August 23, 2005

• Sounds a lot like the eBook trend that authors like Stephen King were so gung-ho about four years ago. I wonder if it will catch on. Presumably authors still need to go through the publication process; just the medium varies. Do you think the reduced cost of publication will lead to lower or more liberal standards for what will meet editor approval?
• It won't make any difference.
• If a friend has a short story up, I'll buy it. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Don't think it'll have much of an impact on publishing in general, though. Sorry.
• Still, an informative link. Thanks.
• I think a more interesting project for potential print revolution is Lulu.com which is to publishing as Cafe Press is to shirt making in that it is a print-on-demand vanity press (and it looks like they are MUCH more creator's rights friendly than Cafe Press). I think that ebooks and print-on-demand are the way of the future or publishing. Of course this is coming from the guy who is poor and borrowing his course books from the library and scanning them in using OCR, so I'm a bit crazy anyway...
• I am a writer, but mostly for the screen. Optimistic side says anything that helps get writers' work out is good. Pessimist says they'll be even worse than the hideous, amateurish crap they print in "Story" magazine and its like.
• Lulu.com looks pretty good for what it is.
• I remain skeptical about e-books, and can't imagine this becoming very popular. I hope I'm wrong as putting everyone on the same playing field could potentially be very exciting. Although professional writing is my livelihood, I've written a few ghost stories for enjoyment, so it might be fun to test the waters.
• Love books -- and I enjoy reading a lot of online items, but ten stories is five bucks, and why do it this way when I can dash into a used bookstore and get a couple of entire books for my five dollars? I can go back to a book. I can reread it till it falls out of the binding. I can loan it to a friend. Or twenty friends, I can leave it to my kids in my will. Best of all I can hold a book in my hand, leaf through it here and there, and see if an author's style is yuck -- or great. How many of these things can I do with your 49 cent story? Only about one item in a few thousand is going to be very good -- I know this from years of sad experience. Doubt I'm likely to use this.
• All my writing that actually gets typed is translating other writers words (of course I am going to complete the searing novel of the human experience very soon). From that point of view, I suppose this might be a way to get more English readers to sample literature in translation, with the small cost maybe encouraging exploration of something unfamiliar, but like bees I tend to prefer the printed word, be it a book or a magazine.
• Glad to see ye back, BearGuy! Interesting post!! Haven't written the idea off altogether, but would probably not be interested in paying 49 cents apiece unless there were reliable reviewa as well. Super-nonpaying job: reviewing short stories. Of course authors will co-opt all friends, family members, visitors, and casual passers-by into writing glowing reviews. Wonder if authors get a percentage of the 49 cents.
• I'm with the Bees. What cut is Amazon taking, and how much of it is going back to their suppliers (the writers)?
• Amazon's being pretty cagey about it. No word on their info page about where that 49 cents goes. They're courting existing authors and publishers and there's some sort of application process, so perhaps they're thinking of using this as a gateway to other, larger works.
• Beeswacky < I'm with him.