The future of publishing?

[MAY 17, 2000]  The invention of paper made an incredible impact on the world. Prior to paper, most writing was done on animal hides (lambs and sheep). These materials, vellum and parchment, were too expensive, too heavy and too bulky to allow for lengthy manuscripts, and too difficult to handle to give rise to what we currently know as books, newspapers and magazines. With the invention of the printing press came the discovery of the Chinese principles of papermaking, and voila, widespread publishing became possible. The world since has had this ongoing romance with the printed word.

Technology continues to explore alternative ways to do everything. The advent of the computer, and the onset of the internet has given rise to a whole new generation of publishing called e-publications. E-books, e-zines, and e-news(papers) are popping up everywhere. The internet is replete with volumes of books on the web (check out www.gutenberg.net), electronic magazines covering every different human interest, and major newspapers are all experimenting with electronic publishing.

Why this current trend toward electronic publishing when the world at large is in love with the printed word on paper?

 

 

Three reasons have emerged:

First, we realize the need to conserve natural resources and preserve the environment. Last year the United States produced 100 million tons of paper – a record production year. According to projections from the American Forest and Paper Associations, production this year will top that of last year. Each time we read a newspaper printed on paper, we are more and more convicted of the fact that we are consuming and disposing of a resource that is quickly being swallowed up. Prior to the advent of e-publishing, we had nothing to replace the printed word on paper.

 

 

Second, distribution of the written word on the internet is perfect and is economically more practical than the printed word on paper. The written word can travel across continents, under oceans, and even into space at the speed of the electron, and at a fraction of a fraction of the cost of distributing the printed word on paper. It doesn’t weigh anything, can be composed at a fraction of the cost and in much less time, and can be sent and received in a timely fashion.

Third, the internet has spawned an entirely new economy. This economy seems to provide news and the published word free to the reader, charging the entire cost of publication to the advertiser. The word "FREE" has become synonymous with the word "Internet." And people seem to like free.

In mid-March, according to an article in the June 2000 issue of Yahoo Internet Life (published on paper, of course), Stephen King, arguably the world’s most popular writer, published and distributed a novelette called "Riding the Bullet" on the internet for free. The result was that within the first 24 hours over 400,000 people downloaded the text, and at the height of the rush, the traffic was so great that it crashed many servers, preventing untold thousands from partaking in this groundbreaking event.

 

 

The success of "Riding the Bullet" signaled to many that the world was ready for e-publishing and ready for the non-printed word.

 

(To top of second column)

While the computer seems to be perfect for the process of writing the news, and the internet seem to be perfect for the distribution of the news, the printed-word-on-paper hasn’t vanished. It seems that while people like to publish stuff online, they don’t (yet) like to read stuff online. Online publishers like their readers to keep their articles short and punchy because readers don’t finish reading articles more than three typewritten pages in length on the web. A recent Xerox study said that three out of four e-mail users print out every message that is longer than half a page. Web editors have reported that links at the top of web pages are clicked more often than links at the bottom of web pages (seeming to indicate that people are not reading to the bottom of the page). And most computer users report that by the end of the day their eyes feel like bouncing ping-pong balls from looking at the computer screen. Users report that they want to sit down comfortably in an armchair and read a paper newspaper, or a book or a poem. And then there is the dilemma of lugging a computer into the bathroom for reading, or into bed at night to bring up your favorite volumes.

The answer, it seems, may be in the development of new technology which weds the ease of publication and distribution via the computer and internet with a simulation of the romance and portability of the printed-word-on paper. Companies are racing ahead to develop electronic paper which will have the look and feel of ordinary paper, but will use new technology to temporarily display published images (e-ink on e-paper). The result may be that a reader will download the text into a plastic-like medium, to be displayed, read and then reused by the reader (currently under development by Xerox). Others report that the reader will hold a tube and draw a page out of that tube. The page will then be displayed, read and then will be drawn back into the tube like a window shade, to receive new text and images.

 

 

In the near future, books may be electronically published in what looks and feels like a real book, with a leather or canvas cover and what feel like real paper pages. The difference would be that there would be advanced circuitry in the cover and the spine of the book which would electronically display the text and pictures on the pages. When you are done with the e-book, slip in a new memory-module, the new novel is displayed, and you are ready for more nighttime or anytime reading pleasure.

E-publishing is making more inroads every day. More and more documents are coming to the web, more and more newspapers are publishing online, and more and more magazines are experimenting with electronic publishing. And technology firms around the world are racing to develop the device which will be accepted as the next evolutionary step beyond paper. Stay tuned.

 

[Jim Youngquist]