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A print book is really a kind of tree zombie.
Sep 17, 2025
Well, it wasn't really a decision on my part although you always hope as an author that a book that goes out of print somehow winds up back in print. These days publishers like to put out-of-print books into e-book form, but I really wanted to do an update.
I want to print books by people in the film industry.
I think of this a lot in the terms of books. Of course there's a big to-do culturally about e-books versus print books, sales models. The paradigm has changed but my perspective on it is that there's not going to be another paradigm to alight on because everything will continue to evolve so quickly that our brains won't be able to keep up with it.
I wonder if books become in essence "files" if people wouldn't write them differently. I'm used to writing print books and I enjoy the slowness of the whole process. It makes me more deliberate about everything I say.
Ebooks have many advantages - publishers don't have to make guesses about how many books to print, books need never go "out of print", and hard-to-find books can be easily available. So far, the only limitation seems to be finding a way for the writer to be paid.
I'm not a big fan of my books going on cross-country road trips. They get arrogant and, next thing, start aspiring to become 'large-print' books. I say, let them stay home and be regular small-print books.
A lot of my time is spent reading antique or out-of-print books of reference.
In a longish life as a professional writer, I have heard a thousand masterpieces talked out over bars, restaurant tables and love seats. I have never seen one of them in print. Books must be written, not talked.
Print will never die. There's no substitute for the feel of an actual book. I adore physically turning pages, and being able to underline passages and not worrying about dropping them in the bath or running out of power. I also find print books objects of beauty.
Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice - fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks.
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