Paperback or ebook?
What effect does the way words are delivered to us influence how we read them?
Okay, so I’m a traditionalist. Or a snob. Whether that’s out of choice or a result of upbringing, class, age, education etc. I’ve no idea - but the bottom line is that I don’t think you can beat the physicality of a book: the feel of it in your hands, the touch of paper, the smell of something newly minted and opened.
If that’s romantic or old-fashioned, I don’t really care.
As if to double-down on my preference, I should also confess that I don’t own a Kindle or a Kobo, and that I have never read a book in any other way than by turning pages. Yes, the odd piece on-line of course (how can you not?), but not a ‘whole thing’.
Which on one level is neither here nor there. It’s merely a statement of personal preference. Or a comment on ‘ownership’. But as a writer, it bothers me because I wonder whether my ‘devaluation’ of the ebook negatively influences my output - even though most of my fiction is available in both physical and virtual formats.
Here’s a current case in point.
The novella I’m currently drafting, The Red Tie, is going well. On finishing the first draft, I decided I was going to ‘publish’ the story in ebook format only. Indeed, I was thinking of giving it away to anyone who wanted it. Don’t mistake this for me attempting to be ‘noble’; it was really an idea aimed at getting more of my words ‘out there’. And the words are the important thing, not the medium which carries them.
However…
As I get closer to a finished draft, I find myself getting impatient in terms of wanting to create a cover, assign an ISBN i.e. to make The Red Tie a ‘proper’ thing. Playing with the text file on my computer, I discover that if I increase the font size by 1 point and the line spacing from 1.1 to 1.2, the narrative occupies nearly 170 pages - and that’s A BOOK!
You can see where this is going…
So I’ll continue to edit, and I’ll continue to work the conundrum. My latest thought is to do both: make and sell the physical book and give away free ebooks too - for example, to my premium subscribers on Substack.
We’ll see. Watch this space.
This is a topic which prompts a second question, however.
The relationship between words and how they are transported to us is old hat in terms of physical poetry where creative use of white space has become mainstream; it adds weight to the words, enhances their meaning, stands-in for punctuation, provides a kind of sub-text in addition to the language itself etc. And it’s interesting to consider the rise in performance poetry where, in a way, the medium of transference is done away with - no pages or screens - it’s just mouth to ear with nothing in the middle.
And in fiction? Audio books are now ‘a thing’ (another confession, I’ve never listened to one), to such an extent that many people have started to consider the passive consuming of these abridged aural forms as ‘reading’. “I read x books last year; 35% were audio books.” ‘Read’, really?!
Like I said, traditionalist or snob…
As with poetry, there are experimental prose forms on the page: layout, punctuation (again), stream of consciousness, everything James Joyce ever did after Dubliners etc. But I’m not thinking about the inter-relationship of words in terms of structure, but in terms of ‘transport’.
If you read the words on a screen as opposed to in a book, does that in any way ‘change’ what you are reading, influence your interpretation of the words presented? And if you are reading a book, does it matter if the words are printed on 50gsm paper or 70gsm paper? What does paper weight say about them, or the author, or publisher? On if the words are on white or creme paper? Do we interpret something in 16pt font differently to something in 10pt - even if the words are the same?
For example, have you ever picked up a large print book in a library and, consciously or otherwise, thought that the story inside must be ‘simple’ because the words look so ‘childish’…? Or a book where the font is so small and the lines so densely packed that your reaction is to assume that it will be a ‘hard’ read?
Whether we are conscious of it or not, it strikes me that this is a relatively modern conundrum. And while there may be no conclusive ‘answer’ - let’s hope not! - we will all be driven by our preferences, and hence by our prejudices.
For writers, perhaps the simple answer is to split our personalities into two: the writer-half and the reader-half. I am happy for my reader-half to be narrow-minded; my writer-half should have no such limitations, after all, his sole concern is stringing the words together in the first place.
Easy to bin E reads, whereas you'd try to stick with something physical, albeit for £2. I work for a charity shop where we rotate the books and it always amazes me how many people out there buy them, thereby contributing to a good cause. I wonder what format Charles Dickens would have used, I'd have thought audio or e book as a serial to keep readers hooked!
As a reader, I want a physical book. But my publishers have always offered both. And readers have responded. Audiobooks have been part of my work, but frankly, have never done really well. (Interesting though, my son, who is not a big reader, has "listened" to all my books that have been offered in audio.) Poetry -- never works for me in ebook form. Book, please.