the world needs those editors, baby, but it needs the internet, too.

[kaigou]

A simple example:

It was the first time he’d spent any time alone with Hugh where his own natural shyness hadn’t taken over.

Uhm, "own natural shyness"? As opposed to someone else's?

Or:

He took the keys from his pocket, leaving the house he took the keys from his pocket.

To be honest, I have more than a few of these myself; it takes absolutely fresh and new eyes, totally new eyeballs, to notice such peculiarities. It's not really grammar, or spelling. You need a copy editor: they're trained to notice the absolute tiniest detail, the excruciatingly mind-numbing (to me) proofing details, and it's boggling in some ways (especially since I consider it so mind-numbing) that a copy-editor would be paid only $1 a page. Yes, that may be $400 for a good-sized book, but that good-sized book might be a week's work (or more).

And then there are the complete disasters in plotting, the characterization flaws big enough to topple the Bay Bridge, the fifteen pounds of exposition nailed to a two-by-six: these are the main editor's job to notice. And that, too, is a skill, to be able to both read and yet analyze at the same time, and to understand where the issue is. That is, we can all read and say, "I don't know, it just didn't really work," but can we say why? And more than that, can we suggest what will fix it? Someone who can, who can do all that while still reading, run on those eight levels at once, has the brain to be an editor.

There are far fewer of these brain-types running around than there are writers, and there are even fewer of these brain-types in some of the lower echelons of the writing world, too, it seems. So far, my experience with ePub works has been spotty; I read three more this evening, all by Jules Jones, which were well-written, proofed nicely, characterized well, and maybe a little on the flat side when it came to true plotting complexity; the endings tended to wrap up a little too neatly, and Jones really isn't one for drawing out the angst, but that's a style thing.

Compared to the fact that I've read three or four other ePubs (not all of which I've reviewed), it's pretty much a fifty-fifty thing, it seems. (I don't know if this is endemic of Romance as a whole, however.)

It really seems to come down to this: the likelihood of a higher quality of writing, on average, is in direct proportion to the number of gates through which the story must pass, from author's fingertips to reader's eyeballs. From query-slush reader, to agent, to editorial slush reader, to assistant editor, to editor, to copy editor, to typesetting editor, and so on. (Not all of those are in the same stream, of course.)

With the advent of ePub, yes, more people can be 'published' -- and it is considered by most to be publishing credits, as there are gates barring just anyone, if you go with an established ePub. These gates, however, seem to be fewer and/or of lower quality. You need no agent to deal with ePub; in fact, most agents seem to ignore it completely. The profit is simply too low for an agent to care, though the post-ePub numbers may be of interest to an agent when you switch to traditional print, from what I understand.

I do not believe printed books will ever go the way of the dodo, but I also believe ePub is equally here to stay. The problem is that ePub seems, currently, to be ruled by those genres which don't get a lot of shelf in the local bookstore: peculiar genres, niche markets, and especially erotica or otherwise significantly adult-oriented material. The setup costs are much lower, the schema for publicity is already there: in sum, the barriers are lower, and passing the gates is an easier act from fingertip-start to eyeball-finish.

All of that, to me, adds up to this: until ePub can consistently create works of quality as high as the percentage of quality in traditional printing, it will remain a very secluded, and somewhat ridiculed, part of the overall market.

Yes, yes, yes, I know there are books out there that we all read and bemoan, while fussing at the cost, too, that it's badly proofed, badly written, plotted like a two-year old's bedtime story, and so on. But the overall percentage of books that get this complaint, set against the number in your average bookstore, is really quite low: maybe 3%, maybe 5% if the genre's rampant in low barriers or growing too fast (vampires, anyone?).

But in ePubs, so far, I'm finding that percentage of 'not much good' or even 'horrendous' much higher. Until that percentage comes down, I don't feel comfortable with it as a valid, reputable phenomenom. It's going to keep its stigma as "it's on the net, anyone can do that" because at least half the time you're getting a story that you honestly think anyone really could have written, and probably better. Hell, drunken blindfolded monkeys could do better.

But I do like the idea Konrath presented (link around here somewhere, speech he gave this past weekend) about marketing the two as a combined unit: selling a book that comes with a CD, containing perhaps images, sound, a ready-made site or links to an online site (much as is done for movies), with additional scenes or possibly the entire book in sound-format for visually impaired readers. He's talking about using the power of both media to present a single package to readers as a means to capitalize on the best of both worlds: using the quality from higher gates and the novelty/creativity from the ePub/online world.

What do you think?

Comments

[hinotori.livejournal.com]

The oftentimes hideous editing is what keeps me from reading more ePub (as in, stuff I need to pay for in order to read it at the computer or online.) It's not the point of a book, printed or coded, to make me itch to take up a red marker and scrawl all over it (not that I ever take pens to books, that's sacrilege).

On the other hand, ePub does have the advantage of being far more widely available -- a lot of times, I won't be able to order a printed book I want to read because it's out of print, or because there's no online service that offers to ship the particular book to Germany, which leaves me with astronomical import costs. That's the point where I wish more books were available for purchase in e-format.

The suggestion of combining both methods sounds awesome. I'm just thinking of the possibilities that come with online support, especially for fantasy and science fiction: the tiresome how-to-pronounce-this-or-that-name question, illustrations of devices or gadgets described in the book, character portraits... and audio books, natch. :)

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even thought about PDFs (especially online) as a way to bypass the nightmare of getting an imported book -- though I wonder how that would conflict with the foreign rights agents who want their own take out of the costs of selling to foreign publishers, translating, and so on. There are, after all, a huge number of English speakers who might be perfectly happy to pay $10 for an online PDF o' 300 pages rather than wait the year or more before a non-English printed version comes out.

Although I suppose some, if they loved the book enough, might then buy the hardcopy; I know I've read a few authors for whom that would definitely be in the works. The problem is that I doubt I'd remember those authors more than a year later -- other books in the meantime would get in the way.

I do that when purchasing music; that's the basis for my analogy about "staying in the front of someone's brain" -- I'll hear a song on the radio and think, I've always meant to get that band's CD. Then, when I'm finally at a music store (or on Amazon), I don't even remember that I'd wanted to get the CD. It's no longer at the front of my brain; it's been shoved out. So a writer selling PDFs online as a means to let English speakers overseas read, must remain, somehow, in the front of those readers' brains if the readers are to even think to snag hardcopies when the foreign rights go through and become available.

But I agree about the usefulness of other parts of CD-with-book. Gives me the idea that if I were to be able to talk a publisher into doing it (though I suppose they'd say to do it as a site), I'd need to do a flash presentation of DC, with pictures and video. Well, I wouldn't need to do it for you, since you've already had the tour! ;-)

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well. But even though I'm usually more eager to get the original English-language version, I still prefer it to be in book form. And that's why I consider the book+multimedia package especially good.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

I also agree with the combined multimedia presentation thing. Some readers do want more and are willing to shell a bit more money to see more of the whole thing. Especially if the author is known to have additional talents outside the writing field.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Especially if the author is known to have additional talents outside the writing field.

Or has someone willing to collaborate on it -- writers, as you know, are good with the words and we can visualize and communicate what we're thinking, but we're not always good at the execution. (I can name a slew of writerly webpages that are proof of that.)

I do think more book-based sites would be good, instead of just "here's the cover!" and "here's the first chapter!" but other things, like maps and pronunciation guides and more artwork and deleted scenes or something.

Hrm. Stuff to ponder.

[tanuki02.livejournal.com]

Textbook publishers have already jumped on the multimedia idea; Harcourt, for example, has an elementary science series that comes with not only an optional CD version, but with access to a website that features videos, online activities and links, etc, that can be accessed by teachers with a special password. But the only author I can think of that has made an purposeful attempt at multimedia was Le Guin: "Always Coming Home" included a cassette set of music and poetry set in that world.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about that -- yes, most of the textbooks I got when I went back to school all came with CDs (except for the foreign language books, which really would've been the most helpful!). What's most amusing about that is that only one class actually had us using the CD, and that was the grad-level statistics class; the program we needed to run for our homework came on the CD. The rest of the classes, the profs were all, "oh, ignore that."

Heh.

[clowe.livejournal.com]

I worked my way through an eBook recently. The name escapes me right now. I gave a brief review on my LJ page, but the more I think about it, the more I'm glad I picked the book up on the 'net. It wasn't anything spectacular - actually, when all was said and done, it was pretty terrible. But... I like the effort the writer put into the novel, and I'm glad that I picked it up for an unbelievably cheap price.

It just felt... well, odd. Like the publishing company rushed it through without really reading it over. The editing was fine, but the story itself was laughable at certain points. It was something that could have easily been fixed or adjusted if someone had taken the time to point those flaws out... but then again, maybe someone did and I'm just being anal.

In any case, I think e-publishing has its uses. The short story seems to have flourished on the 'net. Certain publishing opportunities open up. It's a darn good way for a new writer to find readers - which is ultimately the name of the game. But like you say, quality control needs to be ramped up quite a bit.

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Yes. In the majority of the ePubs I've read -- okay, all of them, except Matthew Haldeman-Time's (which was originally a self-published Luna real-paper book, and he made it accessible as an ePub a year later, post-slight-revisions -- there's a certain...rushed quality to them.

Not in the sense of "let's slap this puppy up there!"; to assume that would be to diss the ePub companies on the level of calling them in it for the money, and I don't get that impression. But more of what you mention, that there's not as much attention to the stories' quality, the time alloted wasn't as great.

Then again, the numbers are also much, much smaller. I paid maybe $5 for one of those ePubs, and it was about 200 pages. With formatting and whatnot, and the time it took me to read (little over an hour), I'd call it a long novella or a very short novel -- perhaps 70K, if that much. There's time to proof and format the document, print it as a pdf, put together the page with its info, add it to the shopping cart program, and...there you go. At least three-quarters of the cost a traditional publisher would deal with are gone, just like that (including the 50% or so the bookstore would claim to sell the book, and the 15% per in costs to make the book)...

But from what I've seen, ePub sales think it's a great deal to sell 500 copies or so; there's not really anything tracking the numbers (as opposed to long-established tracking for trad books), so who knows how much is really getting purchased. And yet a trad publisher would consider 2500 books sold to be so pathetic as to drop that author like a hot potato.

To me, that says that whatever money ePub is saving by going ePub, it's not making a great deal, either. There's an offset -- and that means the only way ePub can make anything is to churn out a lot, push writers to create a lot, and get it up there -- and they don't have money to pay professional editors, or see reason to encourage authors to go back and expand.

ePub is like this century's version of the 1930s dime novels, I think, and in some ways just as ephemeral.