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By David Rothman

imageimageYou already know the drill. The brother-in-law of a local newspaper reporter gets a Kindle or Sony Reader. Bingo! Ms. or Mr. Journalist has just discovered e-books. And from there, in most cases, it’s more or less a formula. Check in with the local librarians. Get a quote from a bookstore owner about how nothing will ever replace p-books. Drop the names of Stephen King or a few other best-selling writers who’ve tried E. Maybe write up the technical and business details of a local novelist’s adventures with e-books. Story done.

Over at the Washington City Paper, however, Ted Scheinman, an online producer, took another route and reviewed e-books as he would any other books—a task for which he’s eminently well credentialed as an English and classics graduate of Yale. Mike Riggs, another reviewer, joined in. Credit Read an E-Book Week (March 8-14) for the reviews and the accompanying intro to e-books, complete with the catchy image of the writer at work.

imageThe result? Kindle in the Wind: Who needs agents and traditional publishing houses when there are e-books? Scheinman writes up The Solomon Scandals, my Washington newspaper novel,as well as short stories by Quinton Peterson, both a D.C. cop and recognized writer. Riggs handles Psaurian: A Novel of Semi-Intelligent Design—written by Donald Carr and e-distributed by Smashwords, the topic of a recent Q & A by Kat Meyer. He also writes up As the Mirror Cracks, by Steve Jordan, a contributor to TeleRead and MobileRead as well as a talented Web designer. I’ll let other the writers review their reviews if they’re inclined. Here are a few snippets from the write-up on Scandals:

“…we get to relish his chatty first-person narrator spinning characterizations of D.C. with the same dark zeal Hammett held for Frisco or Chandler had for Los Angeles… It’s hard to call an e-book a page-turner—novels like The Solomon Scandals require a new word.”

image imageHey, I’ll go along with that. Please note that Scheinman objected to some “some of the hardboiled constructions” in Scandals and also said it could have gotten off to a faster start. But, hey, that’s life in Novel Land. Since when have writers and reviewers agreed on everything? All in all, a most thoughtful and astute review. I especially liked Scheinman’s reference to my “preoccupation with obsolescence.” Yes. That just might be the bridge between Scandals and my fight against DRM and for ePub.

A few more details: Scandals is isn’t just an e-book but also a trade paperback, from Twilight Times Books, which is a small press as opposed to a publishing service or vanity publisher.

And a Smashword update: As long as I’m mentioning our Q&A on the company. I’m pleased to report that Smashwords is now running images of book covers when they’re available, and I’m hoping that a whole bunch will soon be visible from the top of the home page.

And a suggestion for Read an E-Book Week: Next year, why not use the City Paper write-up as a template for other local newspapers? Most every large city has some e-book writers lurking around. Make life easier for the press and discover them ahead of time. Along the way, encourage the newspapers actually to run reviews. treating e-books seriously as the City Paper did.

 
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