The Gutenberg Effect
A couple years ago I spoke with a fellow writer friend who had passed on a contract with one of the more successful e-publishing companies. Her reasoning: the contract was too restrictive. They wanted the first right of refusal on all future work and lifetime rights. And I remember being appalled at the audacity. In my mind, at the time, was this notion that it could be a career killer. If that particular e-publishing company had first right of refusal then my writer friend would never be able to break into New York print. It was just a ludicrous idea…an e-publishing company being so presumptuous.
Now I’m not so sure.
Now I can’t help but wonder if the terms of that contract hadn’t been a lot less ludicrous and a lot more forward thinking. Knowing what I know about the pattern of written literature in history I cannot help but believe that the print book will soon be nothing more than another figment of our nostalgia.
Prior to the Gutenberg Press the written word was a monopoly of religious officials and the rare educated man. It was scratched out on a piece of animal hide and was an expensive endeavor. Nobody bothered to learn to read because the cost of the reading materials was just too steep to waste time with the skills. Once Johannes Gutenberg invented his nifty little (very large) tool the written word became more readily accessible. Not to mention cheaper. How many people do you think were scraping away at dead animals then?
When I was a history teacher I was prone to remind my students that history often repeated itself. Well, boys and girls, this is a prime example. E-books initially saw a forward crawling success which has significantly picked up speed these last couple years. The reason? Accessibility of the e-readers. The more affordable those e-readers become the more popular the e-books become. Right now we are in the throes of the evolution of it. Growing pains, if you will.
It started with Amazon’s power struggle with Macmillan concerning the prices of the e-books. The publishing giant was afraid that low e-book prices would affect print book sales. Then we saw another publishing giant, Harlequin, create an electronic publishing branch: Carina Press. And they aren’t the only ones. Recently Dorchester completely folded its print publishing in favor of the seemingly more stable electronic publishing. And now there are murmurs that Juno may be following that same path.
Give it ten years and paper will go the way of parchment.
Susan Blexrud
Embrace the Shadows 
Hey Mandy – good post – and timely. i read another article this morning about the “massacre of bookstores.” in it, the author talks about the same things, saying ereaders will eventually change the publishing landscape much like the ipod changed the music industry. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-bookstores-doomed-2010-08-17
I think ereader prices are going to continue to fall. I also think that the technology as we know it will become better, and we will be able to do multiple things with our ereaders — not just read books. I read an agent blog yesterday where they talked about product placement – how a character might be drinking a Corona, and you will be able to click on the word corona and go straight to the corona website, or to an ad. About how authors might be paid extra to insert these links, kind of like television ad space, in their books as a way to earn extra money. Writers will still write stories, yes, but maybe they will write with specific products in mind, too, choosing to have their characters drink Coke over a generic brand of soda to tap into Coke’s marketing dollars.
Will print completely go away? I don’t think so. If you search hard enough, you can still find vintage record stores, and you can still buy CDs. I think print will always be there, it just won’t be as prevalent we see it today.
It will be very interesting to watch how this all plays out in the next few years. I agree – publishing is changing. Just what it will transform into remains to be seen….
Loved the post, and the follow up comment Suzanne 🙂 I do think it is becoming easier to be successful just in e-publishing. But I still think e-publishers should be fair in their contracts.
Sue – Although the ipod analogy is a good one…I think it doesn’t quite epitomize the heart of what is going on in the evolution of print to ebooks. Going from vinyl and cd to an ipod doesn’t change much for the artist. What’s going on in the book industry could impact the writer greatly.
Chandra – I totally agree on the contract issue and that will be totally author moderated. We are already seeing it. Competition for epublishing is too great. If you want the good authors you gotta give them some respect as an artist in the contract. I kind of wonder though as all these big publishing companies turn to ebooks if they will try to apply the print book contracts they usually use.
I’m reminded of Hollywood back in the heyday of black and whites when each studio had a stable of actors and actresses who made very little money in comparison to the money they made for the studios who owned their contracts. I certainly hope publishing isn’t going in that direction!
Amanda — what a timely and interesting article! I think you’re dead-on about e-publishing vs. paper. The e-publishers just need to figure out the sweet spot pricing-wise, and then paper will become…quaint. I fly only 1-2 times a year, and was struck recently at the sheer number of e-readers I saw in my local airport. I saw more e-readers than cell phones!
Grace – Quaint is the perfect word.
Half a dozen people played with my Kindle in the airport and on the plane:) They were all impressed by how many books it would store.