Top novelists look to ebooks to challenge the rules of fiction

Leading British authors drawn to experiment with the scope of interactive storytelling

• Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent
• The Observer, Sunday 10 March 2013

Blake Morrison argues that the success of experimental ebooks will depend on making interactivity more than just a feature. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Online fiction is a remote world, peopled by elves, dragons and whey-faced vampires. At least that is the view shared by millions of devoted readers of the printed novel. But now serious British literary talent is aiming to colonise territory occupied until now by fantasy authors and amateur fan-fiction writers.

In the vanguard is Iain Pears, the best-selling historical novelist and author of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Stone's Fall. Pears will offer readers the chance to go back to check detailed elements of his narrative and will even flag up sections they do not have to read. "I am trying to find a new way of telling stories, and once you start thinking about it, there are almost too many possibilities," said the Oxford-based writer, who is completing an interactive ebook for Faber that will stretch the form to its current limits. "There is no reason to think the printed book will be the defining literary format. I don't want to be cautious any more. This is about changing the fundamentals. The worst that can happen is that it won't work."

It is a challenge that also intrigues acclaimed authors Blake Morrison and Will Self, although they detect some obstacles. As professor of creative writing at Goldsmiths College, at the University of London, Morrison has just launched a £10,000 prize for innovative new writing and argues that the success of experimental ebooks will depend on making interactivity more than just a feature. "Reading by its very nature is interactive – whether you do it on an iPad or with a printed book, you participate," he said. "The novelist creates a world and the reader brings something to it. Reading is not a passive process. Literary interactivity means more than computer games. Or should do."

With a series of classic titles, such as John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, as well as new work, about to be released in interactive formats, Faber and HarperCollins are among the publishing houses coaxing top contemporary names into creating the next generation of experimental novels.

Self, the Man Booker-shortlisted author of the unorthodox 2012 novel Umbrella, points out that early novelists such as Cervantes and Laurence Sterne were happy to play with format. "The sheer idea of experimentation in that form is interesting and people will want to mess around with these possibilities," he said, adding that, for him, there remains "an unavoidable linearity to the reading experience".
According to Scott Pack, head of digital development for HarperCollins, the days of just embedding music and a couple of videos into the text of an ebook are numbered: "Content doesn't need to be just words any more. We have to push to make it integral, and we can do this if writers really embrace it."

Pack's boss at HarperCollins, Victoria Barnsley, recently pinpointed online innovation as crucial to the survival of the industry. "There is a hell of a lot you can do and this has taken me into a lot of new areas," said Pack, who last year published Caroline Smailes's 99 Reasons Why, which offered 11 different endings. "By adding a GPS element, for instance, you could alter a text according to your location."
Innovation has so far centred on non-fiction and mass market ebooks, but Pack thinks the online era has broken down old boundaries between genres of writing. "There is a much broader crossover now," he said, "but literary fiction is difficult because it needs to be taken seriously. It will come down to the writing, of course, although it is unlikely authors can do it alone."

Morrison sees the possibilities opened up by interactive books, but will not give up on the printed page. "I don't see this as a war between old and new, between the fustiness of print and the excitement of reading on Kindles and iPads," he said. "Most authors are interested in both technologies. Most readers are too. We all want the best of both worlds. And why not?"

Full article

Why Japanese readers don't like e-books

CNN Money - February 11, 2013: 

Japan has some of the fastest internet connections in the world, but physical media such as books and DVDs still remain popular.

By Michael Fitzpatrick, contributor
FORTUNE -- Despite Japan's "default-setting-for-the future" status, coined by Sci-fi writer William Gibson, time on this rocky archipelago appears to be headed backwards. Kerosene is replacing nuclear energy; deflation, not inflation, is still rife; and, publishers are clinging energetically to print when, in neighboring South Korea, it seems to have been abandoned altogether.



Why have Japanese consumers not fallen in love with digital reading? "So far the Japanese have failed to be moved by e-readers from home or abroad, mostly owing to a paucity of content," says editor and publisher of Japan's E-book 2.0 magazine Hiroki Kamata. Sony (SNE), for instance, has been in the market for more than seven years but has sold only 500,000 e-readers in Japan. Other manufacturers' tablets have begun to sell here, but overall the category is still way behind e-reader take-up in the US or Europe. Tablet sales have tripled since 2011, with market research firm IDC estimating tablet sales in Japan to be 3.6 million units.
Japanese consumers still seem dead set against adopting e-books, showing less interest in them than even the print-worshipping French. According to an R.R. Bowker study, 72% of Japanese consumers said they had not tried e-books and did not want to try them. That compares with 66% of French respondents polled. Overall adoption rates in Japan remain the lowest in the developed world. Only 8% of Japanese readers have downloaded and paid for an e-book compared to 20% in the U.S.

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Tokyo based e-publisher Robin Birtle notes that Japan is at least five years behind the West in terms of digitization. He says Japanese tastes may simply be different. "The Japanese do like to have something physical," he says. That might explain why although Japan has some of the fastest internet connections in the world and on-demand services, packaged, physical media such as DVDs still remains popular.

Japan has also been slow in getting the machinery of Japanese e-books whirring. There are just 40,000 titles available in most digital bookstores. "Publishers are indifferent to, or even hate, digital things. Mainly because of excessive commitment to traditional print book distribution," explains Mr. Kamata. Japanese publishers are said to fear losing their long-held privilege of dictating prices. Amazon's (AMZN) arrival—its first Japanese Kindle arrived late last year—notwithstanding, the publishing revolution appears stalled. Aya Murota, an analyst for the Tokyo office of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, says it is difficult for Japan to change. "Japanese publishing companies are very traditional. Many of them are reluctant to change their whole business structure," she says.

Much as elsewhere in the world, the battle over Japanese books is shaping up along conventional lines. Amazon is feeling pressure from Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL), both of which are poised to open e-bookstores for Japanese readers. The launch of Kobo e-reader, which is owned by Japanese company Rakuten, last July was marred by software issues.

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