First of all, thanks to Shaz for swapping days while I swanned off to London for the afternoon. Here's why.
It’s no secret that meetings figure high on my list of pet hates. The kind at which I sit across the table from one other person, two at a pinch, and talk about something of mutual interest: they’re OK. But the kind which involve a group of people, half of them unfamiliar, all with a different agenda and their own take on the topic under discussion – give me a big pile of envelopes to stuff any day.
So why did I spend yesterday afternoon in a conference room with 20-odd other publishers, discussing the ins, outs, whys and wherefores of e-books?
Especially since e-books are 100% technology, and I hate technology almost as much as meetings.
Somebody up there in the universe’s control centre was having a good laugh. Five minutes before the meeting was due to kick off, there was a power cut right through the area. Lights, computers, public transport – all dead. A PowerPoint presentation was supposed to make everything crystal clear; that went out the window, and we had to rely on god old verbal explanation instead. Good thing most of us came from an era when people actually talked and listened to each other.
Not that the talk left me a whole lot wiser about e-books; mainly I was left with the feeling that running away very fast was the sensible thing to do. But thanks to the best efforts of our hosts from the distribution company who valiantly battled on against the odds, and the two Asian guys in immaculate silk-lined suits who knew the language and offered a comprehensive file conversion service and software package (all way beyond our slender means, like most things), a ray or two of daylight penetrated the thick dark.
First off, e-books aren’t really happening here in the UK yet. As far as anyone knew, no date has been set for the launch of the Amazon Kindle; about 30,000 Sony e-readers have been sold, but there are remarkably few books available to download on to them.
Next, converting a text PDF into e-reader format is a complex specialist skill; alien words like granular and tagging and XML-based typesetting hung in the air. Attempts at do-it-yourself by people with conventional typesetting skills seem to be largely unsuccessful – though this may change if more user-friendly (and affordable) software becomes available. Either way, the file conversion process doesn’t come cheap, especially to the more sophisticated format demanded by some suppliers – so dreams of e-books which cost less than half the price of a paperback book are unlikely to be realised short-term. We all have to make a living, after all.
Worryingly, if a publisher hands over a text PDF to an e-reader/e-books supplier who then converts it, the converted file then belongs to the supplier, not the publishers or the author. And belongs to means belongs to: not licensed to for a fixed period. I spy a major rights dispute coming up there.
More worryingly, if a publishing house finds a way to sell e-books from its own website, some bookshops are refusing to stock the print editions of those books. Not that this is likely to be a major issue in the near future, since at the moment all the major UK booksellers seem to have a different e-reader.
By the end of two and half hours my head was spinning. The meeting was nearly over when someone threw in an idea which actually seemed to make sense: why not license the e-rights to a specialist company, who then publish an e-edition of the book under their own imprint? Just like audio, large print and translation rights. Easy peasy, and blindingly obvious. All you have to do is agree a price and sign a contract. Suddenly light glimmered in the very dark place I was hiding in.
Or maybe that was just the power being restored. Just as the meeting ended. Somebody up there in the universe’s control centre certainly has a sense of humour.
