IN the vast sea of digital fiction, one recently voiced trade perception is that there are more authors than there are readers. Whoopee for readers! The choice of titles has never been greater, yet are these books worth reading?
As an avid reader, I welcome the comment that an established epublisher gets from 50 to 500 submissions per week. How this will evolve into published fiction is a statistic still to be discovered. Individual publishers, so far, have been wary of issuing any sales figures.
Statistics for ebooks as a whole (which includes non-fiction) confirm rate of growth similar to past years. Sales have doubled annually since records began. But what’s the breakdown between fiction and non-fiction? Business and academic texts obviously claim the major slice of sales. How fares fiction? Who’s reading it?
Well, for a start, I am. Printed books from my public library are a lifelong habit, as are purchased titles from a bookshop. Free downloads to my laptop and Eco ereader have so far been limited to classic works that I never bothered to read before. Here I confess they are no more attractive onscreen and usually get dumped after a chapter or two. With few exceptions their language is dated, their time long past.
Other free fiction downloads are so numerous, and so awful, that I don’t bother with them anymore.
But what about the BUYING of ebooks? Yes, I purchase them, mostly fiction, and delight in the big array on offer. These are the genuine titles. Their publishers have confidence in their worth and that's why you pay to read them.
What’s more, free samples allow fairly accurate judgment by a digital shopper before proceeding to the checkout.
Sifting through these samples is a pleasant chore. The unappealing are simply deleted.
The great advantage over physical bookshop browsing is this: discovery of a good unfamiliar author is quicker. So is the capture of a current bestseller.
My favourite browsing is at Smashwords, which offers multi formats and doesn't frustrate with DRM (Digital Rights Maintenance) blockage. Mobipocket is another favourite, for ease of navigation and quality titles if you can put up with DRM. Just visit these sites and see for yourself.
At Booktaste we display some of the best finds. One click on any cover takes you to it. Happy reading!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Little book is a big rude success
Like many others, I use and love the English language. Today it is the world language, predominant in science, trade and politics. And maybe it always was predominant. At least in Europe.
This mind-blowing idea presents itself in an outrageous book first published in 2002 by a small London publisher, Nathan Carmody, and only now making big global waves.
“The History of Britain Revealed” by Michael John Harper Ph.D is funny to read, insulting to Academia, and logical in its main argument. This is stated as:
The present British population has no Anglo-Saxon content (save for some insignificant inbreeding).
The English language has no Anglo-Saxon content (save for some similarly insignificant loanwords).
Delightfully corrosive in demolishing accepted historical and linguistic beliefs, the author dismisses fellow scholars as “highly-educated fools”. Equally perplexing for literary savants, he writes: “A prerequisite for working on the Oxford English Dictionary is a degree in English Literature, which might explain why most of its several million entries are wrong.”
The author describes himself as an Applied Epistemologist, i.e. a philosopher who specialises in the methods, validity and scope of human knowledge. But is Harper himself wrong in his history and his linguistics? Not according to the common sense he applies. The cherished national myths of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France take a battering that could eventually prove terminal.
“Historians have got it completely wrong,” he says.
The original small publisher, Nathan Carmody, has been reinforced by Icon Books of Cambridge, with an expanded hardback in 2006 and a paperback in 2007. Since then, sellers have spread to include Allen&Unwin, Penguin, Faber&Faber and others. The acorn has grown to a huge oaktree.
At www.booktaste.com we could not find this title in ebook format, but the Web is buzzing with its audacity.
I did discover a related website, www.applied-epistemology.org, where enthusiasts debate new theories, and where “rudeness is permitted so long as it's funny”.
This mind-blowing idea presents itself in an outrageous book first published in 2002 by a small London publisher, Nathan Carmody, and only now making big global waves.
“The History of Britain Revealed” by Michael John Harper Ph.D is funny to read, insulting to Academia, and logical in its main argument. This is stated as:
The present British population has no Anglo-Saxon content (save for some insignificant inbreeding).
The English language has no Anglo-Saxon content (save for some similarly insignificant loanwords).
Delightfully corrosive in demolishing accepted historical and linguistic beliefs, the author dismisses fellow scholars as “highly-educated fools”. Equally perplexing for literary savants, he writes: “A prerequisite for working on the Oxford English Dictionary is a degree in English Literature, which might explain why most of its several million entries are wrong.”
The author describes himself as an Applied Epistemologist, i.e. a philosopher who specialises in the methods, validity and scope of human knowledge. But is Harper himself wrong in his history and his linguistics? Not according to the common sense he applies. The cherished national myths of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France take a battering that could eventually prove terminal.
“Historians have got it completely wrong,” he says.
The original small publisher, Nathan Carmody, has been reinforced by Icon Books of Cambridge, with an expanded hardback in 2006 and a paperback in 2007. Since then, sellers have spread to include Allen&Unwin, Penguin, Faber&Faber and others. The acorn has grown to a huge oaktree.
At www.booktaste.com we could not find this title in ebook format, but the Web is buzzing with its audacity.
I did discover a related website, www.applied-epistemology.org, where enthusiasts debate new theories, and where “rudeness is permitted so long as it's funny”.
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