Re: ebooks "a smoke and mirrored mess"?

---- On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:08:16 +1000 joseph harris <[email protected]> wrote ---- 

>     [In the first of these two the writer casts justifiable doubts over the meanings of the Apple book download figures; but himself appears unable to comprehend there is ebook life beyond the big publishers and retailers.
> In the second Huffington Posts asks if ebooks will remove the mid-list author. The writer dances round it bit - but interestingly ;-)]

That Huffington article was interesting, and raised some good points. I've heard a similar line of reasoning before - that the cheapness and sheer amount of ebooks will create a massive underclass of authors who publish their own work, usually still in need of a good edit, and who sell a few copies in obscurity, and a small elite of authors  who are superstars, who receive all the hype and become buzzwords on the interwebs, and sell accordingly. Exactly the same as has happened with music.

In the words of one writer, "we have all become poets" -- in other words, writers will write because they want to/have to, and will expect to sell only a few copies.

I would think that the tendency will be even more marked than with music, because of the sheer volume of free text material out there, on sites like manybooks and gutenberg. It will happen quickly and thoroughly.

Take me, for, instance. I am an avid reader. I'll read a cereal box if it's all that's around. On my iPod Touch (which I find to be an excellent, and very portable, reading device...), I've been reading a few freebie SF stories from Baen, including full novels, and various  titles from manybooks, all accessed through Stanza. Currently I'm reading The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, by Seutonius. It's about 1900 years old, fascinating, and, of course, free. I don't think I've ever bought an ebook. So my ebook reading habit at the moment is feeding precisely no authors.

David



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