Thoughts on Literary Quality and eBooks

One of the complaints about ebooks is that they lack the literary quality that books published by the mainstream publishers have.

It is hard to refute that. I just spent an hour browsing through the Erotica section of a major ebook retailer, a lot of that is pretty racy stuff. Now, I'm not criticizing other than to point out that many will point to that as evidence that ebooks are a less respectable lot. To others the criticism revolves around poorly written, or poorly edited ebooks that have gotten published.

I think ebooks right now are in that same market ghetto as direct to video movies are and direct to paperback books used to be not so long ago. In fact the entire paperback publishing industry got it's start publishing erotica (for travelers, heh) and lurid subculture pulps, as well as pulp science fiction, crime and mystery novels (neither of those genres were considered as respectable as they are today). In short the early paperback publishers found under served market niches at the edges of conventional culture and filled the demand. Those early paperbacks were only found on newsstands in hotels, train and bus stations and airports because they were easy to carry and read while traveling. You did not find mass market books in your local library, they were sold to strangers rather than to local residents and that was a very different sales market. But the profits from the more lurid books helped fund the expansion of these publishers into publishing more literary works.

My point is that ebooks are exactly where the early paperback market was back in the 1950's or very early 1960's - at least in everything but price - you will not find many 25 cent novel length ebooks!

With all this said I do not see anything wrong with the current course ebooks are taking. Ebook publishing technology has allowed many new publishers and editors to enter the otherwise fairly closed field of the publishing industry. This in turn has allowed many new authors to get published. I think there is a place for self-publishing too. And I think both the proliferation of small press e-publishers and self published ebooks (and POD books) creates a demand for trusted source reviews and reviewers for these ebooks. As the publishing industry fragments further into small electronic publishers I think the role of the reviewer as a filter for quality will become only more essential.