E-book publishing? Absolutely not!

Reading a book on a screen remains a bad method, eyesore, and you don’t even own the book. You’re just “renting” it. Unacceptable.

Buying physical books is more important than ever. I am happy that many young people agree with this.

All kindle books sold before 2012 have become impossible to access.

There is something fundamentally wrong with all this that should be soundly rejected.

I wrote the entry below fifteen years ago. I’ve become even more set against E-books since then, and is now fairly confident I will never publish any.

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I’ve pondered this issue for quite some time, set to write this entry, pondered it again and again and reached the same conclusion:

While I’m usually fairly quick about using new technology if I feel it can benefit me, I won’t this time. While my books will probably be published digitally eventually… it won’t be any time soon.

I feel that it is very much an inferior product. It is that simple, really.

Except for the much quicker distribution method, the reasons for staying with paper as the sole media are so much more significant. The paper book is so much better when it comes to the actual reading. My experience with proofreading has only confirmed this. It is easier spotting mistakes and the enjoyment is greater. While reading on a screen will always remain a muddled experience, at best, the words stand out clear and strong on white paper. I’m very encouraged that many teenagers have come to me and said they agree with this. Reading on a screen will always be unnatural. The paper book will always be right for reading. It doesn’t matter if you have read digitally from birth, like more and more children do. They will still feel more comfortable with a natural, «real» book.

I’m currently writing a novel (published in 2019) set in New York City in 1979, a place I have only visited in passing. I did most of the research on the internet and did get a fairly good impression of the city, but it was when I borrowed a book from the local library that the learning process started in earnest. I read a novel digitally and didn’t like it. I reread a used, torn copy later, during a boring train journey and loved it. Suddenly, it was as if the story had been rewritten and the characters had suddenly been made interesting and inspiring.

There are several other more or less important reasons (me being disgusted with IPad, Kindle, Nook and all that shit among other things), but this is the gist of it.

Those I probably will publish digitally first are stories that are less fit to turn into real books, with a length between a short story and a novel, «novelettes», as coined by Stephen King. I have a few of those.

Or I might just publish them in a collection, even though I usually hate those.

They say the publishing of new paper books will be a thing in the past by 2020. Goddess, I hope they’re wrong.

I should point out that until this point, I’ve been at the forefront of the digital revolution. Self-publishing would have been much harder, both in terms of financial and practical problems, if not for the fact that I have done everything with the books myself for ten years, content, cover and formatting, except the actual printing and inexpensive world-wide distribution handled by my printer Lighting Source. Of course that would E-book publishing take care of. That’s also why it remains tempting to me.

The day I can sell E-books directly from my computer or website without the current trappings and traps, I will probably do it, or the chances will be higher for me caving…

The day I or anybody could print inexpensive paper books in the living room would be even better. There are such machines in stores already.

It is strange. I wasn’t fully aware of how much contempt I truly felt for total digital publishing before I had written this and actually read what I had written. The intent was to write a fairly neutral piece.

I want the reading of my books to be an extraordinary experience. Only a story told on paper can make that a reality.