I have seen this question discussed many times before on various blogs and forums and have even had to address it in real life when I tell someone that I’ve published a book – and then have to defend the format.
Do I think digital books are real books? Hell yes. If I could ever truly describe the process of getting a story out of my head and on to “paper” – the months of work involved – then no one would ever question the format again. A book is a book whether digital or print. Period.
(It’s sort of like asking if the friend you have in real life vs. the friends you make online are equal? I don’ t know about you, but mine are)
Another issue I see discussed a lot is the quality of the writing in e-books. Are there better and worse e-books? Sure there are! Just as there are better and worse (and horrid) print books. Fact of the matter is that not everyone is going to like the same books. Some books are best sellers and some…aren’t. Writing is a very subjective area. There are tons of books by very popular writers that I haven’t liked but I’m not going to name them all. Okay, I’ll name one – just as an example: The Davinci Code. An international best-seller-made-into-a-movie-adored-by-millions-book and I didn’t like it. It was an interesting concept but the characters all sounded the same to me. I found the plot predictable and the prose wooden.
See how that works?
Some will argue that digital books are just too hard – you have to either get a portable gadget and then figure out the formats and uploading, etc, or you have to read on your computer which isn’t always that attractive an option. I understand. There is a learning curve. I got my e-reader this summer and spent a lot of time figuring out how to get books on it. But there is also a learning curve with reading print books. We’ve just forgotten that since most of us got over that hump in grade school when we finally were able to sound out the alphabet.
All this isn’t to say I don’t long to see my books in print one day soon. There is a stamp of legitimacy that comes with having a book to hold in your hand. Beyond that, I’m a bit old-fashioned. I worry about changes in technology and formatting. Remember 5 1/4″ floppy disks? Vinyl record albums? 8-tracks? Some of my original manuscripts were created in Word Perfect. I still prefer film photography because even if you lose the pictures, you have the negatives. If my computer gets a virus, I’m screwed. I’d love to have my books in print as the ultimate hard copy backups against digital mishaps and technological advances.
I could get into issues of acid free paper and insect / glue problems at this point but I think it’s time to move on.
I’m a published author. The only reason I would like a print book is so that my friends who don’t have computers could have a copy. Especially after the book was dedicated to them. Weird, huh?
by anny cook September 26th, 2007 at 1:45 am