Books, Hold the E

Last month I read with dismay that Alyson Books, the oldest LGBT Publishing firm in the United States, was converting itself into an E-Book only publishing house. I know that many newspapers and periodicals are making the switch to digital only, but the idea that publishers may stop printing actual books and move exclusively to E-Books really worries me.

As someone who loves books (and by that I mean actual printed books!) this new trend towards E-Readers is not something I'm thrilled with. Part of that comes from working in a bookstore that is trying very hard to get ahead of this particular trend. We're made to push E-Readers like crazy, even though roughly two thirds of the staff dislike them.

I remember fondly the days when we just sold books (okay, and movies and CDs), but now we're constantly having to take training courses on the latest E-Reader and being asked all sorts of technical questions by customers.

Frankly, I hate E-Readers. I suppose if you travel a lot they're handy to have around, but they're certainly not for me. The idea that a cold piece of machinery could ever replace the experience of holding a book in your hands, turning the pages, and smelling the scent of the paper is just insane to me.

Not only are the things apt to break down eventually (or perhaps quickly, as evidenced by the many we've had returned to us as defective) and wipe out your whole library (!), but with the way that technology is constantly changing, who is to say that the E-Book you buy today will even be accessible to you a few years down the road? I guess that wouldn't matter to people who never want to re-read something, but I think most true book lovers should find that idea disconcerting, to say the least.

I know I'm not alone in this. Many of my co-workers feel the same way and so do a lot of our regular customers. I always want to cheer when I overhear a customer at work say "No, thanks, I'm a book lover," when asked if they have any questions about our E-Readers.

The thing the really gets me is the sheer number of questions we get about whether or not the E-Readers will actually read the book to their owners. Is that what we're coming to? Are that many people so lazy that they can't be bothered to even read for themselves? They want to be read to like they're still in Kindergarten?!

I know that I could never be happy if I wasn't surrounded by my books. They're a part of my life in a very physical sense.

At any rate, I cheered up a bit today when I read the news that the former head of Alyson Books, Don Weise, is launching a new indie press that will be dedicated to LGBT books. Magnus Books will publish 15-20 titles a year.

I really like the idea of publishing books from a small independent press. If I had the money, I would love to do that myself. There's an interesting memoir by Felice Picano called Art and Sex in Greenwich Village which is about the founding and running of SeaHorse Press, his independent LGBT press, in the late 1970's. It's definitely worth a read if you're at all interested in the inner workings of publishing books or in that particular time period in LGBT writing.