"Jam tomorrow" but never Jam today

I am a firm believe that "in due course" the eBook will sweep away paper for most non-fiction books, and for magazines, newspapers etc etc. but I am bit tired of reading articles like Hi-tech tome takes on paperbacks when it seems always to be just around the corner. "Soon." Like Jam tomorrow.

For most non-fiction, the eBook, "supported" on line at a blog, will be a far superior product.

What's holding it up is the Ergo-eBook hardware: good-looking, well-built, a pleasure to hold and cheap. Please. Soon!

UPDATE: Why, you ask, does this guy keep talking about eBooks? This is a blog about cities not technology. Right? Yes right but wrong. The two are one; the future of cities will be very much influenced though not determined by technology.

But the better answer is simpler. I've been thinking a lot about books as a I blog. Specifically my book ands my blog. I see the convergence of two things: my work on a book --- titled City Comforts by odd coincidence --- and my work on this Blog. Though I've just finished the book, I think of things to add to it, like a simple glossary. (I keep learning new terms like "common man.") But you can't update paper on the fly but have to go through the whole tedious process of dealing with printing, distribution and so forth when all the readers really want is the information in a permanent and easily portable form.

My conjecture is that eBook technology will foster the emergence of what boils down to a new medium: the constantly-revised book. Like a periodical, newsletter etc it will be amenable to continual refreshment and updating; like a book, it will have permanence and the reader will have to pay. The publishing industry appears to be scared --- as well it should --- by the eBook; there is absolutely no justification for book prices as they are now except the the costs of printing and marketing. Take away all of the former (of course there will still be 'pre-press' costs of research, editing, composition, design, etc.) and a majority of the latter (there will still be distribution costs but dramatically lower) and what is happening to music distribution will soon happen to publishing. As an author, I welcome this change. But it will create enormous turmoil in the publishing sector.

The key, as I perceive it, is the hardware.

Comments

[TM Lutas]

Add something along the lines of a versioning tool (see CVS or SubVersion for good examples) and you have something there. The problem with having a constantly changing book is that you can't catch errors, changes in ideas, in other words you are creating a world with no 'paper trail'. If you add a versioning tool, there's some memory overhead added but you maintain not only somebody's latest and greatest thoughts but their earlier stuff which may or may not be better or worse than current.

[David Sucher]

Very good point about versioning.

In fact a related proviso to the whole eBook business is the issue of "premature publication." There is I assure you a great temptation for an author (at least this one) to "call it done" well before an edition is really ready. One gets tired, bored, impatient. Without the tempering of editor and designer, a lot of really bad stuff -- bad in the sense that more weeks or perhaps even months of polish would make a credible work --- would get out there.
So there will still be a strong function for publishers as editors, mediators, even gate-keepers, but the manufacturing role will be sharply diminished.

[Ian]

The encyclopedia of Science Fiction on CDrom is updated via a subscription service which integrates with the CD. [http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/sfview/] There appears no reason why a website shouldn't integrate updates with an e-book. The key point is integration. If you have to search through page after page of updates to see if th eitem you are interested in has changed then youmight as well have it in print.

[Martin]

Hi, can you tell me where i can buy the CDRom or the ebook? Greetings, Martin from http://www.ausmusterung.biz

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