Hooker and Brown

Finally the spam has stopped, so I am happy to pass this little bit along: Charlie Brooker, a regular curmudgeon with the Guardian writes about the conversion from paper-love to eBook reading … but he figures on advantages that most of us have probably never considered:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/15/charlie-brooker-ebook-convert

This just in … eBook readers out-sell books during the all-important gift-giving holiday season…

More online shoppers bought e-books on Christmas Day than traditional books for the first time ever, according to e-commerce giant Amazon.com.

The Amazon Kindle outsold all books in all categories at Amazon. Now, I prefer the Sony Reader, simply because it feels easier to use and is not locked into proprietary formats, however that is beside the point. 2010 will see other eReaders emerge, to be sure, and the eReaders will get better and better. This is like CDs emerging from a cassette tape culture. It is coming, and it will take time to adjust, and some people (including me) will hold on to their LP books forever - but the wave is building.

eBooks will be something to produce in the next year and the people in the higher pay grades will be those who can figure out how to make them profitable for the writers.

The Kindle e-book store now contains over 390,000 books, according to Amazon, although the firm faces competition from publisher Barnes & Noble, whose Nook e-book reader sold out completely through pre-orders by the end of November.

“Publishers must not lose faith in the digital opportunity despite the market cacophony; pushing for open standards and creative value-added e-reading applications should be the publishing world’s immediate course of action.”

I anticipated it would happen…as soon as the last big events were done, I would fall ill.

I watched friends get the seasonal flu, or even H1N1 while I was prepping for the festivals and hoped hard that I would dodge the bullets, knowing full well in the lull before Christmas that I had no where left to duck. So it hit me this weekend, and although being sick sucks, at least it is not a terrible flu. It’s also -30C outside, and so I’ve taken the weekend to sleep and read - how often do I want to do that and never get the time, eh?

I do miss skiing right now, and physical exercise, but I figure I’ll hit the climbing gym and the Nordic loops just that much harder when it warms up in a few days.

In the meantime, I have an opportunity to dig up a few thoughts on the topic that is interesting me more and more: the future of storytelling. Now that I’m done the big book project, and have been enjoying working on very short stories (this is what the Alipinst said of my latest):

Subscribers may remember the short fiction piece in Alpinist 28 entitled “Last Ascent.” The story, one of the most poignant and imaginative philosophical tales we’ve published, was written by Jerry Auld, whose debut novel was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize this year. Hooker and Brown is a romp through the Canadian Rockies that follows a geology student who becomes fascinated by the myth of two imaginary 16,000’ peaks. Though fictionalized, the basis for this historical mystery is a true story.

and I’ve had the ability to read a lot more diverse works and to look at different perspectives. What a cool time to be an emerging writer! So much could be changing and there is the opportunity to be in the forefront of that. As well, I truly believe that the reports of publishing’s death are overstated, and in fact the industry will come out stronger - albeit with much trimming and painful change. Check out this stat on where people get their words from:

There were some interesting articles that I have come arcoss lately. The first is this one about book trailers, kinda funny. Money quote:

The conventional wisdom is that we’re living in the era of the death of the book. This is, of course, ridiculous. We live at a time of unprecedented literacy. People love to read. They read all the time. You are, right now, in the middle of reading this.
But I have to say, after seeing the following “book trailer,” I’m starting to feel like the death of the publishing industry is long overdue:

Then there is this one, which I want to stress, is sort of revealing but not at all how I think things should work. When the editors hire the publisher.

For me, I see the future increasingly in partnerships, and I think that is, at heart, what the intranet is opening up and pushing creators and publishers towards.

In Canmore, according to Café Books. Went in to get Steve House’s new book “Beyond the Mountain”, since I’ve always liked his writing and he’s up for the Boardman Tasker as well, and will be in Banff with me for the Book Events ion Nov. 5th, and there was my book sitting in the #1 spot on the wall.

Pretty cool.

Time to weigh in, though this will be only the first thoughts I’m sure….

It seems to be the subtext buzz in the industry these days: I hear it every time I talk to publishers, and I also hear it as questions from readers buying books and discussing books. “Can I get an e-book version?” “What do we do about e-books?” etc…

They’re coming. People want them. The eReaders are not perfect by a long shot and don’t replace the feel and smell and sense of a book (no turning it on and fumbling when you just want to pull a book down and flip randomly - though the search for a quote would be nice) but they will get better. I don’t agree that technology is the solution to everything. Personally I would love to see the book (and especially, the Novel) stay as it is. I think it is perfect. But the business around it is not. Sometimes I am looking for a quote, and I stumble upon something else, or get absorbed reading short passages I come across. I wouldn’t have that experience if I just did a search. It is like browsing for a book in a library - it may be checked out but the books all around it that you never knew of or knew to search for are all the more appealing and surprising. Ask yourself: how easy is it to just browse the internet? With Google we need to start somewhere. It is really hard to just jump in randomly, but when you do, it can be really cool what you find by taking the non-linear approach. And computers are all about being linear. I know of what I speak on this.

So is publishing, ironically. What I hear the most is publishers uncertain or scared or mystified by the new paradigm. As if they try and paste their current business model onto the new methods of distribution and promotion and can’t see how to make money to stay afloat. It is a very valid concern. But the old models will no longer work: there will be way more books out there, and most will be awful and niche. Good books (nay, all books) will need to fight all the harder to get noticed. Huge competition, market saturation. But competition is good, and creativity will rise to the top. (So will good writing). Social networks and word of mouth have never been so powerful and important. So too the electronic promotion.

Eventually, I foresee new distribution centers emerging or consolidating on the web, that will become trusted and start to re-enforce some editorial standards (just as we have now with the publishing industry). Books will be print-on-demand, but mostly downloaded as eBooks and printed on ePaper to read in hand and then get reloaded with other material to read. I(n fact, I foresee that everything will eventually re-coalesce into what we have now, but the role of the publisher will be more to do layout, editing, proofing, and presentation, and have a heavy component of e-marketing. Distribution will all but vanish. Books will be cheaper. There will be fewer super-star writers, more writers writing and holding day-jobs (not so different as now).

Online material (blogs, feeds, forums) will be prised because information will be fluid. But the need for a Novel - the quiet solitary space to dream and be moved, will always be needed. The need for story will always be there. I foresee new ways of telling stories (more on this in a later post). Payment will become far easier - so if I click to read something online, I will have 25 cents withdrawn with no fees, seamlessly. I would pay for a lot more if it was seamless.

I want to embrace eBooks, and let them expand to handle graphics and animation and sound too. I want to spread my arms open to the net and connect the story to as many people as I can in a one-on-one relationship. I want to brush aside the distribution and stocking shelves, and just focus on the message and the story and getting it into people’s hands.

Yeah. Like I said…more to come…But one thing for sure. All is changing and we must change with it, even the way we tell stories (a bit), but in the end it will be okay.

Up again at 5 AM as usual, but not to write.

I haven’t written anything creatively for almost two weeks. One week is normal. I had finished a short story to enter into the Alberta Views contest and with so much happening (travelling out East, raining July) I wanted a break and to catch up on work and family and friends. But now it has extended into a second week because the effort and thinking is all going into the launch of the book.

My publisher has been excellent, organizing press releases and promotional material and contacting a very large list of media. But I need to focus on the mountain-related and more obscure opportunities, as well as plan and organize the main launch. I’m new at this, so I’m not trying to be perfect - but I do want to do what I can. One idea has been to produce bumper-sticker bookmarks which are a take-off on the popular ones in Canmore for Alberta bears and skiing, one that ties into the book in a humorous tangent. I’ll get 500 of these, and hope they work out:

It’s just an enormous amount of networking and emailing and packaging (of promo material) to do all this. I need to start my writing up again, but that requires going to bed thinking of the story, and not of the book as an object. That might be hard, as now that I do see the book as a physical, external object, there is a need to make sure it has the best help to get started on it’s public life. Like a parent watching their kid move out for University, I guess.