I’ve recently delivered three stories for a new educational
series. They’re fun, charmingly illustrated and I like them a lot. There’s just
one problem, they’ll never be books.
This particular publisher has decided to
try out a new e-book / online model and because of that, this work will never
sit on a book shelf.
I can’t help feeling a little bit sad about that. I knew it
was the deal before I signed up, but it only struck me as the work was
delivered how much I’ll miss not sticking it in the bookshelf with my other
published books. I don’t know about you, but part of the thrill of being an
author is to see the physical object – the book. It’s a moment of validation, you can hand the
object to a person and say, ‘I wrote that.’
It’s not the same when it’s sitting on a server somewhere in
cyber space. I wonder how many authors would have put pen to paper if they knew
that what they were writing would never take physical form.
I’m not a Luddite. OK I might be a bit. I am aware that
times change, but it’s hard to get motivated when you’ll never hold the thing
you’re creating. You can’t cuddle a kindle. You can’t sign a tablet. It’s hard
to cherish a screen.
I have many favourite books, they have been with me
through thick and thin – the actual book, the physical object – I doubt they’d
mean as much to me if they were stored on a Cloud. I know I can access them
just as readily, but just like digital photos that remain perpetually on a
memory disc, they remain unloved, undeveloped and often, unseen.
I have some romanticised notion of sitting back in my dotage
and leafing through the work I did in my younger days and maybe reading the
stories to my grandchildren – what!? I’m a writer….
However, when the book is nothing but a megabyte of data
that’s never gonna happen, no matter how many bookshops I visit...
They’re just words. Whether they’re on a page or a screen,
they’re still words. It shouldn’t make a difference, but somehow it really
does.
4 comments:
Knowing a story is out there somewhere but not in any tangible form is definitely a poignant moment, Ciaran.
I know how you feel, Ciaran, as a writer. BUT - your ebooks won’t go out of print. They won’t sit gathering dust on library shelves and end up being weeded. If they are education titles, kids will be reading them for a long time, unless the information goes out of date. As a writer of spec fic, I’m finding that most markets these days are online only, many of them not even ebook, just web site - and web sites can close down.
Now, THAT is sad!
Hm... I use my Kindle a lot. It's great for travelling, and useful that it has its own light. But it's certainly not as lovely as a real book can be. And seeing how other forms of new technology have drifted away, I do wonder if one day the Kindle will too. So I sympathise!
And welcome to Abba!
I'm absolutely with you on this. The Word needs to be a physical thing, somehow. I wrote for news agencies when a full-time journalist, and most of our words only existed in e-form, except for ancient ticker-tape type machines in far flung places, except for the few that newspapers printed & acknowledged. Before I left Reuters I printed them all out to prove to myself they had existed. Maybe you could find a printer who'll make you a copy, to show those grandchildren.
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