I’ve been hearing about the free e-books that Random House was offering for a limited time for some its authors, but haven’t had a chance to look at one yet.

When I saw today over at Slush Pile that Beautiful Children, the new novel by Charles Bock, was available through tomorrow February 29, I decided to grab the e-book even though I had absolutely no idea what the novel was about.

I also checked out the author’s stylish and intriguing Web site.

But I couldn’t really figure out what the book was about from the author’s Web site, so I went to Amazon to read the description.

On doing a bit of research for this post, I see that I must have fallen behind in my literary review sources and lit blogs since everyone is remarking that this book has been reviewed pretty much everywhere. Just goes to show that the word free must get my attention more than anything else! Or, maybe I’ve seen the review but just hadn’t paid any attention to it. I don’t know, which also goes to show that this free download helps to make a book memorable. But, what if there were hundreds of titles this week being offered for a limited free download by publishers all across the net? Is this an innovative twist to publishing or a publicity tactic? Either way, I think it’s a good move.

Question to self: Why have I not had The Millions in my Bloglines before today?

On doing a title search on “Beautiful Children”, Amazon returned a prominent display highlighting the free download:

E-book downloads, whether free or at a price, are particularly good for someone like me who lives at the edge of the world, as I’ve previously mentioned on this blog.

A recurring questions: how does someone become aware that a new title is available for download for a limited period? Diligently monitoring the media & lit blogs for announcements? And why does the Random House news announcement page still not have an RSS feed?

If publishing is about creating a narrative experience in print, then why are publishers so bad when it comes to doing the same online?

Everyone in publishing should review the 2008 Digital Outlook Report from Avenue A/Razorfish, a firm with extensive experience in interactive media. (Or, skip the registration and grab a copy from here).

A clean design makes shuffling through the 164 page document an ease. Relevance abounds but I want to focus on one issue, point 4 of the “4 questions that should keep creative people up at night“:

Narrative is the experience. As the Web becomes the preferred destination for brand exploration, digital experiences must become richer, deeper, and more able to tell compelling stories. If your brand experience depends entirely on pages and clicks, it’s time to wonder, “What is my story?”

Is there a story here? Are we designing a page or an experience? What is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the brand story we are creating? Does it move—and are people moved by it?

[Let's set aside the vested interest of Avenue A/Razorfish in encouraging their clients to invest in more complex and costly Web development.]

The stumbling block is often the revenue factor, trying to figure out how to monetize digital information. Of course, the most obvious way is to use the net as a platform for selling your product. Other industries don’t seem to have the problem in understanding that Web experiences fuel sales of physical products.

Tremendous potential exist in creating engaging author Web sites that pull potential readers into the book’s narrative, thereby promoting sales of the book.

That’s why I abhor those sites that provide a generic one-size-fits-all approach to every author.

I’m convinced that e-books eventually will replace printed books as the world’s primary reading material.

And before you say it: just because you don’t want to cuddle up in bed with an e-book, don’t assume, don’t assert, that others share that attitude.

Wide acceptance of e-books largely depends upon functional reading devices but limited distribution of printed books is an even larger issue. Sure, print-on-demand offers a solution but what happens when the quality of e-books are better and more affordable and more accessible than books printed on demand?

I already live in a part of the world where 95% of the English-languages books I want to read are not easily available. That scenario, the lack of printed reading material, really adjusts your perspective about e-books. (Meanwhile, fortunately, I am surrounded by a wealth of Spanish-language books). But I still feel the necessity of an e-book reader. Unfortunately, international shipping to Argentina is not reliable and there’s a huge import tax on electronics. So, my e-book reader will have to wait until some future visit to North America.

What is the future of book design in an e-book world? Very healthy.

Book design, layout, and typography will continue to play the same role in producing e-books as in printed books. Indeed, one could argue that readability may be an even more important factor with e-books. New possibilities with layout and presentation also may be presented through e-book readers. Of course, there will be limitations and some books just will not be as presentable through e-book readers as in their printed counterparts. Essentially, book designers already produce every printed book as an e-book anyway. In all cases, the final production files delivered to the printer are digital files and almost always in PDF. So, there is still plenty need for book designers in an e-book world.

What about book cover design? Very healthy.

The cover image will continue to play an important marketing role in helping people select which e-books to read. Just as with printed books, e-books need some way of standing out in the crowd.

And what about printed books in an e-book world?

People will still want to buy books, but my thinking is that people will be more interested in spending money on specialized books, books not available digitally, books that offer an experience, books that involve a high degree of design.

So, we may be book designers but that doesn’t mean we’re traditionalists. Of course, in a sense, book design is not so much about the book but about the ways that text and images are conveyed to the reader.

For almost three years I’ve been writing about the cultural heritage and social history of Buenos Aires, Argentina on my blog Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance. Since it’s a blog by an American living in a foreign country it tends to get grouped in the travel category. I do write a lot about how to experience travel on a more meaningful level than just a cursory visit to the sights that are in every guidebook. But in my blog I purposefully avoid most mentions of restaurants and hotels. I’ve always wanted to write much more than just a traveler’s account of a few days or even a few months in one locale.

Like all blogs my own now has an extensive archive. Whenever I come across a new blog I read the latest postings and, if I like those, I add the site to my news reader. I always intend to go back and browse the archived postings but I rarely do so. Figuring that a lot of visitors to my site also never make it too far into the archives, I decided to pull together a selection of postings from my archives and create a free e-book. It was a challenge to distill so much material down to 50 pages, which is the length I had in mind. I ended up with 57 pages.

So, I’ve taken my blog and made an e-book. What’s next?

In my blog’s archives I have enough text that could be converted to approximately 175 more pages. With some editing and arrangement there is certainly more than enough material to produce an insightful book on Buenos Aires. But no one wants to read a 225 page e-book. I certainly don’t (unless I have a nifty e-book reader) and am not intending to release a PDF like that (and definitely not for free).

There’s always the self-publishing route and a lot of our clients here at sorodesign take that approach. I know enough about self-publishing that it wouldn’t be difficult to produce some sales directly from blog.

I was just calculating the year-end stats of my blog for 2007 and it amounts to about 80,000 unique visitors a year coming to my blog on Buenos Aires. Argentina’s weak economy has resulted in a tourism boom so I’m always getting a lot of new readers to the blog seeking out things to do in Buenos Aires.

My inclination is to query literary agents and see what type of response I get. I’ll post updates on this blog about my own success or failure in going from blog to book.

BTW, Cecilia did the page layout for the e-book and she will be posting later about the actual layout.

A number of blogs have talked about Picador’s new plans to release literary fiction only in paperback, bypassing the “prestige” of hardcover. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of that Guardian story was the quote, “It is not uncommon for a literary fiction hardback to sell under 100 copies.”

I didn’t think much about Picador’s new publishing plans until I was browsing the bookstores on Avenida Santa Fe this weekend and noticed that Coetzee’s latest novel, Diary of a Bad Year, is already out in the stores here in Buenos Aires and in paperback.

Most literary fiction in Argentina already debuts in soft cover. I assume that’s true for all the Spanish-language market. No one here seems to mind and the price is certainly lower than a hardcover equivalent. Essentially, in the Buenos Aires bookstores you only see literary hardcover for collector editions.

Prices for one reason

Diario de un Mal Año retails in Buenos Aires for 35 pesos, which is just over $11 US dollars. In the UK the hard cover is £16.99 and in the U.S. the book is a whopping $25.95! (And in the U.S. the novel isn’t even published yet).

Sometimes I complain about the price of books in Buenos Aires but in comparison 35 pesos is a great deal. But, hey, since Coetzee (one of my favorite authors) writes in English I’m going to wait for the English version, which will arrive with UK pricing converted to pesos - sigh.

But if publishers and readers of Spanish can deal with literary fiction coming out only in softcover, then why can’t UK and US publishers and readers?

Uh, about that cover

In another view to this topic: publishers of books in Spanish save a lot of money by ripping off cover designs from the UK. (Note that this Spanish edition of Coetzee is published by Mondadori, the huge Italian publisher.) Here’s the Spanish version:

Compare that to the UK version:

Now, compare that to the U.S. version, which is quite different and we find quite lovely.

We like the UK version but prefer the U.S. version. The Spanish version is just an embarrassment, though it’s much better than a lot of book covers I see on the shelves of Buenos Aires bookstores. Note even the poor use of type in the Spanish version when compared to the UK version. Of course, it’s likely that Mondadori paid very little for the Spanish cover, probably 1/10 of the design fee charged for either the U.S or UK covers. For Spanish-language publishers, cover design is just not important - unfortunately.