As posted in the ‘Latest News’ section on Book Sanctuary, The prominence of eBooks as news-worthy items is starting to increase in the UK media. The eBook industry has been a hot topic in the US for at least two years yet the sense is that, with the Kindle in particular, the general British public are becoming more aware of eBooks. The news that Booker judges will have copies of the nominated texts on a Kindle opens up some interesting questions; namely, will these eBook editions actually influence their decision on the Booker Prize winner?
How could they be influenced? Well, in my studies I was directed to read a piece titled ‘Introduction to the Paratext’ by Gérard Genette. He writes about the ‘Paratext’ in terms of the information and content that surrounds the text of a book; so if you’re reading a book right now, he’s referring to items such as Introductions, Dedications, author profile, interviews etc that are included in the publication. Although Genette doesn’t refer to them in great detail in his introduction, he also indicates that how the book ‘looks’ and ‘feels’ can impact your reception of a book and how you read it. It is the same as any other product; we are all influenced by visual and tactile indicators of goods, whether they feel well made or are presented well.
So, subconsciously, does the look and feel of a book play a part in the Booker Judge’s opinion of a book, and influence them favourably or otherwise? If so, the fact that they will now be able to read the books on a Kindle may alter their perception before they start to read the text itself. What if one of the listed titles has particularly high quality paper, non-standard typefaces or an abundance of maps and illustrations? An example is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, winner in 2009. At the start of the book there are detailed family trees of the Tudors and ‘The Yorkist Claimants’, to give the reader a sense of the interconnectedness, or otherwise, of the characters. On the Kindle these diagrams are faint and hard to read, regardless of your zoom setting. These diagrams are one of the first things you see when opening the book. In addition, the Kindle, generally, converts and displays eBooks in one standardised font. Choices made by the publisher in terms of typesets etc are, once again, impacted. The reading experience has distinct differences in the eBook format.
Of course, as part of a website promoting eBooks for new writing, I believe that eBooks offer a chance for technology to increase and encourage literary output. In the context of judging for the Booker prize it is interesting that eBooks, albeit in a subtle way, could alter the ultimate outcome. That doesn’t have to be viewed as entirely negative, but even a very slight shift in the goalposts can lead to interesting changes in how we view books.
My blog entries on the current digitization of European and US libraries are still in progress, but until then…
All the best,
Thomas
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