Can We Actually Own A Book?
Open Books, an online publisher of literary classics, contemporary fiction and nonfiction and avante garde and multimedia presentations, recently published Alone In The Company Of Others by author Kelly Huddleston in an Amazon Kindle Edition as well as on the Harper Collins UK web site, http://authonomy.com, where other writers, as well as readers, are invited to comment on uploaded books. Once Alone In The Company Of Others was posted and available to read, the comments came pouring in, and the almost unanimous verdict on the book was a resounding thumbs up!
Ironically, before electing to publish the book in a digital format the author had contacted numerous literary agents over the course of two years, trying to obtain an objective reading, as well as their professional support and services. Though many of the more than one hundred agents did reply to her queries, it became obvious to the author that not one of the agents had actually given the manuscript a full and objective reading. Which gives rise to two rather important questions: 1) What criteria do agents use to actually read and analyze legitimate submissions; 2) If they are reading only small snippets of a manuscript, how indeed do they determine which books to represent to major publishers? Of course it must be conceded that literary agents are, first and foremost, salesmen; however, their secondary function as screeners for the traditional publishing community at large is also a fact of modern-day publishing. Long gone are readers and editors at major publishing houses who plough through slush piles in search of a hidden treasure or the next truly great writer. Most of that is left up to literary agents, freeing mainstream publishers to focus on what is really important: the bottom line.
In reading through the many comments left for this author by other writers (all presumably caught in the same catch-22 position as Kelly), one particular comment struck me: “Brilliant, brilliant stuff, this. If I don’t one day get to own this book, I’ll count myself cheated!” wrote the reviewer. Apparently Alone In The Company Of Others is well appreciated – not only by this reviewer, but also by countless others who have read the book online.
My question is this: Can one actually own a book? Of course one can acquire a physical copy of most books – at least the one’s that pass the criteria of literary agents – whatever that might be – and are finally published and distributed and sold in bookstores. We all have bookshelves full of our favorite books; and we all know what it means to pack them in boxes and haul them up and down flights of stairs every time we move house. Digitally published books are different, of course, as they can be stored in our computer’s memory, or within various digital reading devices. Still, the question of ownership nags at me a bit. For writers, the publication of their work – printed pages between artistic covers – has traditionally been a proud and memorable moment; but any writer would certainly concede that while the physical book itself is a worthy trophy, the real value lies between those artistic covers – not the printed pages themselves, but the ideas and perceptions contained within the words and sentences. Real ownership of those ideas belongs first to the author, and secondly to the reader once he has assimilated, considered, and reconsidered them, and the format of how those ideas are ultimately conveyed becomes for the most part superfluous. Even the concept of ownership of those ideas – either by the author or by the reader – becomes blurred when tenuous tangibility is considered, not to mention ethics. But if one can actually own a book, is it not true that the true value (or true ownership) is of the ideas conveyed by the author, not the medium used to transmit those ideas.
To the reviewer who so subtly opined the present situation in commercial publishing, (hinting with regret that actually owning a copy of Alone In The Company Of Others might well prove beyond possible), it must be proposed that, having read the book online, and having experienced the author’s creativity and ideas for himself through the vehicle of not only the author’s expert guidance, but his own imagination, that essentially he now owns this book – or at least he has been allowed to share the author’s unique inspiration and perspective and technique; and once experienced, and assimilated, those very ideas and perspectives cannot be taken from him. In the end, the form of transmission is only an interesting sidebar. And let’s all be honest: who wants to lug those boxes full of slowly disintegrating, yellowing paper and cardboard up flights of stairs each time we relocate?
David Ross is an author and publisher. Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/literature–articles/can-we-actually-own-a-book-887673.html
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Filed under: Audio Books on April 27th, 2009
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