Over at Wired, there’s a great piece by former io9 editor Graeme McMillan about the rise of science fiction e-books. And through conversations with publishing insiders, McMillan basically confirms what we already suspected — e-book readers are creating a new boom in science fiction publishing.
http://io9.com/5897141/how-the-kindle-is-opening-up-science-fiction
Top image: Cover detail of The Sum of Random Change by Lee Chambers.
The Kindle and other e-readers are the perfect places to publish pulpy, quick-reading works that keep you flipping pages to find out next. And they’re also the perfect receptacles for the throwaway books that you don’t necessarily need to keep on your physical shelf forever to let guests know how clever you are. But there’s also the fact that science fiction readers are early adopters of technology, as Random House’s Alison Dobson tells McMillan:
It’s not that we couldn’t publish these books before… but [now] that a certain consumer has migrated online, and the ease of buying these books has grown that consumer base substantially.
Also, e-book publishing lets you experiment more with price points and formats, publishing novellas and other short works as books with lower price tags. Publishers are less wedded to a single length or book price, as they are when dealing with bookstores.
The whole piece is definitely worth checking out. [Wired]
