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E is for...

Margaret I. Carr

Before considering the publishing aspects we really need to think about e-reading. E-reading is the start and the end result of e-publishing.

What exactly is e-reading? Well, right now, unless you are one of the few who still print out all e-mail messages and/or web pages to read, you are e-reading. When you use a Search Engine you are e-reading. When you surf the web you are e-reading. When you participate in a chat you are e-reading. You are not reading from ink spots on paper, you are reading pixels on a screen.

You probably don't even remember now the adjustments you had to make when you first started exploring computers and the Internet but you did have to adjust. Reading pixels is different. The field of view is different. You are seeing transmitted light rather than reflected. It simply isn't the same. But different doesn't mean inferior, it is just different, and you have adjusted or you wouldn't be reading this.

Young people seem, on the average, to adjust faster and with fewer problems. This may be partly because they have grown up with television. Sure, tv is a visual medium but titles are still made up of letters and words. The viewing area is a rectangle with side to side greater than top to bottom. This gives them ready-made adaptability. They aren't frozen in the "books are taller than wide, therefore anything I read must be in the same format" mode that some older people suffer from.

There are other differences, of course. I'm sure you've heard the arguments about how it wouldn't be the same without that delightful smell of fresh glue a new book has. Recently, riding the bus, a 'gentleman' took exception to my using a PDA to read. He went on and on about smelling the new book smell, feeling the heft of the book and the nice shiny covers. I noticed he wasn't carrying any books with him and managed to repress my impulse to ask him if, after all the sniffing and hefting and such, he ever got around to READING the books. After that, my mental question would have been, if the new book smell and all was so important, did he toss the books once it faded?

If I like a book, and that is based on what is in it, not the cover or smell or heft, I want to keep it for re-reading. Not all readers feel that way and that's fine with me. I pick up a lot of their discards at the used bookstore.

Here in the United States we are really lucky. We have relatively easy access to a wide variety of books, lots of free public libraries and lots of bookstores both new and used. We may complain about the deficiencies of the system, and there are many, but it does give most of us most of what we need and want.

Elsewhere, it can be more difficult. Shipping, currency conversion problems, customs delays are all factors that can add up to months of waiting for a wanted book.

People needing accessibility adjustments also face long waits for desired books.

Some people cannot adjust. It may be their eyes or their mindset but whatever it is they will lose out on the benefits we hardly even realize we've gained.

Others, who may have had difficulty with reading all their lives may just find e-reading more to their needs. This aspect was illustrated vividly for me while waiting for the bus a few weeks ago.

A young woman came up to me and announced "Miss Carr, I can read now!"

Her excitement and manner of address clued me in that she must be one of the special education students from a class I'd substituted in so I instinctively responded with a "Wonderful. You should be very proud of your achievement!" She sat beside me and pulled out a handheld and began to read aloud from it. Good job, too, and I made appropriate approving noises.

"This is the most wonderful thing ever" she informed me. "Do you have one?"

"Yes," I said and hesitantly showed her. It seemed a bit shabby and dated compared to her shiny new model, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Do you have any books on it?"

"Lots." I opened the reader and showed her the list. She wanted to know if I had any people stories, those were her favorites, and I jumped to a bookmark in the e-book I'm copy editing (Other People's Lives by Betty Kreier-Lubinski, due out from ePress early 2004.)

She loved the story and wanted to know where to get the book. I told her after the first of the year and got out a piece of paper to write down the url for ePress. She looked at it in obvious dismay and finally mumbled a request that I enter it on her pda. In a barely audible whisper she confided that she still couldn't read on paper, just on screen. "Reading is reading!" I told her and tapped out the url on her pda.

This young lady, according to every test they gave her, has normal vision but for some reason it doesn't give her access to the printed page. There are thousands and thousands of others who do not have vision or who have problems holding a full size book or turning pages who desperately need e-books.

And then there are those of us who are fortunate enough to have multiple access. We can read on paper or on screen. E-books expand our range of options.

Stay tuned for the next installment: Hacking through the hype about e-books and e-publishing.