Tor.com on ebook acceptance; Tor Webscriptions redux

On the blog/community website of science-fiction and fantasy publisher Tor, the interest generated by its free, no-DRM ebook giveaway (which ended last month) sparked some interesting blog posts and conversations about ebooks. Thinking about the new challenges and opportunities afforded by the Internet, John Klima asked, “What Would Hugo Gernsback Do?” (Hugo Gernsback was the founder of Amazing Stories magazine, and thus the father of modern science fiction.) In this entry, Klima looked at various ideas such as microfiction and mosaic literature.

The discussion this essay started soon led to another one, on Market Acceptance of ebooks. In this blog post, Klima came to a conclusion that has been repeated here many times:

But what I’m thinking, is that maybe it’s not so much the device that matters, but the format the text is in. Is there a format that can be read by all readers? That’s always been the problem with computers and electronics and the benefit of printed material. Everyone who knows the language can read a book regardless of whether it’s the size of a postage stamp or a newspaper. The recent explosion in manga popularity among English readers even shows that readers can learn to read in a ‘differently’ [sic] (back to front, right to left) from how text is traditionally aligned.

Although the article and discussion that follows cover familiar ground, it is nonetheless interesting to read the perspective of a newcomer to the discussion.

Tor and Baen Webscriptions

The free ebooks program has led to some discussion on Tor’s community forum as well, including a discussion of Tor and ebooks in general and an accusation that Tor is not following through on ebooks after ending the freebie program. In the latter thread, Torie Atkinson, Tor.com’s community manager, writes:

Tor loves ebooks, is excited about ebooks, and is moving forward on a variety of ways to make them available to you. As you can imagine this effort is nontrivial, but we have a well-publicized deal with Baen (just waiting for Baen to work some final things out) to sell some books through their service.

Long-time readers will remember Tor’s previous attempt to use Baen’s Webscriptions in April, 2006, which was cancelled by an exec at Tor’s parent company Holtzbrinck almost as soon as it began.

Charlie Stross, one of the authors whose work was affected by that cancellation, said in December,

I have spoken to two unimpeachable sources (one high up at Tor, the other high up at Baen), and the word is that Tor will be reactivating their webscription service as soon as the lawyers finish sorting out the contractual arrangements. (Which are going slowly and tediously as Holtzbrinck’s lawyers grapple with stuff they don’t understand and haven’t dealt with before. The exec at Holtzbrinck who jammed on the brakes is now out of the picture, but the legal formalities have to be observed.)

Hopefully, the second time will be the charm for Tor’s Webscription program. Another source of high-quality DRM-free science fiction and fantasy ebooks can only be a good thing.