4 ms·

I'm a big SciFi fan and love Charles's work. I'm sure he knows more about the industry than I do, but from my own personal experience I much prefer the discover

by keltex 14y ago

I'm a big SciFi fan and love Charles's work. I'm sure he knows more about the industry than I do, but from my own personal experience I much prefer the discovery process of SciFi books with eBooks than with pBooks. In an ideal world, bookstores would have their shelves well stocked with a deep assortment of titles. Unfortunately, most bookstores carry a thin selection of good SciFi books. They have some of the latest books from well known authors, but rarely did they have some of their earlier titles. And worse yet if the book was part of a series, you would see the latest one or two books but never any of the previous ones. So for example, they might carry Stross' "Rule 34" but not his earlier (and great) "Halting State" and "Accelerando". So what's a SciFi fan to do? Track them down in a used bookstore. I only get to visit Powell's once a year when I visit my parents. Back order them? Now with my Kindle, it's much easier. Grab a sample for free. Peruse a couple of chapters and if I like it, buy it and have it in my hands in a minute. DRM or no, it's a much more pleasant experience and I get to read a lot of better books.

mechanical_fish 14y ago
Nobody is arguing that it's getting any harder to "find more books by the well-known author X" or "find more books in series Y". These techniques are powerful and getting more powerful. But how do you find new authors? Stross argues that the old technique, "look for whatever is shelved next to your favorite authors", is going to give much different results in the future than it did in the past, because in a world without physical shelves every author will scheme to get her works listed next to the works of as many other authors as possible. So what's next? One technique is "listen to what folks like Stross and Gaiman and Walton blog or Tweet about", but the point is that the set of works which I'll find with that technique is highly unlikely to correspond to a well-defined 20th-century genre like "SF" or "fantasy" or "mystery". It's unlikely to be an especially coherent set at all. It's going to be a highly personal subset of the entire canon of English literature.
- cstross 14y ago
  It's worse than you think. I don't read enough. That's because when I'm writing SF as a day job, I have a limited capacity to enjoy reading the stuff recreationally in my spare time. (I know for a fact that this problem affects many other authors: you don't do for relaxation what you're doing for a day job the whole time.) So I'm not necessarily going to be a very good guide to what's worth reading ...
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I think an important thing to consider in this discussion is the role of anthologies of short stories. I suspect because of the economics of paperback length that you mentioned, that seems to be how almost all short stories are published in physical form. The move to ebooks allows short stories to be published on their own which is great and all, but it likely comes at the cost of disincentivizing all of those multi-author variety packs. A good deal of my author discovery has come from those books (for example, I read your 'Lobsters' in one); it would be a shame to see their obsolescence.
    - pavel_lishin 14y ago
      I imagine that blogs acting as curators would pop up, recommending sets of short stories to purchase together. Odds are that they wouldn't cost any more than a collection does now.
- bcl 14y ago
  The bookstore method of finding new authors was much worse than it is with ebooks. Your choices were limited by what the store selected to place on their shelves, a process that is more likely to result in what is popular instead of what is interesting to you. I like the ebook process of selection much better. I hear about books and authors from friends, blogs and discussions like this. I then go to Amazon, read the reviews, look at the kindle price (I don't pay more than $10 unless I am already familiar with the author) and click on the Buy Now button. ebooks may blur the lines between the genres, but is this really a bad thing? Is there any reason why a book can't fit into several categories? There isn't. Genre was a way for stores to organize their inventory, and now that shelf space is no longer a premium we can use better methods to find new reading material. Actually, since buying my Kindle I have read more than ever and find it hard to keep up with my reading list.
  - AJ007 14y ago
    I would agree with you. The bookstore (or library) method as limiting as well as hit or miss. "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" on Amazon is extremely useful. In one case I saw an author's titles continually pop up for months, looked him, found his blog, realized he was a genius, an then end up buying everything he wrote. Pretty much everything I read now comes from that process. There is a networking effect in place here. The first is from Amazon, the second is from the blogosphere/wherever authors are interacting. One thing is for certain -- authors absolutely need to have good blogs and write frequently. Some of my favorite authors have infrequently updated blogs or Twitter accounts. Unfortunately I forget about them. "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" creates chains if you dig deep enough. You will not be limited to a single pool of books (or music for that matter.) But, I find its also important to hand search the authors (or musicians) that come up for rarer and often just as meaningful work.
- mbetter 14y ago
  I read a review of one of Mr. Stross' works on the the A.V. Club while I was at work and it sounded interesting, so I pulled out my Nook and bought it. I thoroughly enjoyed it so I bought the remainder of his works and read them. If I didn't have the Nook, I never would have read any of his works. The next time I was at a bookstore, I would have wandered around as I made a futile attempt to remember stuff that I wanted to read.

by keltex 14y ago

mechanical_fish 14y ago

Nobody is arguing that it's getting any harder to "find more books by the well-known author X" or "find more books in series Y". These techniques are powerful and getting more powerful. But how do you find new authors? Stross argues that the old technique, "look for whatever is shelved next to your favorite authors", is going to give much different results in the future than it did in the past, because in a world without physical shelves every author will scheme to get her works listed next to the works of as many other authors as possible. So what's next? One technique is "listen to what folks like Stross and Gaiman and Walton blog or Tweet about", but the point is that the set of works which I'll find with that technique is highly unlikely to correspond to a well-defined 20th-century genre like "SF" or "fantasy" or "mystery". It's unlikely to be an especially coherent set at all. It's going to be a highly personal subset of the entire canon of English literature.

cstross 14y ago
It's worse than you think. I don't read enough. That's because when I'm writing SF as a day job, I have a limited capacity to enjoy reading the stuff recreationally in my spare time. (I know for a fact that this problem affects many other authors: you don't do for relaxation what you're doing for a day job the whole time.) So I'm not necessarily going to be a very good guide to what's worth reading ...
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I think an important thing to consider in this discussion is the role of anthologies of short stories. I suspect because of the economics of paperback length that you mentioned, that seems to be how almost all short stories are published in physical form. The move to ebooks allows short stories to be published on their own which is great and all, but it likely comes at the cost of disincentivizing all of those multi-author variety packs. A good deal of my author discovery has come from those books (for example, I read your 'Lobsters' in one); it would be a shame to see their obsolescence.
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    I imagine that blogs acting as curators would pop up, recommending sets of short stories to purchase together. Odds are that they wouldn't cost any more than a collection does now.
bcl 14y ago
The bookstore method of finding new authors was much worse than it is with ebooks. Your choices were limited by what the store selected to place on their shelves, a process that is more likely to result in what is popular instead of what is interesting to you. I like the ebook process of selection much better. I hear about books and authors from friends, blogs and discussions like this. I then go to Amazon, read the reviews, look at the kindle price (I don't pay more than $10 unless I am already familiar with the author) and click on the Buy Now button. ebooks may blur the lines between the genres, but is this really a bad thing? Is there any reason why a book can't fit into several categories? There isn't. Genre was a way for stores to organize their inventory, and now that shelf space is no longer a premium we can use better methods to find new reading material. Actually, since buying my Kindle I have read more than ever and find it hard to keep up with my reading list.
- AJ007 14y ago
  I would agree with you. The bookstore (or library) method as limiting as well as hit or miss. "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" on Amazon is extremely useful. In one case I saw an author's titles continually pop up for months, looked him, found his blog, realized he was a genius, an then end up buying everything he wrote. Pretty much everything I read now comes from that process. There is a networking effect in place here. The first is from Amazon, the second is from the blogosphere/wherever authors are interacting. One thing is for certain -- authors absolutely need to have good blogs and write frequently. Some of my favorite authors have infrequently updated blogs or Twitter accounts. Unfortunately I forget about them. "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" creates chains if you dig deep enough. You will not be limited to a single pool of books (or music for that matter.) But, I find its also important to hand search the authors (or musicians) that come up for rarer and often just as meaningful work.
mbetter 14y ago
I read a review of one of Mr. Stross' works on the the A.V. Club while I was at work and it sounded interesting, so I pulled out my Nook and bought it. I thoroughly enjoyed it so I bought the remainder of his works and read them. If I didn't have the Nook, I never would have read any of his works. The next time I was at a bookstore, I would have wandered around as I made a futile attempt to remember stuff that I wanted to read.