Let's talk about [e-books], baby/Let's talk about you and me/Let's talk about all the good things, and the bad things, that may be.

Alright, Maria, I'll put if off no longer. :)

I do want to preface this post with the caveat that I may not entirely know what I'm talking about -- please have a salt shaker handy in the case that I leave some out.

Here's what I think about e-books: They are probably awesome. As many of you may know (or rightly suspect), I love Star Trek, and the closer we get to having those amazing PADDs (Personal Access Display Device), the more excited I become. The idea that I could tote my work files, my leisure reading, and several reference books all in one slim little device which I could read propped on my belly in some hammock somewhere ... yeah, that sounds awfully nice to me.

Now don't misunderstand me. I am a part of the I <3 books as objects camp as well. I will always have (several) bookshelves, and they will always be filled to bursting. The smell, the page-turning, the physical feeling of so few pages in your right hand just and things are getting so tense and out of control for the protagonist ... I'll continue to enjoy and savor those aspects of the physical book.

Plus, well ... I don't have an e-reader. Not a Kindle, not a Sony, not a yet-to-be-released Plastic Logic device. They're a bit spendy, yeah? Until they come down a bit in price (or I learn how to budget better), I'll be e-readerless. (I don't count my iPhone, because while it does have e-book capabilities, the display is a bit too small for my tastes.)

Alright, but this post isn't supposed to be about my own personal e-reader tastes. I'm supposed to be shedding light on Bleak House Books' attittude toward e-books and technology in general. Ok, sorry. Here I go:

1. E-books are awesome. We have several authors who have titles available for Kindle now -- and all for under ten dollars. (Libby Fischer Hellmann, Eric Stone, Mark Coggins, Bill Cameron.) These books became available because the authors called us and asked specifically for us to help them make it happen. We provided them the interior files for their books, and they uploaded and took care of the rest. Which brings me to:

2. Time management. Ben and I and a sweetness of interns (ah, the joys of inventing collective nouns!) keep Bleak House running day-to-day. We're it. Although I love the idea of exploring e-book options and figuring out what best works with our company's model, there are other, pressing items on our agendas on a daily basis. For Ben, on any given day, he can decide to spend his time promoting our forthcoming Spring titles (Uncage Me just went to the printer, btw, and will be available in July, and is *awesome*), or he can decide to do some research regarding e-books. Most days, Ben chooses the former, and our presales reward him for that choice.

3. This is all fairly new! While there is a lot of information swirling about regarding e-books and e-rights and digital sharing and ramifications and best practices and possible benefits, it's difficult to wade through it all and come up with a right answer, right away. This technology is still developing, and as each new e-reader is introduced, a new way of formatting the digital file for optimal display is needed, a new uploading system needs to be navigated, etc. Bleak House certainly doens't want to be left on the Archaic Shores as the Massive Cruise Ship of Technology sets sail for Tomorrowland, but I guess we're not entirely convinced that the ship is ready to leave dock yet. We're putting our toes in the water where we can, with the Kindle editions, and we're certainly open to options and keeping our eyes peeled for information, but we're not yet commiting a ton of time resources to marrying ourselves to one version of the technology. We're wearing e-books' promise ring, but we're not yet engaged. Plus, keep in mind my earlier statement: I don't have an e-reader. Neither does Ben. We have no way of quality-controling the files, once they're uploaded. Do they look ok? Should we reformat the file to shave off some of whitespace? Does the drop-cap at the start of the chapter cause a glitch so that it always appears with those annoying &% signs in front of it? We don't know, because we don't know what our books look like when dispayed on a device.

4. Pricing and the author's share of e-rights: Well, this is a big deal, yeah? Maria, I really love that you have an arbitrary (and I don't mean that in a negative way) price above which you will not pay for an e-book. That's incredibly helpful information for us to consider: What is an e-book worth to a reader? On the flip side, what is the author's work worth? Say you were out at a bar with a friend. Say you wanted him to tell you that really funny story he tells about the time the pig got loose at his neice's graduation. He agrees to retell the story, but only if you buy the beer. So is an evening of oral entertainment worth one pitcher? Two? Pabst Blue Ribbon or Spaten?

Entertainment value is subjective, but I would argue that there is always *some* value. As a consumer, I like it when an artist allows me to decide that value myself. (One of my favorite albums, Feed the Animals, is available at name-your-own-price. Best five dollars I ever spent.) But is that practical for the artist? How many people download the album for nothing -- and who offers to pay more than ten dollars? Is it possible to make money on the venture using this kind of pricing structure?

Ben and I are certainly interested in figuring out the answers to these questions -- and all the others that e-books inspire. I guess the main point of this post is just that: We're exploring the possibilities, but we have no ready, hard-and-fast procedures in place for how we'll interact with this brave new world. We're still asking ourselves the basic, bottom-of-everything questions:

How much is a mystery worth? Is its value tied to how long it takes to read? The quality of the story? The format in which it comes to the reader? The value of the author's name, if played on a Scrabble board?

What do you think?


p.s. If you're at all interested in how Bleak House chooses the covers for our books, please swing by the Outfit blog tomorrow. Libby will be discussing the process we've gone through for her forthcoming novel, Doubleback (which teams up P.I. Georgia Davis and series favorite Ellie Foreman!). She'll be posting five cover options, and polling readers as to their favorites. Go vote on a Bleak House cover! It'll be fun, I swear!

Comments

[Roy Innes]

I suppose it's my age, but this latest blog has me depressed. Will the library stacks, the bookstores with aisle after aisle, the places for endless hours of contented elbow to elbow browsing disappear? Will my grandchildren not bask in that wonderful aura surrounding book upon book laid out on tables before them or systematically arranged on public or school library shelves? Will they do all their research on line, accepting Google's first-in-order? Will George Orwell's 1984 truly be upon us--never leave our cubicles, sit fixated before our digital devices, no librarians except for Google's webmasters? Will our tastes and even our access to knowlege be dictated by these same people?
Writing for this new world has suddenly lost its appeal to me. I think I'll take up gardening. Can't digitalize that.

[Maria]

GREAT post--thanks! One question--Did you/do you contract for the e-book rights upfront as part of the contract or was that handled after the fact as authors decided to do some of the work to make it available (and if this is top secret info, completely understand.) Any info on how the paperwork works--ie Amazon logs a sale, the monies go to the pub? Then the author gets the royalty...at a higher percent than a hardcopy? Same percent?

I guess one of the questions I've been wondering about small press is: Are you buying the e-rights whether or not you choose to use them?

Was talking some more about that "arbitrary price" and I think I figured out where it comes from! It costs me 2.50 to ILL a book (Interlibrary Loan). So the 3 bucks is basically the equivalent of what I would spend to get just about any book from a library, only I get to keep a copy and read it much more leisurely on my computer than if I ILL a book.

Now, here's the kicker. For small press? It's not always possible to ILL a book because not enough copies appear in libraries (and thus the libraries aren't willing to interlibrary lend them). So then I must decide between the $6 to $9 dollars that an e-book costs and the approximate 15 for holding it in my hot little hands.

Once I figure out that I can't ILL a book--I'm more willing to pay the 6 bucks from a site like Fictionwise (or wherever--that's just a popular one that I've used and then only once!)

I don't own a kindle and have no intention of getting a book device due to cost. But I will download an e-book and read it on my laptop especially when it proves to be the cheapest option (buying used books from a small pub is generally not going to be less than 6 bucks, in my experience.)

Very interesting stuff. Thanks for weighing in on it!

[PJ Nunn]

I like 4A best and 4b second. Couldn't get my post up on Libby's blog for some reason.

[Lynne Patrick]

Alison, I'm with you 120% on don't want to get left behind but the boat isn't ready to sail yet.
Someone has to convince me that e-books aren't a lot more vulnerable to piracy than the paper kind. And the quality issue is a biggie too.
OK, I confess I'm the kind of person who waits till the technology is out of date before I get involved with it, and not even then if I can get out of it - but not all new technology sets alarm bells ringing like this does.

[Alison Janssen]

Roy,
I'm sorry, I certainly didn't intend to depress. I have no real ability at predicting the future, but I do tend to think we're moving into a more and more digitally dominated world.
I am, however, a romantic, and in my heart of hearts I believe that actual books will never die. I intend to keep a nice big library in my eventual house, and so at least until I'm dead, I know the paper book won't be. :)

Maria,
Interlibrary loans! Gosh, I haven't utilized that system since needing obscure books for college papers. (In fact, I remember once sitting at a table in AC/DC [the all-campus dining center] with a few friends. I went to school in New York, and many of my classmates were from New York City or surrounding areas. My friend Jay had ILL-ed a book from a library in Wisconsin, and he brought it out to show to me. He had been saying, "Yeah, I got this book from Wisconsin, from Bell-wah. Is that near where you grew up?" And I was thinking, "Bell-wah? What the hell is he talking about? I've never heard of such a place!" Jay handed me the book and I looked at the plate: Beloit. As in Bell-oy-t. A town about an hour and a half from my house. I still laugh at his fancy French pronunciation.)

Anyway, it's interesting to think about ILLs. When you come up with a book which your library system won't ILL, would your local library ever consider purchasing a copy for their own collection? I realize library budgets are limited, and you likely don't want to wait until their next purchasing cycle for an opportunity to read the book, but it may be worth asking! And hey, if you'd like to send me your local library's information, I'll be sure they get the Bleak House catalogs, and I'll even donate a title or two. :)

As far as your questions regarding contracts and e-rights: Yes. In every contract, Bleak House and the author make deals including e-rights, audio, translation, film, mass market editions, etc. In some cases, that deal may be that Bleak House doesn't get any part of any of those rights, and the author's agent takes care of selling them, and the author (and agent) keep the profits. In other cases, we'll split audio rights 50/50 (or whatever, each contract is different), and so on. So there is always an e-rights clause, yes. Does that help answer your question?