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Why do people write books? To boost one's ego, to satisfy a need to communicate, to teach, to set the record straight, to impress one's friends or family, to make money. Anyone who has authored a book can perhaps add to this list. The world wide web - that part of the internet used to to publish printed and graphical materials - makes it possible to achieve all these goals easily except for one: make money.
For books with small (niche) markets, internet publishing provides the following advantages:
The principal disadvantage of internet publishing is the difficulty of making money at it. With the exception of the large number of sites selling sex (mainly pictures of nude women, sexual activity, etc.), very few, if any, purveyors of electronic information make a proft - yet. Two newspapers have invested heavily to sell their information, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. For a nominal yearly fee, you can read their daily electronic editions. Other financial sites, notably Morningstar Reports, sell useful stock and mutual fund information by subscription.
Slate, the Microsoft Network magazine of current events and politics, developed by Michael Kinsley, used to be free; now they charge about $20 a year to read its pages. To date, none of these sites have made any profit from their on-line services, but clearly it is too soon to write off that possibility.
What about books? This is a nascent area, and on-line books for a charge are beginning to appear. The Book Aisle is one of several sites that are now selling books on-line. Included in the Book Aisle listings is one of the earliest books to go on line, The Hacker's Golf Guide. Not only is the entire book on-line for a fee (chargeable to your credit card), but you can also purchase individual chapters instead of the full work; visually the site is very well done and is worth a look even if you have no interest in golf. The author, Jim Rhoads, originally wrote The Hacker's Golf Guide as a print book in 1990; when it went out of print in 1995, he placed it on-line.
These are beginning efforts. Retarding the placement of
more on-line books for a fee are several factors:
At present there is no Amazon.com-type company engaged in selling books electronically. It is only a matter of time, I believe, before some enterprising company, using newer technology, becomes a big business in this area.
This makes a lot of sense, and is the way some companies are promoting books on the internet. This method works if you have the books in print, stored in a warehouse, and have operators "standing by" (as they say) ready to take an order 24 hours a day. The costs of such an operation (when not part of a larger outfit) are high. Remember, Amazon.com , the first and largest of the internet book stores, has not yet shown any profit!
More importantly, however, you lose a principal advantage of internet publishing (as opposed to just internet selling); printed text can't be readily changed, so improvements to the electronic version won't be found in the book people order. In one sense, locking yourself into printed books makes the internet site more of an advertisement and less a disseminator of information. This dichotomy can and will change with an exciting and evolving concept called "print on demand." With "print on demand" the book is only printed when ordered, and only the most recent electronic version is printed. The concept is too new (and too expensive) to be practical, but it promises to boost electronic publishing in a big way. It will be a major business in the 21st century.
Everyone wants to make a profit of course, but for now we enjoy the freedom of not having to worry about printing the books and distributing them.
There are lots of differences, some obvious, some subtle. The tactile sensation of turning a pages is gone, replaced by the computer screen. The screen doesn't adapt well to a sea of text. Thus the internet author has to worry not just about quality of writing, but also about the visual presentation of every paragraph. Too much uninterrupted text may turn people off, unless they have downloaded the work to a high quality printer.
On the other hand, you don't want to abbreviate a book, or turn it into a bunch of "sound bites" just because it is on-line. One solution is to break the text up with headers of various sizes, graphics, photos, tables, indentations, different fonts, and other visual changes. Another solution is to add "hypertext" linkages within the text that go to other chapters or paragraphs, or even other web sites.
Perhaps the best solution is to make the work so interesting that the reader wants to keep scrolling on the screen (a.k.a. turning the pages), or print out the file on paper. About our first on-line novel, The Wall: Chronicle of a Scuba Trial , several readers stated just that: they were so engrossed they read through to the end. And this is a book with few hypertext linkages and only a modicum of textual "breakups".
The use of "frames" has aided the presentation of lengthy books on-line, particularly non-fiction works where the reader wants to keep going back and forth. With two vertical frames or panels, the reader can have a scrollable table of contents on the left frame, while reading the full text on the right. Scuba Diving Explained
was the first of our books to go into frames. With frames the reader can instantly skip to any other part of the book, almost like turning the pages of a printed text.From the reader's point of view, internet publication provides a
singular advantage over printed books: linkages. The author may
link any word in the text to any other part of the book, or to any
other site in the world. For example, in
The House Officer's Survival Guide section E,
"What To Do With Your Money,"
I mention several mutual fund companies. In the printed version
I provide a 1-800 phone number to these companies,
but in the internet edition I give linkages directly to their
internet sites. This ability to
link any part of one text to anywhere in the world is probably the
single greatest difference between printed books and books on-line,
and may well doom non-fiction printed books to obsolescence
in the next 20 years.
Before answering this question I should define
"publishing on the internet." Anyone can publish
on the internet. America On Line, CompuServe and other
internet providers give subscribers a
free home page with 2 or more megabytes of storage; in this space
you can tell about yourself,
show pictures of your kids or your dog Spot, or tell what
flavors of ice cream you enjoy.
The vast majority of information on the internet is designed
for a wider audience
than personal home pages, and includes newsletters, magazines
and newspapers, academic
articles, stock quotes, travel and hotel information, sports
scores, etc., etc., etc.
This plethora of information, in all subjects, constitutes
most of the world wide web.
All of it would also fall under the rubric "internet publishing."
In contrast, publishing whole books on the internet is
distinctly uncommon, for three reasons.
1) Most people write books to sell and make money
(or at least recoup the costs), something
not yet feasible on the internet when the entire book is
placed on-line. It costs money to prepare
a book for the world wide web, and an additional
amount to keep the book on-line.
2) Most published books are copyrighted not by the author,
but by the publisher, so even if an
author wants to publish on the internet, he or she can't
do so without permission; permission is
unlikely to be given by the publisher to "give the book away."
3) The world wide web is an embryo compared to the
500 year history of print publishing. The
whole idea is just too new to have generated much interest.
Having opined the reasons for limited internet book publishing, it is
nonetheless true that many books ARE on the internet, and the list
(like everything else internet-related) grows daily. The sites listed
at the bottom of this page (Really Neat Book Sites. . .) provide
links to most of them.
The most prodigious effort by far is the famous
Project Gutenberg, a long
running labor of love developed and run by Michael S. Hart. The ambitious
goal of Project Gutenberg, started at the University of Illinois in 1971,
is to place on-line the full text of every major out-of-copyright book.
When last checked
Project Gutenberg
had about 750 books on-line.
Other than Lakeside Press, I am not aware of other
independent publishers who have gone on-line with complete texts.
However, many universities and other non-profit centers are
placing books on-line, and there are now searchable internet sites
for them all (including books published by Project Gutenberg), at
The On-Line Books Page and
Books On Line.
Both sites allow you to search for on-line books by author or by title.
Another comprehensive listing of what's available on-line is
The
OnLine Publishing Collection. Beside links
to hundreds of on-line books, this site has topics
related to the nuts and bolts of internet-publishing.
Note that this & other comprehensive web sites can't include
all the on-line books. Some books are placed on-line
by individual authors and fall under the "radar" of the
umbrella sites (at least until called to the webmaster's attention).
One such non-fiction work is
Duty and Healing: Foundations of a Jewish Bioethic,
by Benjamin Freedman, Ph.D., an ethicist at McGill University. This
book, available only on the internet, was reviewed in
the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association,
on November 20, 1996; to my knowledge this was the
first internet-only book reviewed in a major medical journal.
Irrespective of whether or not Duty and Healing interests you,
by all means read Dr. Freedman's explanation of how he ended up
publishing on the internet instead of on paper. He provides
this information in a separate section titled
Why Web?.
Four things.
Beyond bad mechanics of writing is also the problem of plain bad writing.
Isaac Asimov was a prolific writing genius, who almost always
managed to get his words right the first time. Most of us aren't that smart,
and for us writing well requires frequent re-writing.
Someone who throws pages on the internet, without the crucial process of
re-writing to clarify meaning, eliminate inconsistencies, improve
the grammar, is unlikely to offer up a readable work. In my opinion,
So in summary of this first point, a "book" has length, coherence,
and is edited to eliminate egregious mistakes. Placing text material
on the internet that doesn't meet these criteria
should be called something other than "book publishing."
Our first 2 books placed on the internet were also our first print books,
published by Lakeside Press.
My latest on-line book is about -- golf! I took up the game late in life,
became intrigued by its nuances and the struggle most people have playing the game,
and decided I had something to say. I wrote the book for people who
started out late and are struggling to get better. Pros call the worst
of the amateurs 'Hackers', because they 'hack' at the ball. I worked hard to become
an ex-hacker, and then wrote the book to help others.
Why Are You Still a Hacker? takes advantage of the plethora
of web sites on golf, by including dozens of golf-related links.
Unlike the similarly-titled The Hacker's Guide to Golf (mentioned
above) my book is free and has the viewpoint of a rank amateur.
Why Are You Still a Hacker?
would not work in printed format, because of all the e-links.
So unlike the two house books, this is a true 'on-line' book, born on the internet.
However, the same standards apply: zero tolerance for grammatical and spelling
mistakes, coherence, good writing. (If you play golf you may not agree with my
views, but at least they should be clear.)
Several programs allow you to write text that is automatically converted to
HTML code as you write, so that "what you see [on the screen] is what you get." With
one of these internet authoring programs (e.g.,
Microsoft's Front Page) you could write your book from scratch, and
see how it will appear on the internet.
Finally, you will want to include some graphics, or at least a color
cover. This can be done using freely available clip art, but it
still requires someone with expertise to design, edit and place
a cover on the internet. If you already have a cover for a
previously-published book, it can be easily scanned into an image file
and placed on the internet. An on-line book doesn't "need" a cover,
of course, but it may help draw attention
to the work (and color costs nothing extra on the internet,
as opposed to print publishing).
For example, the URL address for
"We Can't Kill Your Mother!" and Other Stories of Intensive Care: Medical
and Ethical Challenges in the ICU
Is book publishing common on the internet?
What are some other internet book-publishing
sites besides Lakeside Press?
What exactly does it take to publish books on-line?
is
Any book on the internet ought to be good enough to be printed on paper and
sold to the public.
They remain on line and are also available from Amazon.com (click on title):
Crooked House and
Crumbing Dreams: What You Must Know About Building or Buying a New House (or Condo)
http://www.mtsinai.org/pulmonary/books/icu/contents.html.
In this URL "http" stands for hypertext transfer protocol (the communications protocol most commonly used), "www" stands for world wide web, and mtsinai.org is the name of account under which the book is placed (Mt. Sinai Medical Center, in Cleveland). "Pulmonary" is the division within "mtsinai" (there are other divisions) and "books" is a section of that division (there is more than one book). After books is "icu" which contains all the files for the "We Can't Kill" book; "contents.html" is the first file the viewer will see when the full title is accessed; this file is (naturally) the book's Table of Contents; "html" stands for "hypertext markup language," the universal language for coding text files on the internet. Each chapter in the book is a separate file and has its own URL; the chapter with the title story has the URL http://www.mtsinai.org/pulmonary/books/icu/mother.html.
Fortunately, all this URL lingo is transparent to the user. Simply click on the underlined linkage and you will see the URL pop into the address screen, as you are being connected to the new site. To get back to here, press "back" at the top of your screen, or type in the URL for these FAQ's: http://www.mtsinai.org/pulmonary/papers/lpFAQ.html .
If you already have a relationship with a web server, or have access to one in your business or university, the process may be very smooth. A knowledgeable web master with access to the computer can do the whole process in a few minutes. If, however, you have no relationship with a web server, I recommend you contract with a programmer to not only revise your files for HTML format, but also place them on a web server for you. Ideally (but not necessarily), the programmer will work for the company/university that owns or controls the web server, so you have one-stop shopping.
That depends: on the size of your book, the relationship you have with the company, how much traffic your book generates, and other factors. However, the net monthly cost of simply storing an average-sized book and making it available to the internet should be no more than about $40 to $50; this fee includes your own internet access account, which provides you unlimited access to the internet. This monthly fee is in addition to any programming costs to convert the files into HTML and make them presentable (which can range from a few hundred dollars to over a thousand, depending on the complexity of the work).
Once an account is established, additional books can be added to the site at a very small cost. If your site becomes a huge success, with lots of "hits", the web server's charges may increase as well. However, over time, internet storage and access fees should actually decrease, so expect the major expense to be the labor of converting your work into the proper language for internet dissemination.
First, you can advertise in all the traditional ways, although advertising books almost never pays (and certainly not for books you are providing at no charge).
Second, search engines roam the internet, picking up key words in your text; if and when someone types in those key words to the search engine, your book may surface. However, don't count on it. Search engines are notoriously inefficient, and your book on Elvis may be the 1000th item on a list retrieved by roaming Elvis fans. They'll never see it.
The best way is to identify people who really would like to see your book, and let them know. This can be done through e-mail (very inexpensive), or by joining chat groups on-line, or by making mailings to influential people in the subject matter your book covers. A review in a widely-read magazine, newspaper or newsletter may bring you lots of readers.
The world wide web is still so new that no one knows how it will all evolve. Will it become like television, where only a few sites run by conglomerates entice most viewers? Or like a vast library, where any and all tastes are accommodated? Whatever the evolutionary path, putting a book on the web, like the writing itself, has to be a labor of love. Don't expect fame or fortune to follow.