I Sing The Bookcase Electric

If you follow my blog I wrote a post in September of 2015 called Paperback Criers (http://blackhairedboy.blogspot.com/2015/09/paperback-criers.html ) about people heralding the rise in popularity of paperbound books. I can be a sentimental old man with the best of them, but this time I'm going to sit the parade out. I like my electronic books, damn it.

One of the great things about owning a Kindle is the way I can carry 100 books around in one slim volume. I can download an unlimited amount of books and go back and forth with them as often as I want to without grabbing them from a shelf and plowing through endless pages. They're all sitting there in my tablet side by side ready to be opened up any time. How can you hate that? And just think, no trees were cut down in the production of these books.

No torn pages! No torn off cover! Nothing yellows or smells! What's to hate?

Another feature I really like is the way I can get samples of books downloaded on my device, so I can sample everything without having to buy it blind. You can read the sample any time you feel like it and not be hampered with standing around in some bookstore.

A quick list of my eBooks currently living in my Kindle:

1. Lord of Garbage - Kim Fowley (he promised a second volume of memoirs - um, yeah the best laid plans of mice and men....)

2. Concrete Island - J.G. Ballard (you think electronic books are cold and alienating? Good, download some J.G. Ballard, then)

3. The Woman Aroused - Bruno Fischer (one of the most twisted noirs ever written; HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

4. The Fox - D.H. Lawrence (the movie was better but still worth a read. I think it was 99 cents)

5. Redheads Die Quickly - Gil Brewer (some of the greatest noir short stories next to Lawrence Block's sleazy stuff)

6. The Flesh of the Orchid - James Hadley Chase (crime classic about an heiress who escapes from a lunatic asylum and tears men's eyes out for kicks...and that's just for starts!)

7. Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim - Justin Martell (a great biography on the Sixties phenomenon)

8. Every Good Boy Dies First, Iron Curtain Baby, etc. - Andy Seven (I have four books for sale and they're all fabulous punk crime novels)

SAMPLES OF BOOKS in my Kindle: Notorious Byrd Brothers (33 1/3 album series), The Mayor of MacDougal Street - Dave Van Ronk's memoirs. The Big Bite by noir demon Charles Williams and much more Gil Brewer sleaze like The Brat and Little Tramp. And I'm pretty stoked about that Ann Dvorak biography.

The prices to most of these tomes are actually lower than the average paperbound book since it costs nothing to download these babies. Ahem, my books retail at $2.99 and $3.99, depending on their volume. What are you waiting for?

My Kindle also has an unlimited music cloud library as well as tons of movies, too. All in one slim volume. talk about a home entertainment center in the palm of your hand! By the way, did I mention I have some books for sale?

Paperback Criers

Many people have been applauding the decreasing popularity of the eBook and the return of the paperbound book. Hipsters and Baby Boomers alike have been thrilled to read that Kindle reader sales have been dwindling, eReader library rentals are dropping at a rapid pace, and paperbound books are on the rise.

These very same people were the same ones that demanded on "going green" and bemoaned the brutal murder of thousands of trees to produce a Harry Potter blockbuster or Victoria's Secret catalogue. It didn't matter not a bit that eBooks are more economical money wise and space wise for both readers and writers.

The economy of space with an eBook is that you can store hundreds of books on your Kindle or iPad. If you had to stack hundreds of the same books in paperbound format you would have to rent out a separate apartment, one that didn't smell like stale pulp.

The economy of money with an eBook for the reader is that more and more vintage novels are available at rock bottom prices of $1.99 or $2.99, on average. You can't beat those prices with a stick! Thanks to the digital revolution you can buy short stories in digital format, sold separately like an old time 45 RPM single*. Dig it, Baby Boomers!

If these very same books were produced in paperbound format they would have to cost at least $9.99 a copy just to cover production costs, distribution and promotion, as well. Plus many publishers will release an old Gil Brewer or Vin Packer potboiler at a $1.99 price tag, but selling same novel in paper format brings a large risk in their investment costs. Smaller cult writers stand a better chance of being published in eBook format than they ever would in paper, for the simple burden of publishing economics.

The economy of money with an eBook for the writer is that they're much cheaper and cleaner to produce. If you design your own cover and format your own work in PDF form (not hard), it will only cost you somewhere between $100-300 to have the book released, distribution and all. If you took the same book and released a paperbound edition it would cost you at least $1,500 for production, editing and distribution. And! According to BookBaby you would only get one copy to keep. That's all you get just to see your book wrapped up in paper. Wowie zowie.

It should also be noted that the release of an eBook is a lot quicker, because once it's properly formatted to fit all eReader screens it can be released within days, whereas a paperbound book will take on the average a few months. Do you really want to wait that long for your masterpiece to come out? I don't.

I wonder how many hipsters and nostalgic Baby Boomers understand that going green is economically and socially better than schlepping a ton of unwanted paper around. I also wonder how many have had a hard time making the adjustment to reading an eBook. Some claimed the light bothered their eyes. I don't know, if people can make the transition from vinyl to CD and VHS tape to DVD then they should weather the changes that eBooks bring.

On a personal level, I hate seeing hundreds of books I can't get around to reading this week sitting on my bookcase staring me in the face, waiting to be picked up. They would look a lot happier simply sitting in my Kindle with a cool thumbnail cover illustration.

To be perfectly frank with you, I have no intention of converting my novels to paperback, and in addition plan on releasing the next few efforts in that plagued, beleaguered, and much threatened format: the kind, defenseless eBook. And don't forget to tap the right corner for the next page, the left corner for the previous page, and always remember to tap the About The Author page at the end to take a look at me.

* I recommend "I'm Dangerous Tonight" by Cornell Woolrich.