Like it or not, the e-world is here...

[lagilman]

"The Hachette Book Group recently distributed hundreds of Sony Readers to its editors and publishers. “People are evangelical about it,” says publisher Jonathan Karp, who has about 30 submissions on his Reader. “If you’re traveling, this is so much easier than lugging around manuscripts. It’s good for reading in bed, too.” Agents selling to Hachette’s imprints are now required to e-mail their texts to acquiring editors, who download them to their Readers; paper manuscripts are no longer routinely circulated." (from New York Magazine via MediaBistro)

For reading, especially during a commute, those things must be godsends. If nothing else, they're lighter than a 400 page manuscript, and you don't have to worry about dropping pages on a crowded subway train. Apparently you can't edit on them, though, so paper's still in the picture, but the next generation probably won't have to worry about the copy shop screwing up a rush job (or the corner scribe breaking down yet again). I dunno. I remember, many years ago, being asked to test-drive an e-edit program. It, in a word, sucked. Imagine all the problems of reading long-form on a display screen, multiplied by a hundred, and then trying to find and fix errors as your eyes are crossing from the screen-glare... bleah. Give me nice, non-reflective, recycled paper any day, if I have to work on something longer than fifty pages...

Comments

[terri-osborne.livejournal.com]

*bitter laugh*

Interesting thing to read on a day where it's announced the eBook line I've contributed several stories to is going on indefinite hiatus.

[lagilman]

Hachette has a...slightly different approach to things than S&S...

[terri-osborne.livejournal.com]

Definitely going to have to look into them.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Actually S&S is phasing them in as well, mainly with sales right now.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

I've been reading all my manuscripts on my trusty old Palm Tungsten E for about six years now, using eReader's eReader Pro and Documents-to-Go, which converts any Word, text or PDF file into a Palm doc (.pdb file). I installed several eye-friendly fonts and can adjust my text size to suit my ever-failing Baby Boomer eyes. I love it. I can load about 50-75 manuscripts and/or e-books on there, plus have the entire Websters 11th on a teeny little SD card that pops into the top.It weighs about four ounces and the battery, which is now six years old, still gives me about four hours of reading time.

When this finally dies, I'll either get another Palm of some sort or a Sony Reader. The Kindle is just too heavy and too cumbersome.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

Oh, and - you CAN edit on my Palm, using Documents-to-Go.

[lagilman]

Yes, see comment below. I was an early Palm-adopter, and I love it, but it's not good do a full manuscript edit, especially if you're doing it on an ongoing basis, one manuscript after another, plus reading for submission.

And the editing function's not quite there yet, IMO, for long-form.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

True re the editing.

But I think I carry it around now more as protection against boredom. I have this dreadful fear of running out of book halfway through a subway ride. :-)

[lagilman]

Yeah, I have a Palm too (also a Tungsteen E, replacing my old V). But reading a full manuscript, especially for editing, is a different eye-experience than reading a designed and typeset-for-digital-display book.

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

I have a Palm T|X with eReader, Documents to Go, and iSilo (which I prefer as the PC companion program allows conversion of any html file to a neat e-Book format), and a pile of electronic books and documents which would otherwise require a large pile of paper to carry round. It works well for reading, and for quick reference, but I find it too difficult to do more than the most superficial editing - even with the addition of a fold-up pocket-size keyboard. Searching back and forth to find cross-references or related passages is too difficult for regular use, and I have yet to find a satisfactory electronic substitute for the coloured Post-It notes marking key pages... nor does Docs-to-Go have an electronic equivalent of the yellow highlighter pen or the scribbled note in the margin, which are essential tools for me.

Admittedly I'm working mainly with either historical research or contract documents rather than fiction (hmm... perhaps that should ignore some of the project proposals...), but in edit mode I find I frequently need to go back and check how (or if) something was described in the last section, or how a particular word has been used, which probably isn't that different a requirement.

Also for some reason I find it much easier to spot typos on the printed page than on a computer screen, let alone a 320 x 480 pixel display. For finding incorrect layout or typography, the printed page is essential.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

I worry that this will affect copyediting and proofreading in the future, and whatever the agents email to the editors will wind up being the final book, typos and all.

[lagilman]

Oh hell, I'm already seeing that happen, with some (I presume) less-than-obsessive acquiring editors on tight deadlines...

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

And deadlines will only get tighter as publishers acquire more fake memoirs about WWII Bavarian wolf girls and Native American drug mules.

[ianrandalstrock.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering how many of those are tight deadlines, versus how many of those are "Aw, heck, we've got spell-check and the author assures us the electronic file is clean [lying authors]. Let's save the money proofreading (or farming it out to a proofreader). The readers won't care, much."

I'm seeing more and more typoes, wrong words, grammatical errors, missing words, and whatnot in the stuff I'm reading, and I'm not liking it one bit (which is why I'm obsessing over my own manuscript: I don't know how much or little effort they're going to put into making sure it's perfect).

[bgliterary.livejournal.com]

I've had my Sony Reader for two weeks now, and already I'm wondering how I survived all this time without it. I'm killing far fewer trees, and my back aches a whole lot less. And it may be the thing that finally opens me to email submissions.

Of course, I don't need to edit per se, and I could see why this would still be a big limitation on that front. But it's a real forward step.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

It's all about the paper, the tactile nature and the haptics.

Give me paper or give me cake!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, I really want a Sony or Zune, when I see the unending stacks of books coming in for review or that I have on the groaning shelves in my overstuffed library that are only around because I may want to reread them 8 years from now.

Sometimes I decry them because you can't leave them behind for new people to discover, or swap at an overstock table, or have them signed.

(There is a metro station here that is the Sony Memorial station. I kid you not, only one of the advertising posters - and it's very out of the way - is *not* dedicated to the Sony.)

[ianrandalstrock.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Very good point. What happens to signings, excuses to go to bookstores to meet authors/readers, and all like that when this nasty, dirty electronic-only fetish takes hold? Part of the thrill of selling my book (and anticipating future sales) is seeing my name on the cover. I can put my name in all the electronic files I want, but who cares?

[delkytlar.livejournal.com]

We were doing that at DAW on Palms back in '98, doing both submission reading and first round edits on them. The only reason they stopped was because one of the editor has this weird habit of frying personal electronics for no apparent reason. Working electronic was a godsend for the doorstopper fantasy we used to do there.