I’ve been studying the literary markets by reading magazines
to see which ones my stories would fit in. I’m still considering
self-publishing my book but I
want to put some of my stories in magazines too since that’s how authors get
their larger works exposed. Publishing both big and small can be very
beneficial.
Fortunately, many of the sources I want to submit to are
online magazines and so most of their fiction is free. If I had to purchase the
paper magazines it would get really expensive as much as I prefer reading the paper
ones. So far this summer, I’ve only bought one print science fiction magazine, issue
103 of Clarkesworld. The stories and articles
looked so great that I wanted to read everything in hardcopy without having to
print them up on my printer. Printing them on the printer can eventually add up
to colourless clutter of papers that are held together by nothing more than
staples.
The Nightmare of a World Without Print
This reminds me of an interview I saw on a re-run of a TV-hosted
horror movie show called Cinema Insomnia.
Even though this show mostly features cheaply-made horror and sci fi films that
it basically makes fun of, the host, Mr. Lobo, interviews another horror movie
host, John Stanley of the San Francisco area, about a book (The Gang that Shot Up Hollywood) he released at the
time, which was 2012. They talk about how the internet and digital media was
apparently (and still is) making print obsolete. They discuss the physical
experience that a reader gets from reading a print book that he/she won’t get
reading a digital version
.
For book nerds like myself, the ebook permanently bumping
off the print one is a nightmare no horror movie can match. In the interview, Mr.
Lobo himself puts it similarly when he says to Mr. Stanley: “We are living in a
world where bookstores are closing and media is all breaking apart and consolidating
and changing, and it must be a nightmare taking on [a project] such as putting
out a book in this day and age.” To which Stanley responds: “It is. This might
be the last book in a print paper format. . . . If I write another book two or
three years from now, what is going to exist out there? What is the world going
to be like? Is a paper book still acceptable?”
To that last question, three years after that interview, I
respond: Yes, Mr. Stanley, I’m happy to say it still is. Although the majority
may be turning to their devices to read their books, there is still a crowd of
readers, especially of the speculative genres, that likes to read and collect
printed books and that crowd will probably continue to be around for a long
time.
Books are Like Music Albums
As much as I make my work available in ebook format as well
as print, it doesn’t mean print versions have to or will disappear. Similar to many
music lovers, especially of vintage music, who continue to collect vinyl
records, and have been doing so since vinyl went out of popularity 20 years ago
or so, there is a crowd of us that sees the printed book not just as a medium
to convey story but as an art within itself. Reading for us is not just a
mental engagement but a physical one. It’s a physical one that involves holding
the material the story is printed on. This engagement is most intimate when the
story from the book is represented on the front cover by wonderful art, as are a
lot of science fiction and fantasy stories. Sadly, unlike years ago, much of
that art is produced by digital means and so is too photographic, missing the
interpretive aspect of the illustrator that freehand art often conveys.
However, it is still part of the larger art of book printing and binding. So we like to touch this art as much as we
like to read and view it.
It’s About Collecting Things
Also, as sci fi and fantasy geeks, and as literary geeks in
general, we like to collect things. Can you collect pixels and shelve them on
your book case? Of course not. Pixels are only with you when you conjure them
up at the press of a button on your hand-held device, similar to the way Aladdin
conjures up the genie from its lamp. Then when we don’t want to read any more,
also at the press of a button, we make the pixels disappear into some cyber
netherworld. Hell, even the damn button in many cases nowadays is made of nothing
more than pixels!
 |
| Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons |
We as speculative fiction fans, like to collect the tangible
versions of what we see in movies, on TV and read about in books. We like Star Wars and Star Trek but can’t just stop with the movies and TV episodes. We
want Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Capt. Kirk or Lt. Uhura in our lives. We
want the aliens, no matter how weird or inhuman-looking (for me the more
inhuman the better!), with us in our physical lives. So we collect things like the
action figures of these characters, the posters for the movies and TV shows and
the models of spaceships from them. Similar is true for our love of fantasy
movies and TV such as Lord of the Rings,
Game of Thrones or Universal’s
classic horror flicks.
The same goes with our books about imaginary events such as space
battles, epic fantasy battles and dead people seeking vengeance. Many of us
want the hardcopy books that convey these events of other worlds, and not just
want to see them on a device’s screen where the book is going to be replaced by
something totally unrelated.
So as long as there will be avid readers who are in love
with the art of the medium the story is told on, there will be printed books.
So what if demand for the printed book is small? That only means that much more
money the author and publisher will make off of that million dollar best- seller.
Every little bit counts, doesn’t it? If not, why not? If you think us small
niche of hardcopy book lovers will become extinct with the hardcopy books themselves,
why? Feel free to leave your answers in the box below.
Until next time . . .
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