Kindle: useful device or fit for kindling?

Let’s take a brief break from my series chronicling the behind-the-scenes production process involved in publishing my forthcoming September thriller, Crush (if you haven’t yet read these posts, start from the first entry; if you’re reading this somewhere other than my website, my prior articles are at www.AlanJacobson.com). I want to say a few words about eBooks—specifically, Amazon’s Kindle…with an emphasis on the Kindle2.

For several years, eBooks have been hovering in the background, electronic fodder for the new generation. Some embraced it and loved the portability while others turned their noses because it wasn’t a paper book they could hold and feel. The biggest criticism was that these books needed to be read on a computer-like backlit screen, and these people said they spent enough time in front of their computers…or the light bothered their eyes after prolonged periods. This only served to underscore the fact that there wasn’t a physical book to hold.

Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader sought to attack the problem from a different angle. Rather than using backlit computer-like monitor screens, they use electronic ink on a non-backlit screen—meaning that without an external light source, you can’t see anything. There’s no brightness control. Created by and licensed from another company, the electronic ink technology is quite amazing. The “ink” is instantly arranged where the text letters would be. The “pages” are turned with a click of a button—and the screen flickers to reproduce the turning of a page. The resulting image looks surprisingly close to the page of a real book.

Since I’ve only briefly played with the Sony device, but own the Kindle, my focus will be on the Kindle. Rather than spending time reviewing details of each feature, I’m only going to hit the high points because other reviews are available that dissect the device—and there’s no sense in repeating what’s already been written.

I own both the Kindle1 and the Kindle2. Back when the Kindle1 was first introduced in November 2007, the publishing industry was in trouble (it still is—only it’s gotten worse). I felt that if the device was usable and well made, it could indicate a paradigm shift in how printed matter was delivered. I thus thought it was important to get familiar with this device because my future might reside in the ones and zeroes of electronic ink. Despite the high entry cost and the fact it was an introductory model (it’s never wise to buy the first iteration of a product), I bought one. I realized, shortly after using it, that this was finally a device, coupled with Amazon’s retail heft and customer loyalty, that could forever alter the publishing landscape.

About the height/width of the small-form hardcover Book Club Edition (8” x 5”) and the thickness of a magazine, the Kindle is designed for portability. You can load approximately 1500 books (on the Kindle2) and leave on vacation without fear of finishing your novel on the beach and having nothing left to read. It’s light and can easily be toted around. The Kindle1 came with an awkward vinyl case that made it easy to transport, but difficult to hold while reading. And keeping the device in the case while reading is a necessity because of the way the page turn buttons were designed. For some inexplicable reason, the designers were out to lunch when they engineered this aspect of the unit.

The next page “button” is actually about four inches long. But that’s not the problem, per se. It sits along two-thirds of the device’s right edge, and is angled sharply outward. The result is disastrous. The very place where you would hold the reader is where this page turning strip sits. Thus, you accidentally turn pages. Constantly. I try not to be critical unless it’s truly warranted, but the engineers who designed this were either drunk or incompetent. And the beta or prototype testers were asleep on the job. Seriously—talk to anyone with a Kindle and they’ll tell you the same complaint. You can’t comfortably hold this thing without accidentally hitting the page-turning bar. It’s not fixable, and there’s no workaround—you can’t disable the bar, and trying to hold the device some other way is impossible because of where it’s situated. As a result, you’re constantly turning pages, which disrupts your reading experience. How Amazon could release a device with such an obvious design flaw baffles me.

Fortunately, Amazon heard enough of the complaints—and listened—and redesigned the button for Kindle2,so it no longer slopes outward; the bar in the new design clicks inward, further preventing an accidental page turn, and it requires firmer pressure to activate. Much, much better—in fact, I’ve never accidentally turned a page on the Kindle2.

Another issue with my original Kindle was battery life—it was so horrendous I would only get 2 hours before it died. And that was with the wireless turned off, which also eats power. At last year’s BEA (Book Expo America) conference, I spoke with the head of Amazon’s digital division and he told me my unit was defective because the battery should last two weeks. I’ve since exchanged it, and although it’s better, I can’t say it’s great. (I haven’t quantified it.)

The battery life on the Kindle2, in my experience, is vastly better. I’ve only charged it once and have been using it for weeks, though I only read on it about 15 minutes at a time. I still have a huge backlog of hardcovers to read, so, at present, my Kindle reading time is mostly limited to bedtime. (Come book tour, however, the Kindle will be an enormous advantage. Because I have to travel light, I often don’t pack books to read. The Kindle solves that problem.)

One neat feature—and a core advantage over the Sony—is the Kindle Store. It makes buying books a snap using “free” wireless connectivity. One reason the purchase price of the device is north of $300 and the books are a “deal” at $10 for popular titles ($15 for most others) is that the “free” wireless cost is factored into every purchase. Still, it makes it very easy to buy—you can easily search for the type of book you want, or search by your favorite author (that’d be “Alan Jacobson,” right?)—and in seconds, the book is available to read, right on your Kindle. Newspapers are also available for subscription purchase. Blog subscriptions, through RSS feeds, are also available.

There’s a search function, which is handy—and a dictionary, which pulls up a definition on demand. Very convenient. And you can make notes in the text (on the attached keyboard) for review later. Best of all, you can change the font size with the press of a couple buttons. The entire novel resizes onscreen in the blink of an eye. So when I use the Kindle on my elliptical, I can enlarge the font, which makes it easier to read as I’m bobbing about.

One negative: it’s proprietary. I’m not a fan of proprietary file types…the iPod is one huge example—because if the platform is ever discontinued, you’re screwed unless you buy third party file conversion software—which, when you’re talking about gigabytes of data, is a huge pain in the rump. (Though it might soon exist, I’m not aware of any such software yet for Kindle.) “Control” is part of this equation, as any iPod user knows well: they tell you how and where you can listen to your own purchased property. Got a different MP3 player? Tough. The proprietary file type won’t work (unless you go through the tedious file conversion process). Same, I’m afraid, with the Kindle: the books are not stored as universal PDF or .doc files, but as proprietary “AZW” files, so the only place the books can be read is on the Kindle (or on some Kindle-sponsored reading software, which was recently released for the iPhone). Still, if you think the Kindle platform is going to be around five or ten years from now, having your library stored on Amazon’s servers is incredibly convenient. You don’t have to worry about running out of bookshelf space. And it saves trees. Lots of ‘em.

So as an author, what do I think of using the Kindle—and of reading eBooks in general? I thought I’d hate it. I thought I needed the feel of the book, the ability to turn pages back and forth, to enjoy the experience of reading a book. But I was pleasantly surprised. The words are the same. The benefits—convenience, portability and reading ease—far outweigh any “adjustment” one might have to make to not feeling the actual book. And you’re saving millions of trees in the process.

I do believe electronic books is the future of publishing. I think that due to the success of Kindle (several hundred thousand devices have reportedly been sold), eBooks have now reached a critical threshold. Other device makers will soon begin building devices and we’ll soon see the transformation of books much like we saw the digital transformation in music. I think it’ll take longer—readers are more passionate about their paper books than listeners were about their CDs—but I predict it will eventually happen. At some point, years down the line, the number of eBook readers will surpass the number of paper book readers.

Word is that Amazon is working on a Kindle3, which will have a larger screen and be ready in time for the holidays. With the demise of so many print newspapers, a larger screened Kindle could be their savior. Like it or not, I believe the future is here, now. It just might take a while longer for hardcore book lovers to realize it.

What do you think?

Copyeiditing — I mean, Copyediting

I’m back amongst the living again…my copyedits have been handed in and I’m back to outlining and doing research for—oops, almost spilled the title of the new Karen Vail novel I’m working on. (If you’re new to my blog, rewind…or, rather, click on the link to the right that’s called “Prior entries” [if you're reading on Amazon, go to my website, www.AlanJacobson.com.] I’m documenting the behind-the-scenes process of publishing my forthcoming novel, Crush.) This stuff is unedited to save time…which is better spent writing new novels, right?

So what, exactly, is copyediting? Standard editing involves reading the book with an ear to evaluating the plot, the characters, the pacing, the story, etc. A good editor is astute about the genre in which the author writes and understands what he’s trying to accomplish. The editor may suggest changes that tighten the story by cutting a scene (or a sentence), or suggesting you draw out the suspense by withholding a piece of information longer, etc. (Standard editing has become a rarity the past decade or so because of its cost; fortunately, my publisher still employs the services of astute editors.)

Copyediting, however, is more mechanical: a copyeditor looks at grammar, down to the word level, and looks for consistency (the black car on page 24 didn’t become midnight blue on page 300). He/she also brings the manuscript in line with the “style manual” that the publisher uses for all its books. This gives them consistency across their catalogue.

Depending on the style manual used, the copyeditor will change words and terms in the manuscript. Thus, if it’s a “down style,” words I might write with an uppercase initial letter may be changed because the style manual dictates it be lowercase. Example: I used the term Secret Service in Crush—meaning that branch of Homeland Security that protects the president, etc. The style manual dictates it be “secret service.” (That looked odd and jarring to me, as if really was a secret service—so I asked that it be left capitalized.)

In addition, the copyeditor may ask the author questions embedded within the manuscript. We use Microsoft Word with markup turned on, meaning my copyeditor includes questions within the sentence. Thus, her remark to me may be

<<AU: did you mean the percentage should be 85% or 75%? Earlier, you mentioned 85%>>

I would then reply:

<<CE: I meant 75%, because the percentage I mentioned earlier pertained to something different. Leave as is.>>

In addition, a copyeditor develops a style sheet for each author. This style sheet stays with the author while he’s at that publishing house. It gets amended, or added to, with each novel. Thus, if I write “x-ray” in The 7^th Victim, it’ll stay “x-ray” in Crush. (There are different ways of writing x-ray, depending on style manuals. Because of my medical training, I prefer that format. Some style manuals would say it should be “X ray” or “X-ray.”)

During the course of 400 pages and 120,000 words, there are a ton of decisions to make. Leave it as I had it, or change it to match the style manual? Plus, no matter how many times you go through a manuscript, and no matter how many different people read it, there are errors that are going to be missed. The brain compensates and doesn’t catch transposed or omitted words. Thus, done properly, going through your copyedited manuscript is a very intense process requiring hours upon hours of focus, day after day. And keeping all your facts straight if your story is complex (as mine tend to be) is another thing the copyeditor (and I) have to carefully watch for consistency.

The copyediting stage is the last opportunity to make substantive changes to the manuscript. The galleys, or page proofs, are printed from this copyedited document, so the goal is to have it be as error free as possible. It’s not always the case, however. For The 7^th Victim, I ended up making over 100 changes/corrections after the galleys (Advance Reader’s Copies) were printed and bound.

When all was said and done, I emailed the copyedited Word docs back to my project editor and the copyeditor. The copyeditor is now reviewing all my notes and changes. My project editor will then run the manuscript through special publishing software that checks it for extra spacings/returns, oddities, and leftover markup.

At the next phase, the unbound galley page proofs are sent to a proofreader and…back to me, of course. We then go through it yet again, trying to catch errors. Part of the problem is that the galley is the first time you’re seeing the story in that format. There’s something about seeing it in the font and formatting of a real book that changes the way the brain receives the words, and you end up catching things you didn’t see previously.

If changes are made, the inserted portion should match the deleted portion in number of characters (characters are letters, spaces, and punctuation marks). That way, the formatting doesn’t change and the entire manuscript doesn’t need to be reformatted—which is very expensive. So if I make changes, I count characters. With The 7^th Victim, I counted every character to ensure they were swapped out one-for-one.

That’s it for now…I’ve got some more research to do for the new Karen Vail novel, then some refinements to make to the outline…

Alan