fiction. It won't be horribly original or innovative, rather, it will only appear to be so. Like MTV. it will have attitude and nothing else.
I for one don't give a damn if I ever see it
michael joyce, suart mouthrop and shelly jackson are three other hypertext fiction writers of some significance. Mouthrop has done stuff with a 360 degree virtual space that is nifty, but I don't think his writing is anything great. Shelly jackson wrote a very interesting piece called patchwork girl that based on frankenstein. I don't know the links to these authros off the top of my head. The best electronic piece I've seen was Spy vs. Spy by Jay Dilemuth (I'm not sure how to spell his name) It was done with macromedia director, but you would never guess. It's a poem with all kinds of crazy moving and fading text with an audio track. both the text and the audio changes as you click on the text. It's not on the web, though because it is simply to big. (Jay also worked to develop cosmoplayer, a vrml plug-in). Bandwidth is a limiting factor in electronic, multimedia writing, at least in terms of distribution
plot is temporal and linear. something happens, then something else happens, then something else.
a story does not have to be this way. it can jump between eras, characters, locations,EVEN BETWEEN PLOTS (e.g. "If On A Winter's Night a Travler" by Italo Calvino.)
If all you read is stephen king you may not know this.
the word eBook is stupid. it implies linearity. But electronic fiction begs formal innovation. and it is being done(altx.com, grammatron.com).
the problem with a formally innovative work is that is takes more effort to read. It doesn't make money whether kit's printed or on the web.
and by the way, when I say formal innovation I don't mean choose your own god damn adventure.
has anybody here heard of Robert Coover? ahh forget it nobody is listenning.
people are already writing innovative electronic based fiction, but I don't think anybody her wants to read it. You all want Snow Crash2, revenge of Raven.
I'd have to agree. There's no way a monitor will ever replace the paper. I think all books should be available in electronic form, but only so they can be searchable--it would certainly make college student's lives easier! But I don't think the traiditonal book will change any time soon as the primary method of reading fiction.
Hey, thanks for the links. Those three sites demonstrate three different ways to do something interesting with electronic fiction. Grammatron was especially nice because it did something unique along with the story, kind of like snarg.net with a direction.
I'm glad you brought this issue up because I'm afraid it might get lost in a forum like this. I just got done rereading "Floating Opera" for the first time in a few years and I was just thinking about some of the authors you mentioned.
The fact is, there's probably lots of interesting fiction out there on the web but because major publishers won't touch it not alot of people know about it. I've checked out a few of the on-line writers' workshops and it seems like many of those are devoted to sci-fi/fantasy, much to my disappointment. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with sci-fi. Ballard still blows me away and Steve Aylett is someone I've recently discovered who is just as unique.
Maybe a couple decades down the road we'll start learning about the real innovators in interactive fiction. That's usually the time-lapse with any original writing. Of course, with the web, that lapse may very well be shorter.
Well, Jon, again you seem to have written a really long article but I'm not sure what your point is. The fact that Stephen King's "e-book" was downloaded by thousands of people isn't really significant to the publishing industry at all. What it means is that all the King fans out there will go slavering after anything he writes, even if it is a piece of crap he tossed of in about 4 hours.
When the publishing industry starts to make everything available for download, then I'll start to pay attention. Most of the cost of a book is invested in printing and binding (much of which is done overseas). If I could go download the new Steve Aylett novel for $3, I damn sure would. Part of the reason I don't buy many new books is because of the cost, especially when a really good used bookstore will have what you need. Plus, there's always the local public library and if you're not clamoring for the new Sue Grafton novel , there's a pretty good chance you'll get what you want.
Also I really like the feel of holding a book and taking it wherever I go and I still subscribe to the newspaper even though I can read it all on-line just because of the immediacy of it. There's nothing like pulling the red rubber band off the morning edition and having the news right in front of you. Plus, e-books arent' really that portable. Sure you can throw it on your PDA and take it with you but until there's a waterproof one I can use in the bathtub, I'll stick to the book.
Really, have you ever gone to a place like netLibrary or Gutenberg and tried to read a whole book on-line. It's maddening. Reading Ulysses in book form is hard enough, try reading it on your monitor. On-line publishing may be good for the short form though. Something you can read in one sitting and there lies the one advantage to on-line books. I once spent an entire day at work reading "In the Beginning was the Command Line" and "The Hacker Crackdown" and nobody around me caught on. I just looked like I was doing what I always do, sitting in front of my computer going through the daily grind.
That's great Jon! Thanks for summing up just
what's wrong with America today. It's nice to
know that you think the Bill of Rights is boring.
And "pretentious"? You're throwing stones Jon.
Would you appreciate it more if it were called the
eBill of eRights? So then you could use it to
synergize a new paradigm?
Jeez ...
I find this very interesting when it comes so fast on the heels of the article about Project Gutenberg. That is something more clearly in line with most of the thinking here at /. In many ways that may be more of the future of text on the internet. If anyone has read Bruce Sterling's newest (I believe) book Distraction, one of the themes is that all the Intellectual Property of the Western world was basically put on free display by the Chinese, downloadable from their satellites.
When Jon Katz complains that traditional publishers are not looking for new writers who know write about today's interactive age, I suspect he might be influenced by his own problems with the industry, which is perhaps more reflective of the many problems that /. readers have with his writing as well.
I think it is important to look at what I consider the three types of writing, and how they are currently displayed on the internet. The first is editorial, which is basically everything that JK spouts, and makes up a big part of all the /. comments. The second type is factual data and information, the kind of thing found in FAQ's, databases, instruction manuals, and specs. The third kind is fiction, basically meant for entertainment. However, obviously these three areas intersect. For example, Kafka's Metamorphosis is fiction, but is also basically an editorial exposition at the same time. Lots of fiction includes factual information, and good editorials need reference to factual information. Bad ones are essentially works of fiction.
Now, I don't pay for editorial content. I can find it on places like /. The moderation system helps assure me, that I can look at the best stuff when I am in a hurry, and yet go down to the depths when I have time or interest. The publishing world does this by hiring intelligent writers who have written well in the past, so hopefully they will write well in the future. I don't think many people pay directly to hear opinions, because so many of them are available for free. It is hard to make a living doing this. Webpages that display this kind of content generally survive on advertiser money. This is the natural evolution of this type of writing, since it is really an outgrowth of people arguing their opinions in pubs or public squares or around campfires or whatever.
The second type of writing, factual information, is something that can be extremely valuable. However, it is also frequently subsidized and other times just given away for free. The new GNU Open Documentation License is supposed to cover this. I am always willing to shell out money for manuals, text books, and so forth. This is a main area of potential profit for the internet. Everyone knows this is information age. This is also where electronic publishers can certainly lap traditional priting presses as they can instantly update information. There are already pay sites for financial information, and so forth. I believe there are even sites where you can pay for satellite photos and so forth. This is also an excellent area for people to donate their time and donate information for free. You can't patent a fact about the world or how to do something. This is the area, that I think in the end will really evolved the most. However, if you can't get your machine to boot, then you can't read the online help, so a paper manual will, perhaps, always be needed.
The last type of literature, fiction, will never die out. People still read fiction today, even when they have Playstations, DVD's, etc. People still watch kabuki theater, puppet shows, and the ballet. Types of entertainment never die out, although their popularity many periodically dwindle and then rekindle. People predicted the death of print with the coming of the radio, the motion picture, the TV, and now the internet. People predicted the extinction of artists with the invention of photography.
It is not all about interactivity and the new 'e' age as so many pundits claim. It is true that people want shorter and shorter spurts of information, but I don't need to interact with my weather report. I just want information, quickly, and hopefully tailored to me. The point is I don't even want to have to interact on click on a series of higher resolution maps. I just want the weather report for my area, instantly.
Whew, that was a JK size rant...I had better stop. ;o)
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
I truly think that the book is the common denominator. It cannot and SHOULD not change. - It's unfortunate that many "geeks" think that reading a good book is plopping down in front of a computer with the latest O'reilly publication, or maybe they'll spout about how "they read literature too." - the closest i've ever seen some geeks get to "literature" is the Deathgate Cycle (no..despite what you will argue in replies to this comment...it is not literature).
I believe that the book cannot change, because it is the act of reading in itself that is what it's all about. As much as I absolutely love my computer...if I were to be given a choice between the internet and, say, a copy of Slaughterhouse Five in paperback...I say fuck the internet! It's just too unfortunate that most people don't feel the same today...they drivel on about brainless garbage in chat rooms and about the latest "E-product" never stoping too look around at what they're missing. Let me put it this way: There is NO substitute for sitting down on a snowy day next to a fire, with a glass of your favorite book in hand! That experience can be altered, it can be supplimented...but it can NEVER be replaced.
-FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Nowadays, I only buy books if they are worth a second read (which eliminates about 95% of the books I actually read...sigh) ~Dave
~svoboda
~svoboda
Practice kind randomness and beautiful acts of nonsense.
Even though today's monitors are unfriendly things, eventually we will have displays that are every bit as readable as paper is (if not as beautiful). This WILL happen. It is only the stupid publisher who does not realize this. But, as someone who has actually made paper and bound books by hand I am not bothered by this so much. In Gutenberg's day, I am sure many people mourned the passing of the illuminated manuscript (I know I would have...). But now, books can once again become works of art. Ironic huh? We will have the choice of either the cheap "byteback"tm from online publishers or a real, letterpress printed, leather bound work of art that can be appreciated and handed down to the grandkids. And...think of all the trees that will be left for real books when the National Enquirer goes 100% digital, heh heh.
no sig
The potential is for less profits, and the publishers know this. Jon Katz knows this too. That is why, he said nothing about what could be done.
summing up what katz said: by definition, the publishing industry cannot do anything right.
he detaches interactivity from technology, and then uses the internet to define interactivity?!?
And then, finishes with a desire to see a publishing company rethinking itself??? AOl/Time Warner? don't you think that time warner is wondering how they got snapped up by a very sucessful "interactiviy" company. and how they will have to change.
I'd like katz to make a business case for whatever it is he thinks companies should do. Hell, I'd like it if he was consistent. He knows that there isn't a better business model out there..
The publishing industry has at least five years on top other media types (movies/radio/news/music) as it's the highest barriers of entry. They will sit back, see what the other industries do, and _NOT_ listen to Katz...
That's what I want to know! Sure I want that handwriting reading, web-surfing, project tablet/screen thingy that'll serve up my sci-fi fix on the side, but I've got a bookcase full of treasures I'll have forever. I doubt I'll have my Cassiopea two years from now.
It's an E-100, sweet, and I've found some great books, some classics, some modern -- books that I wanted to read. And then I found AvantGo.
So cross off the PalmPiloteers -- they won't get through it. Oh a few mighty souls will, sure. But the masses? Nay.
And sure, we've got the horrific pull of Mr. King's words to lure us onwards, but I've never finished anything over 20 pages (and rarely 100 words) on screen. So scratch off monitor users.
And there go the printers, chewing up reams of paper. What with the economies of scale I really do wonder which is more efficient -- to spread "common" resources (reams of paper) out to the masses and let 'em loose in a digitally distributed world, or keep those mammoth printing presses roaring against the sheer scale of it all.
But I had tears rolling down my face I was laughing so hard at this -- the truth hurts:
As the Net traumatizes one institution after another, some appear to be eating their young.
How many will actually read that story all the way through electronically? Cause if ya go to paper, I think that's still in the empire's domain... And once they get this printing-on-demand thing down. Hmm.
what precisely is mr katz proposing here? that books, in their current form, are outdated? that the pubolic wants to modify it's stories as easily as it filters the news it gets through cnn.com? books are artistic expression. there's no room interactivity in a medium like literature. suggesting that the publishing industry is making a bad decision by not changing what it publishes is just silly. the publishing industry doesn't change because the book does not change. the author's words are it. int 21h; the silicate
Ok, first off I would like to say that I agree with most of what Jon says.
But, I dissagree with the blow off that Steven King got in the end of the piece. I was one of the thousands of people who jumped at the chance to read a King novella without the hassle of buying it. Although I'm not a big fan of third party software to do so. (that glassbook reader is worthless). I think that Publishers as well as authors should use the community as much as possible.
Like one of my favourite authors Orson Scott Card. He has, in the past posted large chunks of his pre-released books for fans to read and offer input. I think that more of this countries major authors should follow this trend. The thought that someday I can help one of the authors that I read refine his book, really makes me happy. (or mabye thats just the sleep deprevation)
"Never wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it."
Well, I for one am not interested in reading a book off the web. e-books? Forget it. I want a BOOK! A proper book - ink on paper, bound together. I want to put it on the shelves with my other books, read it where I like - in bed, on the train, wherever.
I do not want to have to scroll through anything, or have the batteries run out in the middle of a chapter, or ruin my eyesight squinting at a monitor or LCD for hours on end.
I do not want to lose my book if I have a hard drive failure
Allow me to add my name to the list headed "People who reckon Katz is full of shite"
As for Stephen King, well he's just jumping on a bandwagon - the e-everything bandwagon which will come to a crashing halt when the market crashes and burns as it will when people finally realise that you can't run a business with continual loss indefinitely...
Anyway, didn't Gibson produce a net-book years ago?
"Information wants to be paid"
Our very own Jon Katz just came out with a new book Geeks. Has anyone else read it yet...? And if so what did ya think about it... Microft A.K.A Atrox
- Love all computers...
After the attention of the King novella, publishers will jump in to electronic distribution, and if they don't, their authors will. With the profits to be made with electronic distribution, publishers will have to take it into account when planning the distibution of works. If they don't, they'll see their authors move on to others who will distribute works via the very profitable model of electronic distribution. They may still view on-line distribution as disquieting to their sense of control over copyright, but the potential profits will force them to do it.
I understand that Stephen King is going to be paid a 50% royalty on the amounts paid for this novella. Contrast this amount with the ten or fifteen percent of wholesale that a top-shelf author can normally extract in negotiations with their publishing house. An author is lucky if they get paid a five or ten thousand dollar advance against royalties for a full-length book (though the select few like King demand and get far higher advances). Contrast this even more with the advances fatbrain.com paid its authors for the Bill of Rights essays ($100,000 each).
Any author in their right mind has spent at least a bit of time the past week reviewing their contracts to see what they are allowed to do electronically by their publishing houses. And I would imagine that many authors have been in contact with their editors to see what their publishers have in store for them.
After the King novella and after the fatbrain advances, all publishers will be forced to move into electronic distribution, if not by consumer demand, then by the demands of their authors. If not, those authors will know where to move themselves.
I can't imagine that "e-publishing" will replace the paper sort any time soon, but it will very quickly become an important ajunct. The lower costs and higher profits will almost require it.
Maybe one day then, the works published will take advantage of the new medium, and the publishers and authors (if there's any distinction by that point) will have an incentive to take the time to implement such interactivity, whatever it might be, that the new medium can allow.
Now I'm a book junky and wouldn't trade my paperbacks for anything, but it seems to me that there is a potential out there for writers to not only gain an audience and worldwide exposure, but to be able to retain the rights to their work, which were previously sold to publishers in exchange for both money and exposure. If authors could find a new way to make money off of internet publishing - perhaps via banner advertisement or the like - book publishing could instead be steered towards public interest instead of mere formula and the Oprah Effect. This exposure could increase the number of new authors that do make it into print - it's easier to sell yourself with a web history showing public interest.
Plus there are so many potential ways of changing the standard novel format to be more suited to online publishing, innovations that would surely create their own kind of market, completely separate from the book industry. All things considered although the publishing industry's backwoods view of current events may prove to harm it, I don't see any harm in changing a system that serves only to promote a few select middle grade authors and those selected for Oprah's book club. Maybe we'll get the chance to read more quality writing as a result.
Build the mountain. Then climb it if you're bored.
The essential thing about the internet medium has very little to do with the PC in its current form. THe capability of hardware to deliver information to our mental processes in one form or another pales in comparison with the widespread and volatile nature of the medium. The net is not: - regulated by the requirements of publishing machinery and delivery deadlines: papers / journals updated at irregular intervals are possible. - of necessity funded via advertising and editiorial content regulation. The current lack of oligopoly (Microsoft-haters settle...) across the actual net rather than the mainstream distribution gives far more freedom of publishing. This whole process demonstrates the ridiculousness of attempting to transfer a process designed for another media. It's like saying, hmm, lets design horseshoes for working in the ocean and then realising that all the horses are drowning. The current application is defined by its medium
An snippy but relevent insider truism among freelance writers is that it's an unfortunate fact that almost everyone who can read also feels that can write for publication, and hey folks, it just ain't so. There's a huge difference between writing something for internal personal or company reference and writing for entertainment and education purposes which is what so-called professional writing is all about. Writing for one pair or small group of known eyes is definitely different than writing for a large anonymous gestalt of gazing pupils. Things like technique and structure are more important, yes, but professional writing also must give service to the writer's ego and vision. The Web was supposed to have been the great democratizer of personal vision, a place where anyone could be a co-equal-status ePublisher with anyone else, but it hasn't worked out that way, and for good reason. It takes time and effort to sit down at a keyboard and crank out words let alone HTML or other code to frame the code for browsers, and many if not most people simply don't have the time to do so even if their ego and vision whispers in their ears they should do so. This is the problem that Fatbrain and other straight ePub'ers have now. Even if their business model allows for traceable usage through encrypted purchase paradigms, they still need warm bodies with rational minds to actually crank out the inventory or they won't have any product to sell, or at least any product that anyone wants to buy. Buying, especially buying non-3D-physical intellectual works whether said be a program code chunk or a poem is antithetical to the genuflective reaction of most techs and geeks, unless they themselves have a personal work stake via their own production of intellectual capital of some sort. The problem is for those of us who produce intellectual cashflow and capital is that we only have three billion or so heartbeats in this lifetime to produce allocatively those ephemeral whisps of mindfuck fancy, and to keep the heart pumping we need money to pay our bills. So how does one get paid for quality results of text effort? By giving it away on the Web for free? I don't think so. I saw Job Katz on CSPAN and couldn't help but notice how his entire demeanor changed when asked how he could make a living writing for the Web, considering how open and prone to piracy the Net is. It is tough, ain't it, Jon? Without legacy deadtree means of protecting your time-allocated-focus works, a typical book being what maybe 40,000 of your given three billion heartbeats, neither you or I could afford to feed the passions of respective ego and actually try to write for a partial living at least. Perhaps this publicity stunt of King's will speed up the development on easier means of distributing thoughtwhisp products electronically while still protecting the means of authors to pay their gas and light bills, I certainly hope so, Smile... ....H. Kent Craig, "Contributing Editor For Project Management" for "Contractor" magazine, http://www.contractormag.com
What folks were really looking for was a bloody hand reaching out of the (in)active screen to to grab them by the neck, give them a good shake to wake them from their teletubbyesque complacency.
"Oblivion is just a click away." -Aazz
Interactivity is not the key to the web, hypertext is. It's what makes the web, the web. Newspapers can truly benefit from this by linking to information that would be too cumbersome to include with the actual story. JonKatz implies that by simply expanding the "Letters to the Editor" section, a newspaper will launch itself into the internet. Wrong. Making use of the hypertext ability of the web is the surest way to distinguish a true internet newspaper from a paper one.
And I can't get over the irony of posting my "Letter to the Editor" without a hyperlink.
When I read a web site, I'm not just looking for content. I want accessible content, a quick way to access the content that I WANT and disregard the rest. I want the 'Stuff that Matters'.
For example, when I go to a newspaper site, I could care less about pregnant celebrities. Unless there's a picture of them naked, of course.
I don't want to filter out all the bullcrap by hand, I want a computer to do that for me.
Okay, how's this:
Get all of Marketing in a meeting. Pair up each of the oldest employees with three of the youngest employees. Send each group to a different bar in the neighborhood ( remember to leave the cellphones in the office, and shuck off the suit coats ).
The oldest employees will only listen; the rest will buy the first five people they see a drink, sit down with them, and ask what they want. Not from their company, or product line, or country club - just what they want to see in the world to help them get by. (Generally, you'll hear that they want the mostest for the cheapest, so if your co. can't provide that, go back and cut costs until you can. The Net allows effortless comparison shopping.)
Make sure the older ones learn from the others' communication styles, and that the younger ones learn from the elders' poker skills. Any group that comes back and can't provide a set of ideas which improve the bottom line in six months are deadwood - get rid of them. Otherwise they'll poison the company over time with the (justified!) perception that Marketing==clueless. Those remaining should cause serious jolts and shudders in the corporate culture.
The problem with altering the nature of publishing houses (be they paper, film, record, whatever) is that they're hocking _two_ products:
<pedantic>
This is a very important point, but you mean 'hawking' - the other refers to a pawnshop transaction.
</pedantic>
Longtime AC, first logged-in post. Was I supposed to have a .sig?
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
decided to drop a line on slashdot for a change and just to say that i did that a couple of times with my friends and throw it in my cv or something, to then realise that i had to register as usual. but it turned out to be a pretty quick job unlike the usual registrations; and actually had a bit of a laugh at the registration letter they sent. anyways good job and by now i could'nt be chuffed to write something relevant to the original topic about e-books. as far as i'm concerned the fact that i have the improbable choice makes it a good thing which isn't worth the 25k of hassling u get to; not even for metaphysical and deep litigation's sake. nite all one last suggestion is that u should include a field which does a bcc to friend's e-mails, making us show-offs happy and at the same time u guys getting more addresses in your databases.
The true innovation in the publishing world was getting Stephen King to write a "novel" that was less than 600 pages. Apparently the e-forum allowed him to get over his editor-phobia. On the other hand, it is somewhat encouraging to see the publishing industry make an attempt to engage in the new media. Maybe this will ultimately help authors who aren't traditional best-sellers, and who aren't promoted any longer by the publishers. Lastly, Katz, not all content needs to be shocking and provoking to be on the net. In fact, the net can benefit from hyper-pods that are thoughtful and reserved as long as they don't commit the greatest sin, which is being boring.
Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon in ebook format. Now that would be a perfect fit. Of course, interactive.
Anyone can publish for the Rocket eBook on the Rocket-Library.com site. Already more than 3000 titles there published by site visitors. First you download "eRocket" (a virtual Rocket eBook for your PC) from http://www.rocket-ebook.com/eRocket. Install the RocketLibrarian software. Drag your HTML file over RocketLibrarian window, and poof, you just ePublished. For more info about ebooks: http://www.ebooknet.com
http://www.ebooknet.com/story.jsp?id=1671
Some eAutors *do* get the medium. Check out http://www.incunabula.org/freeware/ and http://www1.mightywords.com/find/categories/scifi. asp
I think that JK may have underestimated many of the upsides of even linear e-texts.
:-)
E-books have numerous advantages over dead-tree paper books (p-books). I guess that I should limit that to PDA based e-books. I agree that reading a book looking at a PC is hardly what I'd call a good way to get into a book. However the PDA has changed all of that. I've had a PalmPilot long before anyone was making a big noise about e-books. I have it with me all the time both as a PIM, but also as a repository of ideas that pop into my head. I will always have something like that with me - as far as I can see. Now that I can add to that utility with e-books, my dependence has gone up further. If you have not tried it, it is truly better than p-books. Primarily, it is a nicer way to read - I can change the font, it has a built in backlight, I can add bookmarks and notes, and I can read it one handed (stop grinning - I have infants and holding book open is a real pain). If you are infirmed, it is much easier to spend all day on your back reading a book on a palm than a p-book. I can always have several e-books with me and the pilot is smaller and lighter than any p-book.
I must say that I could never see the standalone e-books (such as rocket... Spending even 200 dollars for something to read books on seems silly - it must take a long time to amortize that over p-books. Add to that, they tried to make it look so much like a book that it took away the advantages that a smaller format (read Palm series) brings to the equation.
One reader commented as to why they might not like a PDA based e-book - battery life. This is another area where the Palm shines. Two AAA batteries last on the order of 2 months. You can leave the thing at your bedside for weeks without worrying about the batteries running down overnight - like with most CE devices.
There are good sources (peanutpress.com) of easily downloadable new e-books - no fuss, no muss - that have very good readers.
The downsides are being able to lend out a book (ignoring the cracking issue) and having something to display proudly on your bookshelf.
Reading e-books on PDA's is a reality, and is quite pleasant. This includes plain old linear stories - which have been with us since the dawn of language, and will be with us 'till the dusk of language
Personally, I went with web publishing through impatience with the normal routine. First agent I tried (totally 'cold calling') was the Maas Agency. Struck out (have since learned that it was insanity to even attempt them, but it was fun). Second agent I tried bit, and asked for the rest of "The Kings Of Rainmoor" to read. I sat for months, in an agony of uncertainty, knowing that the guy _had_ expressed an interest- and finally, politely, he passed, citing a big workload.
There was no third try. I plead a low tolerance for sitting around in an agony of uncertainty. I don't write to be _not_ read.
This whole novel, and many other things, are there to be read by anyone, at http://www.airwindows.com/fiction/inde x.html
For that matter, I don't play music to be not listened to: as of a few days ago I have most of my song catalog up at http://www.mp3.com/RFW, and I'm working on getting instrumental stuff up at http://www.mp3.com/chrisj (currently not online as the songs have just been uploaded)
With all of this, my motives are a lot like OSS coders in some ways. I can do these things. They are entertainment things. Where is it written that I have to withhold them and extort money off them and all that rot? I get by- I may never, ever, own a house or something like that, but I don't starve and I have a place to stay. What I would like most of all is to be IN PEOPLE'S FACES making art and GIVING it away. If you want to get picky, I'm expecting to be able to sell _studio_ time and my talents as a sound engineer- and even then, as I've said before, I'll work for open source types who are willing to release the result freely as mp3 for nothing! (_they_ pay cabfare to Brattleboro Vermont, tho)
The era we're starting to enter has some very interesting qualities. It allows pretty much global networking of talents, and the only downside is that you don't just hear about the 'slush pile'- you're soaking in it! But by the same token, word can get out about one of the ten percenters really quick. I know I work pretty hard to be one of those ten percenters- though there are areas, still (like C coding) where I just lose :)
In a way that's why I am so committed to the mp3 revolution that I've put out basically _everything_ as mp3 with no attempt to get money off it. I want people to see that you can do that- it's like OSS coding, people eventually had to _see_ that you could work together giving your code away and that it was all right and even beneficial. I want OSS for artists. I want to show that the qualities for artistic success are talent and hard work- not greed and marketing. I don't know if that'll happen, but it's not for lack of trying- and I have nothing to lose, I can survive even in total obscurity, and in fact I needn't even pay for the 100 megs of broadband web hosting required to store my current mp3 catalog- because I give it to mp3.com, too, and they have nonexclusive rights to it. So even if I get nothing else, my willingness to give out this stuff freely gets me web hosting that would cost me a hundred bucks a month from my current provider. (It gets me no promo, of course- it's all one big slush pile.)
(you and me both, Cap'n.)Why reinvent the wheel? Adobe designed PDF to be a portable format that includes graphics and pixel-perfect layout. Sure, the standard is closed, and one can claim to fall back on (gh)postscript, but it's not widely known or supported. PDF came out at the right time, and this compiled HTML stuff sounds like another MS tactic to knock the competition leader down.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Yeah, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that we are getting a choice. Do I want to go buy a paperback book in the store that I'll read once and let sit on my bookshelf, or do I want a digital copy that I can have _right now_ and not kill any trees getting it? Sure, books are arguably the most recycled paper there is, but still- the convenience factor is not quite there.
The real problem is, well, what IS the problem? Is it people sitting at home and being hermits instead of going to the bookstore? Is it megacorps trying to sell us anything and everything over the 'net? Is it book piracy?
Personally I think it's a great thing to see a new distribution medium. The public will vote with their dollars... if people don't like it (DIVX anyone?) it will die a quick death. If people like it, it will thrive and you'll probably be praising it the next week as the next best thing to hit the 'net.
You think that good games today are often linear because a linear storyline allows the author to control the temp of exposition? That may be true (although the "I need to take a break and rack up XP/GP" interludes in the Final Fantasy games certainly destroyed the story tempo without harming the story line much), but only in the sense that "holding my hand out the window increases drag on my car" is true - it's lost in the noise of a much bigger effect: making a truely interactive game is *just too hard*.
Making a more interactive game requires you to give the player more choices. Each time the player gets to make a choice, the gameplay "branchs" into at least two new games. Assuming you want each of those potential games to be just as fun as your original, less interactive game, you're going to have to have them be just as long, and just as detailed. How do you do this?
Note: the following discussion is oversimplified. I hope it still gets the point across.
Well, in a sports game, or a first person shooter, or just about anything in the "action" genre, you have the computer run a simulated world, where little or none of the gameplay is scripted. You create a set of physics rules and AI rules that give the computer an initial value problem to solve, and at each moment in time you present the user with graphics corresponding to the solution, and get new input to change the physical parameters.
In a role-playing game (and any computer game which involves "story telling" is basically either a role-playing game or a movie), you don't have this option. Story telling requires a story, a stream of language, and we simply can't program a computer to generate a stream of convincingly humanlike language on the fly. If someone out there could create an AI that could play the part of a lifelike non player character in a computer game, they'd basically be passing a limited Turing test. It would be even more strict a requirement than passing a Turing test, because you would have to program the AI to appear human *and* to play his required part in the story, no matter what twisted directions the player might turn the story in.
So what do we do instead? We have the AI follow a tree of player actions/statements and responses. If the player asks question A, respond with answer A. Question B elicits answer B. Etc.
As far as these questions and answers don't affect the game state, that's fine. But that's a limited level of interactivity. When I think of a game as being "non-linear" and "interactive", by that I mean that I can make decisions which will change the outcome of the game. And two different outcomes means two different streams of story. If that game-changing decision comes in the middle of the game, then you have to worry about twice as many endings and 150% as much story. If you have 30 game-changing decisions (which in today's 30+ hour role playing games wouldn't be unreasonable), then that means one billion different endings and 70 million times as much work. Obviously this is ridiculous; there's going to be a huge amount of overlap between those different possible games, but play with some numbers yourself; what do you consider to be a "reasonable" interactive game?
Off the top of my head, I'd say 50 2-way decision points, with 10 percent of the subsequent game text changed by each decision. That means writing 25 times as much text as a linear game of the same length and quality. And that text would be harder to write, too, with loads of different options to worry about for each plotline thread. The more you try to "cheat" by making different choices similar or by making fewer choices, the less interactive the game feels. The more you try to "cheat" by having less text, the lower quality the story feels. Writing an interactive, non-linear story is *hard* - the best examples of it are the Choose Your Own Adventure books, not video games, and that's kind of sad.
99% of the fiction on the web is crap.
Who was it that said, "99% of science fiction is crap, but 99% of everything is crap."? I think it applies here too.
Publishers don't publish everything they're sent for a reason, and I don't have the time or desire to want to read through their slush piles searching for the occasional gem.
Agreed. Although amateur fiction can be fun, provided you get a little more creative with it than just reading it instead of professional stuff because it's online. My girlfriend used to write serialized, multi-person stories with one of the online groups on "alt.starfleet.rpg"; the writing varied from excellent to mediocre, but it was still more fun than simply reading a book because of the personal involvement. It wasn't quite real-time enough to be a role playing game (since you had to do a lot of playing of everyone else's roles too), but it was a lot more than a static story.
It would have been nice if Katz had found a few similar examples of publishing changed by the net, rather than just bitching about ebooks.
Neither do I want most netizens going through the slush pile to supposedly decide what's worth publishing.
I disagree. You could call it the "Audience Lifeline" effect (although I fear that reveals too much about my entertainment habits; what were you saying about "overcooked turnips"?):
If you get enough people to vote on a question, the people who are wrong will often be wrong in random ways and cancel each others votes out, leaving the right answer to take a (however slim) majority. Yeah, I know, it doesn't always work. But it works pretty well on Slashdot, where the moderation system takes a sea of crap and filters out the dozen or so +4,+5 posts that are a pleasure to read.
It seems almost axiomatic that a peer-review based filtering system will rate those books most highly that will be enjoyed by the most people, and if you don't think that's the ideal way for publishing to work then you're going to have to do some talking to persuade me toward your definition of "ideal".
Of course, on a personal scale there's the problem that my tastes probably don't agree with the majority of the population, netizen or otherwise. (although I'll bet the internet users come a lot closer) Isn't that a problem with traditional publishing as well? Publishers aren't looking primarily for manuscripts that are of the highest literary quality, they're looking for manuscripts that are going to sell enough books to pay their way. And so that just boils down to a majority vote too; just a lot more indirect.
The only problem with peer review of literature on the net is a big one: It doesn't exist. Or if it exists, I certainly haven't discovered it. Where is a website that has a database of links to online fiction, a login procedure to let me score anything I've read from 1-10 or add comments, and sorting functions to let me find what fiction is out there which matches my tastes and is highly rated?
If such a thing exists and I just haven't seen it, by all means post it here (and make it obvious in the subject title; it'd be horribly ironic if such a link wasn't moderated up...)
Well, if it doesn't exist now, it will eventually. And when it does, I'd expect to see the quality of online fiction go up with it. Hell, even the quality of the best slashdot posts went up suddenly after moderation was implemented (although the amount of crap has been increasing for years to balance it out). People would be a lot more eager to write things for the web if they knew that there was a good chance that their work would be noticed, pushed to the forefront of people's attention based on merit, and attract thousands of readers (and maybe a few publishers) to your name. Even writers who wouldn't have given the net a second glance otherwise would want to publish stories online under such a system; a high rating by hundreds of interested readers (and a log with thousands of hits) would be a powerful thing to show to the publisher you're trying to sell a book to.
The first rung on the Internet ladder was in academia twenty years ago. The second came with Tim Berners-Lee and the initial sprouting of the web. And now that business has finally woken up to the net in a big way, we're on the third rung of the ladder, one might say.
But the Internet is not a three-rung ladder. There are another 50 rungs, or maybe 500, so it's far, far too early to be making end-game analyses of the fate of the publishing industry at this stage.
They're just flapping around in the strong current along with the rest of us, moving a bit in this direction and a bit in that, and meanwhile wondering just where it'll all lead. To criticize them for not having adapted to the new environment is a bit harsh, given that nobody really knows whether there is white water, a waterfall or a fountain just around the corner.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
We must do away with the misconception that you and I are morally inferior to insincere manipulators of the public mind. The underlying message is that slimy deplorable vagrants are the biggest threat to freedom the world has ever seen. Jon, get a life! Shame on him for thinking that people like you and me are uncompromising!
On this subject, we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from him and his lackeys. The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation, but it does indicate in a rough, general way that if Jon got his way, he'd be able to create an untrue and injurious impression of an entire people. Brrrr! It sends chills down my spine just thinking about that. Others have stated it much more eloquently than I, but this truth will be as pertinent six years as 60 years hence. I have the strength, ability, desire, and courage to take advantage of a rare opportunity to protect the interests of the general public against the greed and unreason of the worst types of illogical militant cads I've ever seen. Do you?
Jon's magic-bullet explanations are crass through and through. Different people often see the same subject in different lights. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but you get the drift. During the first half of the 20th century, collectivism could have been practically identified with extremism. Today, it is not so clear who can properly be called dim-witted cynical psychics.
I predict that any day now, people will generally agree that the police should lock Jon up and throw away the key. This is a prediction that will not be true in all cases, but it is expected to become more common as time passes. He has figuratively enclosed himself in a secure elitist ghetto. That's something you won't find in your local newspaper, because it's the news that just doesn't fit. He will adopt or abandon any principle to obtain power. The popularity of Jon's declamations among conceited fogeys is a harbinger of pesky things to come. Now, I'm no fan of Jon's, but still, Jon is addicted to the feeling of power, to the idea of controlling people. Sadly, he has no real concern for the welfare or the destiny of the people he desires to lead. He, in his hubris, has decided that he has the right to fuel the censorship-and-intolerance crowd. I wish I could put it more delicately, but that would miss the point.
My love for people necessitates that I nourish children with good morals and self-esteem. Yes, I face opposition from Jon. However, this is not a reason to quit but to strive harder. The unprofessional cameralism I've been writing about is not primarily the fault of snotty quacks, nor of the grotesque scum who institutionalize imperialism through systematic violence, distorted religion, and dubious science. It is the fault of Jon Katz. Please don't misread my words here; this is yet to be comprehended by most money-grubbing firebrands.
I, not being one of the many sex-crazed weasels of this world, must point out that juxtaposed to this is the idea that he thinks nothing of violating the spirit of an indigenous people whose art and songs and way of life are proof that it's a sad world where the most inarticulate yobbos I've ever seen have the power to lead people towards iniquity and sin. On the surface, it would seem that this, of itself, is prima facie evidence that one can see the blood lust in Jon's eyes. But the truth is that Jon got into a snit the last time I pointed out that I cannot conceive of any circumstance under which his positions could be considered appropriate. He is essentially describing a situation that does not exist.
Jon's doctrines are uniformly riddled by an unbelievable degree of ignorance. Which brings us to the harsh reality that must be faced: Jon is the root of all evil. Personally, I don't expect him to give up his crusade to cause an increase in disease, solecism, crime, and vice. But we'll see. It's indisputably time to put up or shut up. Then again, that notion has been popular for as long as Comstockism has existed. Sometimes it seems cold-blooded rapscallions are like a farmer who, in the spring, would work the ground, plant seeds, fertilize, and cultivate the ground for a period of time. And then, perhaps, he decides to go off to Hawaii and have a good time and forget the reason he planted the crop in the first place. Well, a farmer wouldn't do that. But Jon would tap into the national resurgence of overt colonialism if he got the chance.
Even if our society had no social problems at all, we could still say that fogyism is the last refuge of the childish. While most people know this like a schoolchild knows that 2+2=4, he prefers to see problems talked to death instead of solved. What has happened to our sense of humanity? Jon's henchmen have already started to create a kind of psychic pain at the very root of the modern mind. The result: absolute vapidity, birdbrained and laughable cacophony, lack of personality, monotony, and boredom. Jon has no real regard for other people's rights, privacy, or sanity, to put it mildly.
In case you have any doubts, there is a simple answer to the question of what to do about his epithets. The difficult part is in implementing the answer. The answer is that we must reveal the nature and activity of his assistants and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims. Despite the fact that his ideas are but a speck in a constellation of methodologies used by commercialism to turn a deaf ear to need and suffering, Jon should clean up his act. He is capable of passing very rapidly from a hidden enjoyment of nit-picky frotteurism to a proclaimed attachment to blackguardism and back -- and back again. That, in itself, will condemn us to live with paltry recalcitrant loan sharks sometime soon. My argument gets a little complicated here. Jon's artifices are based on hate. Hate, autism, and an intolerance of another viewpoint, another way of life. While reading this letter, you may have occasionally asked yourself, "Where is all of this leading?" and, "What is the point exactly?" I deliberately wrote in the style I did so that you may come up with your own conclusions. Therefore, I leave you with only the following: Given the public appetite for more accountability, Jon Katz should have instructed his helpers not to blame those who have no power to change the current direction of events.
pronoblem
...for generating all this publicity. But even though he may be a good author for geeks and others, I don't see how this step will improve publishing, any more than all those websites improved newspapers. Be open to different ideas, though. King's deserved popularity shouldn't be a smokescreen for what is essentially a suicidal move for publishers, IMHO
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I actually agree with a lot of what Katz is saying here. Where I think he is wrong, though, is in stressing interactivity. These companies need to concentrate on doing what they already do but in better ways. Sure the Internet is a different medium, but newspapers are still newspapers and book publishers are still book publishers. The New York Times web site wouldn't be improved if it ran the Slashdot code, IMHO. That's not what the NYT is about.
/.)
As far as book publishing goes: how many people really want to be reading those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books? What else would an interactive novel look like? This isn't the way for publishers to go (perhaps game companies, but book publishers certainly don't have any of the expertise or infrastructure...)
So what should they be doing?
eBooks are never going to sell well until the hardware exists to make an eBook that has all the advantages of a paperback. Small size, take it anywhere, very good readability. Not least among the advantages: the publishers can make money with them. There are some projects out there working on "electronic paper" that'll look and feel like paper but be changable electronically. I think this is a ways off though, and the hardest problem will be figuring out how authors can get paid for books distributed electronically. It's just too easy to reproduce the bits.
What book publishers need to be aiming at in the short-term is books printed on demand. You go to the bookstore, or a web site, make your selection, and the book is printed, bound, and at the register or ready to ship in 15 minutes. The publishers and bookstores get to keep their business model, and no longer have to carry large stocks of inventory, a lot of which ends up wasted. Consumers can always find whatever title they want at the bookstore, and no book ever has to go out of print. Advantages for everybody.
(The parallel to how music can be sold or movies rented in this way should be obvious, and have even been mentioned in previous stories on
Sort of on this topic: It is sad that Barnes & Noble chose to split off an entire different company for their web business in an unimaginative attempt to copy Amazon. B&N's big advantage was their potential integration with their brick & mortar stores, and they threw all of the possibilities away with this one decision.
Publishers perform a valuable service. If you have ever looked through a "slush pile" of incoming manuscripts, you will thank God that someone else is stuck with the job of finding the gems in the steaming heaps of manure. Even with a good manuscript, it usually needs editing, proofreading and revision before it is ready for publication. Then there is typesetting and book design. These are jobs for skilled professionals, not the mob.
If I pick up a computer book published by Addison-Wesley or Prentice-Hall, there is a high probability that it is a good book, unlike the crap that many other publishers shovel out the door. I've never understood why the chain stores carry shelves full of "5 pounds of useless paper on Visual C++ for Blithering Idiots" while not carrying any of the Stroustrup books.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
My two favorite e-book sites, Alexlit and Mind's Eye, both offer e-books for download in a variety of formats--text, HTML, Rocketbook, Palm(Aportis)Doc, and so forth. My third-favorite, Peanut Press, is closed-format, Palm-only, but my Visor is easy enough to read it from. I've read whole novels that way--including A Fire Upon the Deep, which is one of the longest novels you can find these days.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Not to mention it's only available for Solaris SPARC, not Solaris/X86.
Sorry pal, I'll stick with PDF.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I will agree that as far as nonfiction goes, the web will pretty much overtake the traditional publishers, due to reasons of economics and timliness (why buy a dictionary when you can get webster's online, in its current edition for free). There may even be a place for subscription based services for the really expansive works (see the newly subscribable OED online... $595 a year, but much cheaper than a "real" set of the OED, and much easier to use... and no magnifying glass either :) )
What Katz has failed to address here (and this isn't a knock on him, no one else has quite figured this one out either), is how online publishing works an editorial factor into everything. Look at the (free) mp3 sites out there... tons of music, anyone can put stuff out there... and 99.9% of it is crap. Record labels, if nothing else, provide a filter that while it doesn't ensure that everything is quality, gets rid of a great deal of chaff. Book publishing is the same way... Sure, King probably doesn't need to publish online if he doesn't want to and has a large, already established audience, but how does an online "publisher" separate the signal (a good work) from the noise (the other 99% of stuff out there?)
Plus, I don't want intereactivity in my fictional stores... what will this lead to? Serialized fiction where people provide their input into the work? And you think the LCD stuff that comes out of hollywood after tons of test screenings to provide audience "input" is bad? Wait till Joe Blow gets to go.. well, I liked the Green Mile, Mr. King, but does he have to die at the end???
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
95% of most internet publications are crap. This is because 95% of everything is crap. So what? This doesn't mean that a great e-novel won't be worthy. Trust me, I for one will be a buyer.
Agreed that publishers haven't "gotten it right" yet. However, have you noticed the dismal failure of computer game and other "hot content" media to tell the story well? Sure, we can "show" a very pretty and impressive screenfull of highly interactive and responsive scenarios -- but can we tell a story?
I think not.
Storytelling over the eras has been an art. Since the Poetics, we have understood that timing, the subtle interplay between characters and scenes over delta t, is critical to the telling the story well.
A story must present characters, develop them, make them real, present their backgrounds, and through a series of episodes interact and have conflicts, ultimately reaching a climax and then, the gentle denoument to let us reflect on how they (and we) have changed.
The magic of doing that well requires that the author controls the tempo of the exposition. Too fast, too slow, and the story loses in the telling.
But granting interactivity permits the "reader" to control the tempo, thereby depriving the author of her key expositive tool: exposition itself.
Have you noticed that the best of simulation games are never telling stories well, and the best of text adventures, always seem too controlling and linear? This is because, I think, there is a distinct tradeoff between quality of the storytelling, and the free will permitted the "reader-as-protagonist."
Now, to be sure, the best of us have found tricks -- tricks to permit people to think they have free will when they don't, tricks to permit people to think exposition is being well-paced when it is isn't. This is the smoke and mirrors of the interactive story-telling industry, and we have gotten pretty good at it.
But this is done not through great story telling, or through great simulation writing. It is done through playing the tradeoffs well one against the other. And you can only do that once you recognize that there is a great conflict between exposition and simulation.
In short, don't write off the writer. I will be pleased to read paper and e-books forever. Publishers have much to offer me that my colleagues in the gaming industry can never give me, and vice-versa.
This isn't a medium issue at all, Jon. I don't want the GREAT story tellers bound by the feeling they need to let me interact -- I want them to tell me THEIR story. This isn't to say that our great game designers and simulationists don't do what they do well. I'm just saying that they do what they do differently. It isn't interactive fiction -- its something else.
There's room for it all. And so far as publishing goes, Jon, I think there's plenty of room for the well-delivered internet book.
Somebody moderate this up as "Funny" -- it's a nice parody of Katz's disjoint style.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
It is easier, more convenient, and more enjoyable to read on paper than on a CRT. Plain and simple. End of story. As anybody knows, you can only stare at a monitor (or lcd, or whatever) so long before you start getting eye strain and migraines, etc. (due to refresh rates, glare, resolution, unnatural light spectrum, etc.). Electronic display devices are simply NOT the best thing for long duration reading. I don't care /what/ they do with the content. It will still be more convenient to read from a physical object. I'll check up on news, etc., while I'm programming, but I'm not going to read a whole damn book in front of an electron gun.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The article itself echos many of the sentiments I've seen cropping up lately in tech journals, fururist rags, art forums and marxist zines -- but they all share a common problem.
It's the cluetrain issue.
That is to say, "change or die! change or die!" might be a fun mantra to chant, but it really doesn't put us on any sort of PATH. Vague notions of interactivity are put forth (a la cluetrain), but that's it.
I.e. Okay, change. Change is good. What are we changing to? And no cop out answers like "more focus on the customer" or "strive to counteract cultural alienation." Solid examples here, people. What could a publisher do to "ride the internet wave" and become a better company? That's not rhetorical or sarcastic, I'm seriously interested in replies.
The problem with altering the nature of publishing houses (be they paper, film, record, whatever) is that they're hocking _two_ products: The actual good, and the name. Stephen King pushed a lot of bits online because he was Stephen King. Or the people who go see a Cohen Bros film, or Star Wars, or buy the new Pink Floyd CD. That is to say, the product does not stand entirely by the measure of it's own quality, it intermingles with a greater cultural legacy, even if that legacy is illusory marketing hype. It becomes a cultural phenomona. Nor is this necessarily bad, it gives us (the members of the culture) something to tie us together.
Though it may seem banal and hollow in retrospect.
Another reader pointed out the obvious: There's really no point in changing, seeing as we have zilpo idea where we're gonna be in oh say five years.
Katz chastized online papers for not providing something "more." But creating more product costs more money -- even if it's just hiring additional researchers to find and link to existant relevant information. The larger online newspapers are supported by their print ventures. How would the money roll in otherwise? I mean, Slashdot wasn't exactly a media empire prior to the influx of venture capital.
Katz hit the nail on the head: the King thing was a PR move. Marketing hype. But so are most websites, and virtually all TV shows. But we're told to think harder what the internet "means" to business. Okay.
Radio is grand. It lets air traffic controllers keep planes from coliding, lets kids play with toy cars, transmits tcp/ip packets, opens garage doors and keeps truck drivers from getting lonely on the long haul. But when most people think radio, they think of, you know, radio. Advertising through "entertainment."
And that's what I've seen happen to a lot of the internet (though I tend to associate the downfall with netscape's introduction of colored backgrounds) -- it's become corporatized. So what? The good stuff's still there, as are ham radio fiends. Don't like it? Learn to live with it.
I don't mean to come off as overly nihilistic here, but virtually everyone I know who uses the internet thinks of it as TV with a buy button, and a neat way to save on stamps. Some for the pirated music/software.
But they're ordinary folks, they're not looking for a paradigm shift. I'll concede, maybe they are and they don't know it -- but that's a dangerous, flawed and elietist (though I too suffer from that disease) line of reasoning.
Dear lord I've become incoherent. So pray tell: what exactly _should_ industry be doing? At least the cluetrain folks had the balls to say "beats us." If we're just going to rehash other people's theories, we should at least _contribute_ something to their development, y'know?
-- r . m o s q u i t o --
I read the newspaper. You know, the paper-and-print kind. Think about how long they have been the same. Sure, now we have a slightly different layout, more ads, and colour photos. But, honestly, these people are dedicated to CONTENT, and pretty much little else. If you read a web site for anything other then the content, then what exactly are you doing? The newspaper industry is now moving their(sometimes) quality content into a new medium. Give them a chance to realize this new medium's advantages. :)
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
It goes against open standards. If you want to have a document that renders exactly the same way on multiple platforms, use PS or PDF (which is basically PS + some). PS and PDF readers exist for practically everything.
If you want the code to contain proper markup indicating meaning (perhaps for braile or blind readers, as well as normal document printing and rendering), use SGML. SGML becomes so many things so easyily. It's also an open standard.
CHM is just another 8.3 security hole, IMO.
No source means no true multi-vendor support, too.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
My only hope is to have some help searching sources and filtering out the goodies. Papers have done this for ages. They find intresting stories and sell me a compilation (together with some added content of their own)
Book publishers do the same. There are many crap books out there. Who hasn't thought of writing a book some time? I don't have the time or money to read everything, just to catch some books that I like. Instead I trust the publishers to find the gems. I know very well that I miss some authors that noone dares to publish. So? There is no chance that I'll catch everything.
What does an online bookstore give me? The same as a normal one. A preselection of titles to save me some time. Maybe I'll find this King Novella and note somewhere in the back of my head that King is worth (or not worth) reading. I'll also note that the site that published it gave me a hint. Perhaps I'll return for more. Perhaps the writer and publisher gained my attention. Perhaps I'll trust that publisher to select titles for me in the future too. Then we both won something.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
This is a fascinating subject. I believe that everyone can agree that publishing (esp. in the fiction/popular non-fiction realm) is one of the most ritualized, old-guard, old-boy networked, inflexible, and downright inefficient (the worst criticism available in this stock market age) industries that exists today. That is not the fascintating part, the fascinating part is how to change it.
I don't think that 'interactivity' itself actually answers that question very well. However, it is a framework to start looking at things from.
I'm going to start from what occaisionally (at least on Slashdot) seems like a radical premise -- the next generation of publishing should define a significant portion of its success through how much money it makes. I am frightened of the day when all writing is interactively done for free. While the best books are never the ones that make the most money, at least the money carrot exists and talented writers don't need to take on a second job.
In nearly any industry, the internet has shaken up the traditional structure through a process of innovation. Only in rare cases has this innovation come from within the giant companies that were most ideally situated to take advantage of the industry changes. Instead, small, nimble startups have scampered to the top and changed people's perspective. I think that rather than criticising the publishing companies, deserving as they may be, it may be more productive to wonder why this 'scampering' has yet to occur in publishing.
Now, I can't claim to have any particular insight into the publishing industry, but I have given this problem enough thought to know that there is no simple solution. Unless you already consider Slashdot and other media sites to be the shakeup, it is very hard to envision a better way to make money out of the writing that goes into books than what the publishing industry is (and has been for years) doing. I have a few uneloquent reasons why:
1) Book technology is very useful technology
2) Even with the web, the distribution and marketing of books is non-trivial
3) Despite the newfound technological feasibility of interactivity, interactivity is still hard! Anyone who grew up reading 'choose your own adventure' books knows this. I used to prefer reading these cover to cover -- it was more fun to try to identify the different threads and map the thread strucutre in my head then to flip pages and read an 'interactive' but cheesy story.
4) Much of reading is to understand one author's view of the world, introducing new voices for the sake of interactivity is a wonderful way to approach current events (e.g., Slashdot), but a painful way to approach fiction.
Therefore, I come to the following challenge: how the hell should these silly, stone age, clearly inefficient publishing companies make money in a better way than they do now? Or better yet, how can a small nimble competitor step in and steal the show? (If you can tell me _that_ I may look for a change in career...) Damned if I know the answers to those questions, but I'm pretty sure that those answers are more relevant to the future of publishing than simnple criticism of the status quo.
OK, I swear I'm going to reply to a JonKatz article without slagging his longwindedness or irrelevance, mostly because this is one of his more interesting articles.
But, I honestly don't understand his point(s). He says that paper publishing is dying, and that paper publishers are driving themselves into the ground by not adapting to the internet. Then he says that publishers are driving themselves into the ground by trying to get onto the internet, and not doing it perfectly. Then he says that publishers are driving themselves into the ground by turning their backs on their lifeblood--print media. THEN he says that publishers are driving themselves into the ground by giving away their content, which tells their customers that said content isn't worthwhile. (aside: have you ever considered the cost of the Sunday newspaper? They're already essentially giving it away, with advertising paying for the bulk of the cost)
Frankly, I don't see it. News will still have to be reported on, and stories will still have to be written. Joe Schmuck can't be a professional reporter any more than he can be a professional fiction author. There will ALWAYS be a need for professional reporters, editors, and authors; and as a result, there will ALWAYS be a need for publishers and publishing in some form.
Ya gotta give 'em a bit of a break. They've spent over a century making a living off of print media--something the internet makes a mockery of. It's not at all surprising that they're hesitant to jump into it, and blinkered by their preconceived notions of how news/publishing "should" work. Besides, the internet (really, the web) is still evolving--what we would have loved a few years ago now qualifies as SUCKY! In a few years from now, the layout of /. will be considered ugly, difficult, and obsolete. (some would say it already is :-) At the speed a big, old, conservative industry moves, by the time they get online, online will have changed.
One other subtle point. The publishing industry doesn't ignore its public as a matter of pride, policy, or philosophy. It ignores them (if it really does) because it's making money just fine the way things are. Listening to the public takes time and effort, and if you're doing fine without it, why change?
Bottom line: Publishers and the news media will continue to exist in one form or another, and they'll probably be surprisingly close in content and delivery (but not necessarily form) to what they are right now. TV didn't destroy print media, and neither will the web. Furthermore, the 'power and freedom' that the web gives people to be independent from said media will probably be short lived--two more years or so--after which the professional media will get their legs back under them.
Rereading this article, I sincerely wonder if Jon "I wrote for Wired!" Katz has an axe to grind with the world of print media and publishing. Maybe he doesn't, but it sorta sounds that way.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Anyone interested in a good electronic literature site check out
altx.com
grammatron.com
sunshine69.com
If you do, you will realize that innovative electronic writing has no place as a mainstream money making product. Hell, NO INNOVATIVE WRITING MAKES MONEY.
At the same time Cute flashy presentation doen't make good fiction.
A new medium generally leads to self reflexive narrative, which is generally not imminently readable. How many of you have read Donald Barthelme? John Barth? Jorge Luis Borges? Italo Calvino? probably a few but not most. I think everyone will agree that even the most widely commended experimental texts don't gain a wide readership. The publishing industry knows this.
Publishing giants don't invest big money in innovative print writing, why would they do so for electronic writing?
electronic mediums offer new possibilities for formal innovation in fiction, but formal innovation is possible in print fiction as well. In mainstream fiction, formal innovation is all but nonexistent. If you ask popular writers to write for they web how can you expect them to produce uniquely structured work? It isn't their thing.
Writers who concentrate on formal innovation will not draw a large audience. The do not have recognizeable names. They are confusing-sometimes on purpose.
significant formal innovation, opposed to fancy tinkering and "attitude," can not be reconciled with popular writing. Originality is confusing. Stephen King is not confusing.
Those of you interested in theory of electronic writing should check out George Landow's "Hypertext" or "hyper/text/theory" also edited by Landow.
I've never heard of Samuel Clemens..so i'd bet he's not literature either.
You should read something by a good auther like Mark Twain or something!
LMAO. - btw, there are a large number of O'reilly books on my bookshelf too (they're the Cisco of tech publishing)
this post was a test to see which moderators can tell the difference between sarcastic humor and plain idiocy
-FluX
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"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I bought the book and then watched the movie.
You'll find out what a steak feels like in a microwave oven.
Fight Spammers!
Fight Spammers!
We could list all the platforms that Internet explorer is stable on.
Done!
Fight Spammers!
We will be telling our kids, "Back when I I started using the internet, I only had a cable modem that was limited to 10mb/sec.". Or, "at my job, they used to force me to run Windows".
Fight Spammers!
It's on paper, but he published some of the story (up to the attack at the farmhouse).
This is just an adaptation of the method to the new media.
Fight Spammers!
Did anyone here see an article recently (whether it appeared on /. or not I am not sure) about a new type of digital paper with tiny pods that look somewhat like iMac mouseballs? When a pod is charged they black side surfaces (or is that the other way around?) and the white falls to the bottom. With the proper preparation this method can produce very sharp digital layouts. It is bendable and might be the first step towards a single sheet newspaper.
Let me first say that King is a clever man. A marketing genius. Plus he writes an occasional cool story.
But this whole web publishing thing is a gimmik. And a poor one at that. There are several technology companies out there promoting e-books of one type or another. Hmmm, let get this straight. I spend between $200 to $600 on a enlarged PalmPilot ®. Then I pay about $4 to $7 for the privledge of downloading the etext. That's stupid.
Give me a REAL book any day. Go to a real bookstore. Actually pickup a book and look at it. It might be interesting.
The Net is vital for knowledge and entertainment. But lets not make other media become extinct for no good reason
-- What's this '-r *' file doing here? -- Oh well, a simple 'rm' should do the trick.
Katz suggests that with the internet, we the consumer will finally be able to voice our decision as to what books we like and what we don't. Maybe it's time for him to clue in - we already do this, it's just not via a direct link, but rather by means of sales.
Personally, the reason I buy a book put out by a professional publishing house rather than read fiction from the net is two-fold.
Karl
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Slashdot is a good example. There is news of Mattel filing a lawsuit against CPHack (writers and sites), the world is notified in hours.
When the DeCSS suits and arrest happened, the world knew.
Before the internet, it might have made a an underground radio broadcast.
My lawsuit against Mattel would not have seen the light of day without the internet. It might of went to trial and Mattel written a check. The internet has allowed me to warn others of the issues in the case. Not to embarass Mattel. Many people (including myself) did not know about the FMLA), but the internet allow me to learn most about the issues more than most lawyers.
Employers have informed me that they would make accomodations for their employees. People have learned of their rights, pointed out the site to their employers who gave them the leave that they requested.
Fight Spammers!
Jon said mentioned "attitude", I beg to disagree.
Attitude may be important, but it is not everything.
What the people online lacks the most is TIME. We are living on the age of information explosion, that we have no time to look into each and every piece of news items, and we need someone to summarize what is important for us - if we feel that something is important enough, we will go and dig out the whole article.
At least at that aspect, the online newspaper in one way or another is trying to do it. But they have done it wrong - instead of GENEROUSLY giving us the summary, they leave out IMPORTANT bits of info, (I know why they do that, because they want us to access their site), making many subscribers of those news service feeling frustrated - because on one hand, something _might_ be important, but then, the "summaries" that had been sent to us didn't give us enough clue if the article is indeed important or not.
I believe that if one day, someone will genuinely give us a true summary, and not leave out hooks trying to do us in, then the subscribers would feel that they are not "cheated".
I have seen so many online e-business startup, and the one common blunder that they have made is they have forgotten the basic tenet of MARKETING - that the only thing that is important in the whole scheme of thing is to SATISFY your customer.
Once you can satisfy what your customer WANTS (and not necessary what they need), you will get repeat purchases (or service render, or contractual agreements, and so on), but most online startups, including the online newspapers and now online publishing (even the so-called e-books are making the same blunder) is that they did not put the "CUSTOMER SATISFACTION" as the GOAL of their operation.
Some of the e-business operations that I have tried out have tried to answer the "customer satisfaction" question, but unfortunately, what they do is they do that kinda like an afterthought.
A successful company, no matter if it is online or offline, must satisfy the wants of the customers, or there won't be repeat purchases. Many offline businesses have succeeded in this respect, in various degrees, but online, most do not understand how to satisfy the online folks.
Perhaps that "attitude" thing Jon was alluding to mean just that - HOW TO SATISFY THE INTERNAUTS - but I still do not think that it is an attitude thing, it is just that we do not have as much time as the offline people to look carefully over each and every single item, and we often make our decision right there and then. One click and things is done.
My only hope is someone with marketing/psychological background can come up ways to satisfy the online people. Do not waste more of our time, and waste more of those e-business startup's capital, to do the useless "Come and see us, and waste your time here for nothing" schemes.
Remember, the online people often do not have plenty of time to look over the things you have to sell us. Give us what you one, and package them in a way that we can understand what you are tying to sell, in 8 seconds or less.
Yes, EIGHT SECONDS or less.
That's the AVERAGE time we will allow to be wasted in any website. If the website can't get our attention in the first eight seconds we spent there, we most likely will go to other places.
A challenge to the e-business folks - can you not only get our attention, but give us something of value, in eight seconds or less?
If you can do that, you will be successful. If you can't, don't waste your money, and we will thank you for not wasting our time.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !