(Fre)e Books

Technology has changed how book publishing works, as it has changed everything else in the world of media. – Bruce Jackson

When Breaking Dawn, the 4^th installment of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer was announced for release, I was one of the millions who had made advance reservation arrangement for a copy of the book. When my copy was handed to me, I wasted no time and started reading. While my reaction would seem normal, the fact was I had started reading the book a day before its worldwide release. An e-book version had leaked two days before the book was officially released.

The problem of leaked eBooks has been plaguing most of the much awaited books these past years. The same thing happened with the Harry Potter series. Even before the books could get to the bookshelves on the official release date, an e-book copy could be found if you know where to look.

The debate on eBooks and its effect to publishing has been ongoing for some time now and was reopened months ago by New York Times columnist David Progue. He has been quite vocal of his stand against having his work in e-book format because of piracy. It’s understandable as the biggest concern has been how authors will get paid for their work. But as Progue took his stand, other writers fired back. Adam Engst of TidBits posted a comprehensive rebuttal and founding editor of Wired Magazine Kevin Kelly proposed an experiment to measure the effect of piracy on Progue’s work.

Some authors have taken stand by releasing their books on the internet. Laurence Lessig released his book “Free Culture” by posting it online for free downloads. Steven Poole released “Trigger Happy” on a “pay what you want” system. More than the writers themselves, the general public has also participated as the work in Project Gutenberg (PG), the digital archive, are mostly done by volunteers. As of 2007, PG has more than 25,000 titles of public domain book available for free download.

As the battle of words continued on the pros and cons of eBooks, I only have this to say: I will continue to buy paper books. “So why buy the book? You can get a free copy,” a friend had asked me when I told her. Simple, because nothing beats flipping the pages of a paperback while curled up in bed during lazy days.