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A futuristic satire on the fate of the publishing industry after the invention of "cyberbooks", electronic books which eliminate the need for paper, printers, salesmen, distributors and even booksellers.

Ben Bova on Cyberbooks

My novel “Cyberbooks” was science fiction when it was published in 1989. Today it’s coming true.

“Cyberbooks” was a satirical look at how the book-publishing industry will inevitably change from printing books on paper to putting them out electronically. My basic premise was simple: electrons are cheaper than paper.

Ninety percent of a book publisher’s expenses are the cost of hauling paper across the countryside: from paper mill to printing plant, from printing plant to book distributors’ warehouses, from warehouses to book stores.

I figured that a book published electronically could go directly from the publisher’s office to the retail buyer, via the Internet. Publishers could save enormous expenses.

This could bring down the price of books to the point where practically everyone could afford them. The hero of my novel was an idealistic young Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineer who had invented a workable electronic book reader, a cyberbook.

The cyberbook is with us today. Sony offers its Reader, Amazon.com has its Kindle and Apple just came out with its iPad. All of them allow you to download books (and magazines, newspapers, etc.) electronically and read them on the device’s screen. You can carry hundreds of books in your pocket!

Since my novel was really a thinly-disguised satire of the book-publishing industry, things go drastically wrong. Little did I realize how prophetic I was.

For one thing, lots of people don’t feel comfortable reading from a digital screen. I’ve heard hundreds of people — including noted science-fiction writers — say wistfully, “I like the feel of paper, turning pages, curling up with a book in bed. Books should be made of paper.”

To which I usually reply, “No, they should be made of parchment on a scroll, or maybe clay tablets.”

That’s a minor problem, I think. The generation that feels uncomfortable with digital books will die away. Today’s youngsters have spent their lives reading off computer screens; cyberbooks won’t bother them.

The major problem with digital books, as of today, is a matter of controlling the market. A few weeks ago Macmillan got into a nasty fight with Amazon.com over the pricing of Macmillan’s books on Kindle.

Amazon wanted to price the books it offers on Kindle so low that they could corner the market on electronic books. Macmillan countered that they couldn’t make a profit on books sold at such low prices.

At one point, Amazon withdrew all Macmillan titles from its Kindle listing. Amazon was saying, “If you won’t let us sell at the price we want to, we won’t carry your books at all.”

This was of more than academic interest to me, since Macmillan owns Tor Books, my publisher. Overnight, all my titles on Kindle disappeared.

Incidentally, Macmillan owns many publishing houses around the world, and in turn is owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a German corporation. (In “Cyberbooks” there’s a scene where the CEO of the publishing company is struggling to figure out just who exactly really owns his company.)

While the lawyers of Macmillan and Amazon were arguing back and forth, Apple announced its new iPad, which will be serious competition for Amazon’s Kindle. Lo and behold, Amazon and Macmillan came to an accommodation. Macmillan’s books will be sold on Kindle at a price that the publisher can live with. My titles — and all the other Macmillan titles — reappeared on Kindles around the world.

This battle is crucially important for authors. If the publisher can’t make a profit, the author gets no royalties. From my point of view, Amazon was trying to create a monopoly in the e-book market over the bodies of starving writers.

The competitive marketplace helped to save the day. Now a new battle is shaping up.

Typically, authors receive royalties of between 10 to 15 percent of the sales of their books. That’s been a standard for many decades. But that’s based on the assumption that the publisher’s costs are substantial. Moving all that paper around, remember.

Now, as publishers produce books electronically, their costs of production are much lower. Shouldn’t the authors get higher royalty rates? Or will the publishers pocket that extra cash?

Maybe there’s another novel in this!

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