Fire and Knowledge

This is a huge deal for authors:

Amazon just added Nielsen Bookscan numbers to their Author Central pages, the pages authors use to add content to the Kindle/Amazon book store and, more important, track their book sales on Amazon.

Nielsen offers geographical breakdowns of sales for the past few weeks. [...

Basically, this puts a modicum of power in the hands on the authors. “You had to beg your agent or editor to provide you the sales figures and you can imagine how effective that was. So authors generally had no data whatsoever on how their books were selling,” said one author I spoke to. “I used to call BookScan and tell them I was working on pieces for publication and they wouldn’t even give me the sales data. They’re more responsive to traditional, big-time media, but still, it’s tough to get the figures.”

What does this mean for authors? Well, it shows authors how few – or how many – copies they’re selling. That’s a huge deal. Second, it lifts the veil on the secretive world of publishing and book distribution. It also shows how few books really sell through the physical distribution chain any more and proves how much of a gamble the book business really is.]

From 2004 to 2009, I spent most of my evening hours reading. I owned no tv to distract me. At first it was mostly theology and philosophy… until I got a taste for novels. I devoured the Dickens canon within a year. Next I dove into culture and came out a fiery neo-Luddite. Then I got into history, economics, and science. I left my fundamentalism behind and embraced evolution. Every book I read made an impact on how I thought and viewed the world.

I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t spend their evenings reading — who wants to stare at a tv when you can have your life changed every day?

I was a compulsive book buyer for years, but recently I’ve found the joys of the local library. They have far more books in the county than I’d be able to own and — this I find amazing — it’s free, unless you count those pesky late fines. Still, I find two disadvantages to the library system: (1) you’re not allowed to write in them and (2) you only have them for a few weeks.

Here’s my confession: I write in library books. I can’t stop myself. But don’t worry Mrs. Librarian, I always use light pencil and I erase all traces of my graffiti. I don’t do it just for the thrill, though — I mark quotes. When I finish the book, I find the quotes, type them out, and erase my markings.

I don’t want to believe it’s just a loaned book. I like books that sit around for months and beg to be picked up and read. I don’t want to give them back in 7 or 14 days. And even though I became quick friends with the online renewal system, it only lets me renew three times (they set limits because of greedy people like me).

So the library doesn’t work for books I want to write in and have on hand for a long time. So should I buy them?

I used to. But unless it’s a book I’m extremely excited about, I’ve found myself not wanting to buy a paper version, even though I love paper books. They’re expensive, heavy, easily ruined, and take up a lot of space.

The truth is, I want a good e-reader. It’s only a matter of time before one exists. I’ve owned two editions of the Kindle, but sold them both. The terrible interface and control mechanisms (a joystick and noisy page turning button) ruined the experience. The iPad isn’t The One either — the screen is backlit and there isn’t a great way of marking books. The irony is using the Kindle app on the iPad is better than the Kindle itself.

I used to hate the idea of e-books. I thought paper was far superior and that it wouldn’t really catch on. That was naive. Eventually paper books will go the way of scrolls and stone tablets — of interest to collectors, but not to the rest of us. E-book readers (either as separate devices or integrated into mobile devices) will fit much better into our lifestyles and we’ll gradually move to them in the coming decades.

I think most of us know this intuitively as we watch how technology and culture is progressing. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s just different. There will be advantages and disadvantages, just like any technological revolution.

I’m still waiting to meet a good e-book reader. My compulsive book buying has been put on hold until I can buy them digitally to read on a device that I feel is a worthy alternative to a paper book.

And in the meantime, I’ll be a loyal — if not ideal — visitor to my local library.

Kudos to Jeff Bezos for giving a real apology about removing purchased books like 1984 from user’s Kindles. He said:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

Short, simple, and humble. I admire that.

Now there’s a new way to publish your autobiography: The Tweetbook.

I’ve been expecting an on-demand book printer for a while, so I’m glad see it’s finally being done:

It’s not elegant and it’s not sexy – it looks like a large photocopier – but the Espresso Book Machine is being billed as the biggest change for the literary world since Gutenberg invented the printing press more than 500 years ago and made the mass production of books possible. Launching today at Blackwell’s Charing Cross Road branch in London, the machine prints and binds books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait.

Signalling the end, says Blackwell, to the frustration of being told by a bookseller that a title is out of print, or not in stock, the Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton’s Book of Needlework. Blackwell hopes to increase this to over a million titles by the end of the summer – the equivalent of 23.6 miles of shelf space, or over 50 bookshops rolled into one. The majority of these books are currently out-of-copyright works, but Blackwell is working with publishers throughout the UK to increase access to in-copyright writings, and says the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Much of my early intellectual life was trying to like things others said I should like. And I would often get frustrated at myself, because I usually wouldn’t like what they said I should.

Some of the classics are outstanding — but most of them I’ve found dull, drawn-out, and unsatisfying. And unfortunately, I’ve read hundreds of them.

It’s been that way with art, too. I’ve been to art museums and tried to like the classics of art. I tried to reform my unruly tastes. But I found most of them unmoving and unimpressive.

So it’s a relief to hear that someone else that I respect felt similarly. Here’s Mark Twain:

Wherever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michael Angelo, a Caracci, or a da Vinici (and we see them every day), you find artists copying them, and the copies are always the handsomest. Maybe the originals were handsome when they were new, but they are not now….

[People] stand entranced before [a da Vinci] with bated breath and parted lips, and when they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations of rapture:

“O, wonderful!”
“Such expression!”
“Such grace of attitude!”
“Such dignity!”
“Such faultless drawing!”
“Such matchless coloring!”

I envy them their honest admiration, if it be honest… But at the same time the thought will intrude… How can they see what is not visible?

I’ve stopped caring that my tastes are not what some people considered “cultured.” I’m not going to delude myself into liking something just because others do.

Tastes are subjective. Life is too short for reading books I don’t enjoy. It’s too short for old movies with bad acting and bad editing. It’s too short for art that was once moving, but now is mediocre at best.

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested,” said Francis Bacon. And some, I’d add, are to be shut and put back on the shelf for someone else who enjoys them.

Audible.com has the audiobook of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey available for free for a limited time. I found the book helpful, even though it’s a little dense in parts.

If you’re into audiobooks, you should definitely get it for free while you can.

I want an e-ink writer. I want it to have a large screen, like Plastic Logic’s E-Ink Reader (shown to the right). But it needs to have a on-screen keyboard with some kind of tactile feedback — I’d be happy with a laminate overlay until they get that technology worked out. And of course it must have a full-featured word processor, as well as the ability to create and edit blog posts.

Most of all, I want to write on something that doesn’t give me a headache. Who wants to stare at a backlit display for reading or writing?

The technology exists for this, but it hasn’t been created yet.

I’m waiting.