THE FUTURE OF EBOOKS IS NOW

   The eBook revolution has been proceeding at warp speed towards the next inflection point, namely the 2010 Christmas shopping season when perhaps a dozen ebook readers will be out there competing with the Kindle, the Sony, and the Nook, which themselves have been moving towards Universal eBook Readers, thanks in large parts to all sorts of free download ebook reader programs, which will convert many formats into other formats, as long as you download files, some pirate files included, onto your computer, to files that are readable on various ebook readers.

   Amazon has one that allows you to read Kindle’s mobi format on your PC.  The Nook already will read pdf, Word, and rtf, though they’re not downloadable directly from Barnes and Noble, and you have to input from your computer using a USB connection.  Ditto, more or less, the Sony eBook reader.  There’s an ebook reader called the Kobo which will be out in time for the Christmas feeding frenzy that appears to be able to possibly download and read eBooks in multiple formats without passing them through your computer to make the match.  And if it doesn’t, it’s a good guess that some other new eBook reader or readers shortly will.

   And if you’re willing to do it through your computer, you can do it now.  Open Office will do it, something called Calibre eBook Management will do it,  Mobipocket Creator will convert a variety of formats into the Kindle’s mobi, and there a probably more that I haven’t found or even looked for, since these three do the job easily enough.

   What this means to readers is that right now, with a little simple computer processing, they can purchase eBooks from any online retail outfit in any format and read them on a single eBook reader.  And probably sooner than later, perhaps via 3G or 4G phone networks and or WiFi, you won’t have to do any converting yourself, your single eBook reader will be able to download and read everything from everywhere directly.

   When it comes to business models, there is chaos. Major traditional publishers have grabbed control and a share of the take, sometimes even higher than 50%, and they are as often as not charging prices comparable to trade paperbacks, screwing readers and writers in roughly equal measure.  To make it even more chaotic, there are what I would call “aggregaters,” adding a middleman to the chain connecting writers to retailers and dipping their own wicks accordingly.

   Smashwords is one, Kobo is another, and there are others, some of them dubious operations.  Here’s how it works:

   A publisher uploads ebooks to an aggregater.  For a piece of the publisher’s action, the aggregater converts the upload into several popular formats, and “publishes” them, which is to say acts more or less like a wholesale distributor, to retail outfits like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, among as many other online retail eBook bookstores as it can manage.  Other publishers may sell directly on their own websites.

    Interestingly enough, what with a profusion of retail outlets offering works in a number of formats to the point where even  established publishers feel they may have to distribute to them through aggregaters, the retail outlets like Amazon and Barnes and Noble can’t demand exclusive sales rights to eBooks and so they don’t.

   What this means to writers, more or less established writers at least, is that they are one step away from the catbird seat.  Amazon has for some time allowed anyone to put anything that meets certain standards--format standards, not literary ones--on the Kindle store, and Barnes and Noble has just started doing it too. Ditto the aggregaters, the sleazier ones functioning in effect as electronic vanity publishers, and the really sleazy ones trying to sell you “services.”

   I’ve been moving at warp speed too, along a very steep learning curve, with the help of people teaching me who have made suggestions via comments on NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE, my website, or email.  Some of them comment under handles like “Anonymous” so I can’t thank them here because I don’t know who they are because they don’t want me or anyone else too either.  One who put his name out there is Mike Cane, so a belated tip of my propeller beanie to you, Mike.  A few others, and particular one, have given me an advance course in the technical end and are so secretive they don’t even want heir handles made public.  So thanks to you too, at least you know who you are.

   Some of them are probably “pirates,” though from what I’ve been learning and how I’ve been pondering it, I’m not so comfortable with the tag any more.  “Pirating” of books began before there were even such things as ebooks or ebook readers.  The “pirates” scanned actual books into files and put them on freebie websites.  No money was charged for downloads, and the market for actual books wasn’t significantly harmed, because only dedicated geeks would want to read whole novels on computer screens or Palm Pilots and the like, and if you printed them out, by the time you figure in the cost of paper and ink, paperback editions cost less than the unwieldy manuscript that would be the end product.

   In those days, the “pirates” really could only be idealists doing it to preserve books from oblivion as Gutenberg was doing for public domain titles, and while it was illegal, it was in effect a public service to the pirated writers. That’s the way they saw themselves, and that’s how they righteously defended themselves, and for those who have been around long enough, still do.

   But the advent of ebooks and ebook readers at least potentially changes the game.  True DRM software in theory prevents illegal copying in violation of copyright but there are copies in several formats to be had and experienced hackers can get around that and maybe even put on the Web programs that will allow anyone to do it.  And once there is an unlocked copy, it can be duplicated ad infinitum.

   And with ebook readers becoming commonplace now and sooner or later coming to dominate the book market, real harm can be done.  There are people out there who strongly believe that copyright protection is wrong and feel morally obligated to act accordingly. 

    If you’re looking for a solution, I don’t have one now,but I can suggest a possible amelioration.  Chasing these hackers to Vanuatu or Russia or Romania is futile because their only address is in cyberspace.  Somehow writers and readers and “pirates” are going to have to come to some sort of unstated concordat.  Maybe it’s already happening.  Maybe it’s been happening for a while.  I find it interesting that the only titles of mine that I’ve gotten from pirate sites thusfar have been books that were written either on a typewriter or dead word processing software, meaning that they had to be scanned.  So if writers and “pirates” could meet each other halfway the problem might be at least mitigated.

    “Pirates” would only produce their illegal copyright violating ebooks from books that have to be scanned, in return for which writers, writers’ organizations, and their lawyers would just let it be.

    A key here is pricing and that’s what puts even moderately well-known writers and particularly those with “web presence” potentially in the catbird seat.  So here’s my business model in incrimental steps.  I became my own publisher for selected works.

   First I put long out of print backlist titles on Amazon and Barnes and Noble at prices competative with what the non-existent mass market paperbacks would cost, no more than $8.

   Then I published two original collections, one of previously uncollected stories, the other of critical essays-- “ebook original first editions” and priced them even lower.

   I collect 70% of the sale price, meaning from $2.10 to $5.60 on every sale.  Try to get that from publisher or aggregater!

  Now I’m trying a quatum jump experiment.  As far as I know, the first time that a writer of reputation has launched a self-published ebook original first American edition of a major novel.

   The novel is MEXICA.  The definitive story of Cortes’ conquest of Mexico.  The novel was published in Spanish in Mexico where it’s been a best seller.  There is a film adaptation in the works in English by El Uno productions in Los Angeles.  The novel was written under contract to a British publisher and published in the British rights area, but it bounced all over New York, and I and my agent were unable to find an American publisher, the general rejections being on the grounds that American readers wouldn’t be interested in an historical novel about the key event in Mexican history, this in a country where there are at least 40 or 50 million Mexican-Americans fluent in English whose very culture and ethnic identity were the result.

   Finally, in angry desperation, I allowed the Brits to export small numbers their edition to the US.  And the novel is now completely out of print in English, including an ebook version done by the British publisher and reverted.

  So now I’m offering a first American edition as an ebook on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and maybe, as warranted, elsewhere.  I’m pricing it at $9, way below the purchase price of what was the disappeared British ebook.

And here are links to my retail book pages:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

  Maybe this is blue sky or a Hail Mary, maybe it will become an ebook best seller.  For sure it is a cutting edge experiment.  On the other hand, follow the numbers:

   $6.30 for each copy sold.  $6300 per 1000.  3000 would bring  $18,900.  1000 hardcovers would bring $2500.  3000 hardcovers, a median sale these days, would bring $7500. 

   Not much to lose and mucho dinero to gain, compadres!

  Not to mention that the conventional book rights are still mine to sell and should this experiment really work out well, publishers who rejected MEXICA the first time around would be lining up to make a deal if I was prepared not to be too greedy.

  A long shot?

 Maybe.

But if it works, the future of ebooks will indeed be now, and the power will be in the hands of the currently struggling community of writers.

        end