by Edward Nawotka
In today’s lead story Mark Mills discusses how he found the inspiration for his novel The Information Officer in book about the World War II siege of Malta he uncovered in a junk shop. What is interesting to note is that this might never have happened had we been living in a world entirely populated with e-books.
Browsing happens in the real world, bookstores, libraries and, indeed, junk shops. As libraries increasingly eliminate stacks in favor of computers, study areas and coffee shops; and bookstores continue to shrink, there are fewer opportunities to browse. Certainly you can “browse” e-books, but as Kevin Smokler discussed earlier, there’s no easy and efficient way of sampling a book online. The chance of making a random, genuine discovery is nothing but time consuming.
So, the the question is: In a world ruled by increasingly sophisticated algorithms — one’s that presume to know what you want to buy and the type of man or woman you want to date — is the serendipity of book discovery a think of the past in the age of e-books?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or via Twitter using hashtag #ppdiscuss.
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Stumbling on My “Dream Story” in Malta (Circa 1941)
5 months ago
[...] DISCUSS: Is the serendipity of book discovery dead in the age of the e-book? [...]
Erik Johnson
5 months ago
I’m sure this is a fine book but I have to say that I am not a big fan of these guest pieces where authors describe their projects and they are not put in a larger publishing context. The only other books I saw mentioned in this piece, for instance, were the author’s prior ones, so I’m somewhat mystified as to what trend or perspective on publishing is being described.
Erin
5 months ago
It’s funny that you bring this up because this is one of my favorite things to do…browse bookstores and other people’s bookshelves to look for books I might have missed. With my e-Reader, I don’t ever do that. I buy a book I want and maybe one or two others I wouldn’t have bought in printed form, but they always tend to be books I know something about.
I think as the world goes more digital we’re going to have to be far more reliant on friends, media, and publishers to share with us those books that we cannot miss.
Erin
5 months ago
Sorry, Erik, my first post was not in reference to yours, but the subject of the story. What Mark Mills’ piece reflects are a number of things:
1) How writers find inspiration for their stories.
2) How digital publishing will impact the “browsing” capability of the reader and, thus, discovery of books that are not being heavily promoted by the publisher.
3) To share the perspective of a writer. We hear from industry insiders promoting these writers every day, why not hear it from the other side of the desk…the people whose work we are hoping to sell to the reader.
Tim Middleton
5 months ago
I get lost browsing online all of the time. Start with a wikipedia article on Malta and see where you end up. Just imagine all the things that never get or got discovered in bookstores. Now you can browse all the worlds information online. I
Erin
5 months ago
Sure, Tom, I get lost online all the time and discover magical information and sites too, but I rarely find a book at the end of it all that I want to buy and own that tells me more of what I want to know. I think discovering lost books will happen less and less. Unless there’s a link on the wikipedia site to a history of Malta…
Bob Barnett
5 months ago
Spot on, Ed. I believe that ‘discoverability’ is one of the things that will ultimately keep bookstores alive. As a full fledged tech geek, I still find the idea that e-books will replace print books in our lifetime, or even our kids’ lifetime, equivalent to jet-pack dreams. And despite what a recent NYT article suggests, bookstores will not be relegated to outposts for collectors and aficionados. Who has the most to fear? The chains. Why else would they be so intent on jumping on the ebook bandwagon? Indie booksellers should keep their eye on the ball and do what they do best. Despite superstores (the 80s threat) discounters (the 90s threat) and Amazon (the 00s threat) there are still bookstores. And the savvy ones will survive ebooks as well.
Chris Walters
5 months ago
I spend a lot of my time online, so I might fall into a “power user” category and consequently my experience won’t apply to everyone, but I find online discovery much more powerful than bookstore browsing.
Serendipity can occur in either situation, but when it happens online, I’m able to not just look inside the book but immediately find recommendations, reviews, reactions, and related works. For some, it might feel like information overload; if instead you treat it as a form of play, and trust that serendipity will work its magic, you can simply take in whatever data interests you and move along to the next book, or stop and decide to read that book in its entirety.
In this way, I find online discovery to benefit from higher quality information than browsing in a bookstore, where the primary set of data you’ve got to work with is all marketing related (cover art, flap copy, blurbs, shelf placement, retailer discount stickers, celebrity endorsements).
Two examples: last month, I bounced from newspaper articles and blog entries about the Amazon/Macmillan feud to an author’s website, then back to Amazon to find out more about his work, then I bought one of his books. Finding him was purely accidental and I really enjoyed the book. This morning, I bounced from my email inbox to a GoodReads user page to a literary blog to Amazon, and discovered a new book of essays that I’ve added to my “must read” list. I am not sure I would have found either one of these books walking through a Barnes & Noble, and I certainly couldn’t have vetted them as quickly or as thoroughly as I did online.
Deborah Emin
5 months ago
As an e-book publisher and as a book junkie for years now, I tend to think we are all missing the mark here. Jason Epstein wrote a wonderful piece lately in the New York Review of Books where he described why print books will stay despite the rise of the e-book. And we are not going to see the gazillions of books already in print just disappear. My bookshelves are toppling over with books yet there is a new kind of discovery that the e-book will provide and that will come when the new innovations in e-books take hold. This is something my company is hoping to be in the forefront of. (But to avoid making this an ad campaign for my company, I am withholding its name.) I just want this discussion to look at what will be new.
As to the featured writer’s books, there is always that option to find inspiration in a million different places these days. Old books just happen to be one of those places. As a writer as well, I find it in news accounts. Go figure.
Amanda T
5 months ago
I wanted to weigh in the comment about the relevance of Mark Mills’ piece– I had the oppostite reaction. I loved reading it, and it was exactly the kind of “extra material” that will now inspire me to go and buy the book. A couple of weeks ago, the piece by Arthur Japin had the same effect, and I not only purchased the book but went to hear the author read on a very snowy night in Manhattan. So keep them coming! I love to have more insight on a book than flap copy.
Noel Hobley
5 months ago
And yet here you all are discussing the pros and cons of hard copy against e-book evolution on a website. I learned a trade, hand and machine composition, that could publish a book using molten lead to reproduce the text. It is long since gone but yet books remain and will because they allow a very personal experience in delivering their content, just not in the way we know now. E-book publishing will replace certain aspects of book publishing because it will be easier and more efficient to do so and the shelves of bookshops will be populated very much the same kind of material they are now because the e-books strength will be in texts and data delivery that will date and be of little value in either out of date printed or e-book form. Yes of course there will be overlap of either form, but their strengths will dominate certain markets. Oh, just to add some fuel, has the boat come in yet on just how ‘green’ an e-book reader is compared to printing from ‘renewable resources’.
e.lee
5 months ago
back in the 70s and 80s there was so much worry over synthesisers and drum machines replacing real people, there’s a similar fear with e-books and paper. Both mediums can exist side by side
Alexandra
4 months ago
What a great blog, thank you so much. This is an interesting question, and what Erin comments above is so true: we will rely more on friends – or networks – to help us discover books. But this might not be reliable, nor all that much fun. A lot of my facebook contacts have connected their aNobii accounts to their other social media, but I’m convinced they are lying when they add only virtuous or business-related books to their wishlists. In the end, nobody has recommended anything I would read. I rely on my mother, who is in 2 readers’ circles, to hand me down the ones she liked
.
Edward Nawotka
4 months ago
Thanks for your enthusiasm about what we’re doing. I’m actually in a book club where I live with only business men — bankers and doctors mostly — and am constantly surprised at what they read in their spare time. The women in their lives have the biggest influence of all. If their wives already own a book, it’s more likely that they’ll want to read it, since it saves them the trip to the bookstore. I’m not sure what that says about the future when e-books are instantly downloadable, but it is interesting anecdotally.
Keep us informed about what’s going on in Tuscany. We’ll be happy to write it up if you’d like.