From Marc Aronson in today’s New York Times, which I link to since the Saturday edition is the least-read of the week (despite having the best crossword . . . ). Aronson”s point: e-books will make nonfiction books worse, since there’s the rights fees paid by writers and/or publishers of serious nonfiction (to reproduce images or photos) are so expensive and do not translate well to electronic editions.

I can relate from personal experience: I had to rewrite an essay about the role of material culture, especially book covers, in the evolution of the canonical status of Chicago writer Nelson Algren because the rights fees to reproduce cover images were so insane: one publisher (which shall remain nameless except for its association with Antarctic waterfowl) wanted a thousand fucking pounds to reprint a single book cover in a collection of academic essays which would have sold maybe 3,000 copies, mostly to libraries and blood relatives of the writers.

Moving from e-books to sports books, Bodog.com has the Mariners at 16-1 to win the World Series, with the Cubs at 18-1. Can you just see Carlos Silva buzzing a fastball under Milton Bradley’s chin in October at Safeco? No, me neither.

5 replies on “Another angle on E-Books”

  2. Carlos Silva threw 5 scoreless innings in yesterday’s win. Of course, it was an intrasquad game. If only he could pitch against the Cubs every day.

  3. ” e-books will make nonfiction books worse, since there’s the rights fees paid by writers and/or publishers of serious nonfiction (to reproduce images or photos) are so expensive and do not translate well to electronic editions.”

    I don’t get it. That is a totally confusing statement and on the face makes no sense.

  4. The invisible hand of the marketplace, with proper strong governmental regulation (e.g. no Republicans) will adjust the price due to the larger market share and perfect information that exists on the Internet to drive down prices for publishers.

    Within a year things will work out.

  5. I rely on google more than books to find photos I’m interested in seeing. I don’t think skipping photos altogether in ebooks is an enormous tragedy (although b/w photos look just fine on my kindle, and the ipad is promising us a multimedia frenzy that makes old-fashioned words obsolete).

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