“What is it that these literary men and women [Franzen, et al] are afraid of losing should the paper novel really go into decline?” {From: E-books Can’t Burn by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books}
Tim Parks then goes on to list a number of things you can do with a paper book that you can’t do with an ebook, but he’s missing something. For one thing, he’s looking at the difference between plastic and paper from a reader’s perspective.
It takes an awful lot of effort, talent, and luck to get your words printed and bound by a publisher, and then placed on a bookstore shelf. Every step that you take must be approved by a gatekeeper. A physical book with the right name on the spine, in the right corner of the bookshop is the final physical evidence that you are a Writer. Not because you say you are, not merely because you’ve written something; you have been officially validated by a number of third parties, and their approbation is made flesh (well, pulp) in the body of a printed book.
Meanwhile, any asshole can publish an ebook. It’s just a computer file after all. What’s so distinguishing about that?
Not that Franzen or other established writers are really all that concerned about this sort of thing. But, if we’re making a list of the differences between books and ebooks, well that’s something.
Hell, I don’t care–maybe nobody else does either. But they might–they might!
ADDENDUM:
After re-reading this post, I think that I should probably clarify a few things.
1. The main point is that there’s at least one possible perceived distinction between paper books and ebooks that Parks didn’t speak on: It is that the ebook market lacks a clear, bright line that separates corporately published works from self-published works, and that it is possible that some established authors would be concerned by that fact.
2. I am not accusing Franzen and the rest of being disingenuous when they do not number that concern amongst their previously stated ones with regard to the expansion of the ebook format. I do not know what they believe in their heart of hearts. I merely point out that this sort of thing might worry them, subconsciously if nothing else.
3. And I only bring that up because Tim Parks didn’t mention it, though I think his essay is a fine piece of work nevertheless.
