Newsletter: November 2004
The most exciting thing that’s happened this month, so far at least, has been the relaunch of the enCompass site with a brand new look, and lots of new and improved features. I’m delighted with the new version, and hope you’ll find lots more ways to take advantage of the vast amount of material on the site. There are book reviews, quizzes, and interviews added all the time, as well as lots more books that you can search for, or compile book lists from, so save the site as one of your favourites, or keep checking back. You can tell us what you think about the changes by pasting a message on the discussion boards.
All this has got me thinking about the wonders and woes of the technological world and how it connects with the lo-fi world of books. After all it was only a few years ago, when computers were becoming more and more common in private homes, and the internet was growing into the phenomenon we recognise today, that the scaremongers predicted these technological advances would spell the end for the printed book. Who would continue bothering to buy and turn the pages of a cumbersome, non-environmentally-friendly lump of pulp when they could read a literary work at the click of a mouse? Hmm. Thank goodness that never caught on. There were some notable, if limited, successes however. In 2000 the hugely popular Stephen King released his novella Riding the Bullet as a downloadable e-book, and lots of people promptly downloaded it and read it. The trouble was, not all of them paid the $2.50 fee they were supposed to, and book piracy became a new problem for the techno-publishers to deal with. But let’s face it, eyes tend to get tired much quicker when they’re reading from a screen than they are from a page. And all true book lovers will say that there’s no substitute for the tactile qualities of a book: for the pleasures of looking at a cover and trying to work out if you’ll enjoy what’s behind it; of admiring a book’s design and layout, even its paper. Some books you just want to own, and be able to pick up and re-read, or lend to a friend, or just flick through whenever you want. Good quality writing is best treated by a good quality medium, and in most cases it’s the old-fashioned printed book that still reigns supreme.
Having said this, there are exceptions, of course. Shorter pieces of text can work well electronically. There are a few good websites around which publish original short stories in a readable format. Check out some of these:
www.wooloo.org
www.3ammagazine.com
www.saveourshortstory.org.uk
Susan Tranter
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