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What's an ebook?
Ten years ago, when this question started going around and getting commercial attention, the answer was "it's a book you read on the computer." Followed by, "...or a special device made for reading books that you can read on a computer." Possibly rephrased a bit more formally, but the essential elements were: E + book, electronic book. Digital version of a book. Simple, right?
It was *relatively* simple when most people confined it to "digital versions of books that had been printed." The less-simple parts included formats and what's-really-a-book; Gutenberg started with a lot of txt files, which today is not considered an "ebook format," and it converts some things that were originally pamphlets or newsletters or magazines, not "books" as we normally think of "books."
Is a blog containing all the chapters of Tom Sawyer as separate posts, an "ebook?" Is a digital version of a fanzine an ebook? How about a comic book? Doujenshi?
But those, still, are simple questions. The core material was book-ish or at least paper-ish until a few years ago. We could argue whether a digital production of a Chick tract is an "ebook," in the same way we could argue that the original tract is, or is not, "really a book." While the various literary communities have never come to an accord on that, they've at least all reached an awareness of the question--someone has to define what printed material is "books" and what is not; any particular community or archive can set its own terms.
Then we got ebooks. And other e-texts. And blogs. And Lulu and Smashwords, and now the Kindle store and B&N's PubIt... and um. What makes a "book?"
Teleread's definition acknowledges If you’ve ever written a letter or a report on a word processor, then congratulations: you’ve created a very short e-book--which is so wide-open as to be useless. Which they acknowledge, and go on to point out that when people talk about "ebooks," they mean "books, you know, on a screen." Except that, several years ago, that meaning was more clear than it is now. What's a "book?"
It no longer means, "was published in paper." No longer means "over 35,000 words of content" or whatever various publishing houses set as their minimum for separate publications instead of inclusions in anthologies. No longer means "has the blessing of a mainstream publishing house;" while some individuals might hold out with the claim "self-published ebooks aren't real books," when mainstream publishers are vying for those authors' writing, prejudice against those works makes a lot less sense.
Smashwords has "ebooks" that are 1200 words long. A lot of my journal posts are longer than that. (I've considered polishing some of my meta posts & putting them together in an "ebook.") When single stories can be sold alone, what does that do to the concept of "book?"
Books have been, for the last several hundred years, of a length defined by printing realities. Too short, and the setup production costs were too much; you couldn't sell enough units to make it worthwhile. Too long, and you had the same problem in the other direction--and the additional issue that the hardware can't take it; paper books max out at around 1000 pages. (Don't shoot me for handwaving. Exceptions do exist.) Tolkien's epic story was split into three books despite being a single tale, in part because the publisher saw profit in that, and in part because printing it in a single volume would involve special technologies; glue-and-bind systems don't work well past a certain size.
Now we can sell books of 8,000 words, with the same setup costs as 80,000-word novels: almost nothing. Which leaves us in label limbo... is it reasonable for a short-story author to say, "I have 32 ebooks available at Amazon?" How do we acknowledge the difference between that and the novel-series author who says, "I have 5 ebooks available at Amazon?
Will authors start publishing small clusters of blog posts & story outline notes as ebooks, either for free or $.99 each, just to have more books available to drive up name recognition? Would it be unethical to do so?
I don't have any answers; I'm just pondering how the concept of "book" is changing with the removal of the page counts.
It was *relatively* simple when most people confined it to "digital versions of books that had been printed." The less-simple parts included formats and what's-really-a-book; Gutenberg started with a lot of txt files, which today is not considered an "ebook format," and it converts some things that were originally pamphlets or newsletters or magazines, not "books" as we normally think of "books."
Is a blog containing all the chapters of Tom Sawyer as separate posts, an "ebook?" Is a digital version of a fanzine an ebook? How about a comic book? Doujenshi?
But those, still, are simple questions. The core material was book-ish or at least paper-ish until a few years ago. We could argue whether a digital production of a Chick tract is an "ebook," in the same way we could argue that the original tract is, or is not, "really a book." While the various literary communities have never come to an accord on that, they've at least all reached an awareness of the question--someone has to define what printed material is "books" and what is not; any particular community or archive can set its own terms.
Then we got ebooks. And other e-texts. And blogs. And Lulu and Smashwords, and now the Kindle store and B&N's PubIt... and um. What makes a "book?"
Teleread's definition acknowledges If you’ve ever written a letter or a report on a word processor, then congratulations: you’ve created a very short e-book--which is so wide-open as to be useless. Which they acknowledge, and go on to point out that when people talk about "ebooks," they mean "books, you know, on a screen." Except that, several years ago, that meaning was more clear than it is now. What's a "book?"
It no longer means, "was published in paper." No longer means "over 35,000 words of content" or whatever various publishing houses set as their minimum for separate publications instead of inclusions in anthologies. No longer means "has the blessing of a mainstream publishing house;" while some individuals might hold out with the claim "self-published ebooks aren't real books," when mainstream publishers are vying for those authors' writing, prejudice against those works makes a lot less sense.
Smashwords has "ebooks" that are 1200 words long. A lot of my journal posts are longer than that. (I've considered polishing some of my meta posts & putting them together in an "ebook.") When single stories can be sold alone, what does that do to the concept of "book?"
Books have been, for the last several hundred years, of a length defined by printing realities. Too short, and the setup production costs were too much; you couldn't sell enough units to make it worthwhile. Too long, and you had the same problem in the other direction--and the additional issue that the hardware can't take it; paper books max out at around 1000 pages. (Don't shoot me for handwaving. Exceptions do exist.) Tolkien's epic story was split into three books despite being a single tale, in part because the publisher saw profit in that, and in part because printing it in a single volume would involve special technologies; glue-and-bind systems don't work well past a certain size.
Now we can sell books of 8,000 words, with the same setup costs as 80,000-word novels: almost nothing. Which leaves us in label limbo... is it reasonable for a short-story author to say, "I have 32 ebooks available at Amazon?" How do we acknowledge the difference between that and the novel-series author who says, "I have 5 ebooks available at Amazon?
Will authors start publishing small clusters of blog posts & story outline notes as ebooks, either for free or $.99 each, just to have more books available to drive up name recognition? Would it be unethical to do so?
I don't have any answers; I'm just pondering how the concept of "book" is changing with the removal of the page counts.