OF E-BOOKS, P-BOOKS, AND TREE-BOOKS
By Charlie Clark

In the brave new world of publishing, books won't be printed, bought and read as much as they will be uploaded, clicked-on and scanned. So say proponents of electronic publishing, an ambitious and visionary bunch who, despite an understandable tendency toward self-promotion, are shaking up an industry in ways that will touch the lives of us all.

I had a chance to plumb the debate on the future of books last month when I was invited to appear on a panel at the Virginia Festival of the Book. You can do a lot worse than visit the handsome college town of Charlottesville when spring is about to burst open. The seventh annual edition of this rich festival, which drew some 14,000 visitors last month, is a labor of love by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, an array of philanthropic groups and individuals, and 20 booksellers from this book-hungry community. Some 189 programs were spread out in multiple venues across the university campus and Charlottesville's re-emerging downtown. About 300 speakers waxed eloquent on fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children's literature.

On hand were such marquee authors as Lee Smith, Paule Marshall, David Baldacci, Clyde Edgerton and poet laureate Stanley Kunitz, as well as folk musician Pete Seeger. Yet the news coverage, including C-SPAN and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, favored what's new and different, showcasing the electronic publishing enthusiasts.

Their daylong program drew more than a hundred to a banquet at which several struggling authors received the first ``Independent E-Book Awards." I was included because I've published a modest work of coming-of-age fiction, first as chapters in The Idler, and then as a paperback from a company called iuniverse.com.

So I was cast as the author specimen on a panel forecasting the future of e-publishing.

Our session parsed the new vocabulary of:

``E-books," or digitized texts read or downloaded from the World Wide Web.

``P-books," a retro-term for conventionally printed books.

``Tree books," a cute synonym for p-books.

``Print-on-demand," a method of producing small orders of paperbacks quickly and inexpensively on fancy computerized presses that allow publishers to avoid the costs and risks of estimating quantities in advance, or shipping books that end up being returned unsold.

There were gasps from our audience when the CEO of a print-on-demand service asserted that the e-book will replace the printed book - we just don't know when.

That is heresy to bibliophiles who love the texture of fine paper stock and sturdy hardbacks, not to mention the convenience of books for beach and bathroom reading.

I argued that, as happened with the music CDs and VCR tapes, the format of books will eventually shake down to some new industry standard. But the more urgent question is, ``Who will publish what, and how will readers choose among offerings?''

Some compare the digital revolution to Gutenberg, public education and the mass-market paperback in its impact as a milestone in the democratization of literature.

Many aspiring authors and small-house editors, frustrated by the New York establishment's ``winner-take-all" obsession with the next blockbuster celebrity author, regard e-publishing as a godsend. They love how it permits larger numbers of mid-list or locally significant talents to test their work on a marketplace made less hierarchical by the Internet.

One panelist who edits for Salon.com announced that she doesn't have time to pore over hundreds of new e-books, invoking the ignominy of the vanity press.

Indeed, all of us worry about quality control in a world where every monkey with a keyboard could ``publish" a novel.

But on this score, I can argue the world as either flat or round. E-publishers place their brand name on their products, and the universe of amateur authors who have completed a coherent book-length manuscript is not unmanageably large. The fear that drivel will be packaged as books and pollute the market is no more justified than the fear that prank callers will phone New Zealand at three in the morning. Just because one can doesn't mean many will.

I agree, however, that writers who want exposure for their work (for love or money) should find at least one other person, be it an editor, ally or sales representative, to confirm the product's value before elevating it to the status of ``book."

The values shared by all the big-name writers, wanna-be authors, booksellers, publishers and promoters in Charlottesville is respect, and a need for readers.

Long live the Festival of the Book, and may it change the state slogan to ``Virginia is for Book-Lovers."

Charlie Clark is author of Finish High School At Home and a frequent contributor to The Idler.