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Software of the Month Club 1996 April
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1996-01-29
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[RD,RD]
[BK,YW] THE FUTURE IS NOW
[MG,MG]
█▀▀ êëïÉî █
█▀ ê█î █
█ █ █
[YW,LB]â███████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ THE FUTURE IS NOW ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]█████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
[LR,LB]█éè█ [WH,LB]e all love books. Printed books. Ink
[LR,LB]█Éë█ [WH,LB]on paper. You and I, and Karen Pershing
[LR,LB]█îê█ [WH,LB]and Al Gore and Gore Vidal and all the
English teachers who failed to teach us ramifi-
cations of the semicolon.
Our great grandchildren, some of whom also will love
books, will read the Bobbsy Twins from printed paper.
But within two to five years you and I routinely will
read technical information, how-to-do-it books and other
instructions from disks.
Colin Haynes, author of "Paperless Publishing,"
(Windcrest/ McGraw-Hill) reports that "Technology is
advancing so rapidly and becoming so complex that
paper can no longer cope in many business situations.
Boeing Aerospace is, for example, one of the world's
leading publishers.
"The weight of documentation, particularly the servicing
and operations manuals, needed for a 747 exceeds that
of the aircraft itself. No wonder Boeing is involved in
electronic publishing in a big way!
"The manufacturers of many other products must also
publish extensive technical, servicing, and operation-
al information that is increasingly going onto disk
rather than paper."
[YW,LB]â████████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ FICTION ON DISKS ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]██████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
We'll also read some exciting fiction from disks. (I
actually did that today.) But I'll still have five loaded
bookcases and the usual overflow of books stashed on the
dresser, the bedside table, the end table and a kitchen
cabinet.
[BK,LC] [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] Now, my e-library includes [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] three novels on disk as well [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] as some how-to-do-it books. [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] [LB,LB]
Chances are that you live in similar circumstances
because we keep and cherish books. Probably all of us
reading this simple e-book appreciate and agree with
John O'Hara's observation.
In 1945, he wrote that twenty-five years ago he and
half a million other men between fifteen and thirty,
fell in love with a book -- F. Scott Fitzgerald's
This Side of Paradise.
". . . I took the book to bed with me, and I
still do, which is more than I can say of any
girl I knew in 1920."
Yes, indeed. As one of my long ago colleagues liked to
say, "Bed is the best place in the world. For sleeping,
too." But after you acquire the bifocals and the
trifocals, reading in bed, like some other activities,
becomes more of a happy memory than a frequent joy.
[YW,LB]â█████████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ COMFORT IS THE WORD ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]███████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
[LR]█▀▀ [WH,LB]very day, I congratulate myself on my sterling
[LR]█▀ [WH,LB]judgement and foresight in splurging fifty
[LR]█▄▄ [WH,LB]dollars on a good, used, and comfortable swivel
chair with arms and casters, (ten years ago when I
acquired the XT with 10-meg HD). I spend an average of
forty hours a week in that chair, writing, reading and
editing.
In the last year I've written three books and read the
equivalent of half a dozen others. All in the comfort
of that chair.
I recommend it to anyone who's been led to believe that
curling up with a good book is possible only in bed or
in the den. It IS possible to be comfortable -- and cozy,
if you wish -- while you read an e-book on a desktop monitor.
[BK,LC] [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] If you're using a dinette chair at [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] your keyboard, forget it. They're [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] designed to make you uncomfortable [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] after about forty-five minutes. [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] [LB,LB]
If the e-book is interesting or important to you, and
you have a comfortable chair at your desktop computer,
you'll read it and be glad you had the opportunity.
And you [BK,YW] will [WH,LB] be reading e-books. Believe it. You'll
find it a lot easier to believe in two to three years
when the close-mouthed visionaries of hardware develop-
ment bring forth another, and lower-priced generation
of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).
Then you can take your fascinating e-book to bed, read
it under a shade tree, or on the deck of your beach
cottage. You can read it on the bus, train or plane,
in the terminal, your hotel room or the doctor's
waiting room -- the same places you always read.
[YW,LB]â█████████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ THE NEAR FUTURE ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]███████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
[LR]█éè█ [WH,LB]hy bother? Why not continue reading paperbacks as
[LR]█Éë█ [WH,LB]usual? [BK]Cost[WH,LB] for one reason. And [BK]convenience
[LR]█îê█ [WH,LB] for another. One floppy can hold two to five books.
A dozen floppies, weighing the same as one medium
paperback, can give you a library of sixty books in your
purse or briefcase. And the cost -- including
substantial royalty to the authors -- can be about half
the cost of paperbacks.
Some talk, planning and development of multi-media books
goes on. But, by and large, that's for the [BK,YW] somewhat [WH,LB]
literate mass of readers who think "People" is a great
magazine and MTV is great entertainment.
Readers who love good writing and/or good stories,
will sample, but won't be seduced by e-books that
impress with walking-into-the-sunset music, animation
and other such easily possible bells and whistles.
That market exists -- a [BL,YW] ∩ ≡ ≈ ° ∙ · [WH,LB] one -- and Time Warner
is preparing to fill the demand. But, for many of us, the
pleasure of reading is just that -- reading, not
listening or clicking buttons to play games with the
story.
There is, of course a vast market of children, teenagers
and others of short attention spans, for that kind of
entertainment. But does a woman who reads three to six
Romance novels a week really want to be involved with
interactivity?
[YW,LB]â██████████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ THE ROMANCE MARKET ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]████████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
[LR]█éè█ [WH,LB]hat a Romance reader wants is emotional satisfac-
[LR]█Éë█ [WH,LB]tion, not a producer's choice of music and sound
[LR]█îê█ [WH,LB]effects that may or may not suit her taste. And
she certainly doesn't want the emotional effect
of the story interrupted by button clicking games
of chase-the-hypertext. Same applies to readers of
other genres -- mystery, sci-fi, or mainstream.
Romance novels constitute about fifty percent of all
mass-market paper-backs in the world. A word to the
wise . . .
[YW,LB]â██████████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ AND VARIETY ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]████████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
At this moment in early '96, four e-books published in
E-Z-Book authorware and requiring IBM/DOS, HD and EGA or
better for graphics, are available for downloading from
[BK,YW] Downtown Anywhere [LB,LB]
http://www.awa.com/softlock/softshop.html
[BK,YW] "Sex Knowhow For Men, A Woman's View" [LB,LB]
by Sarah L. Van Der Mohl, M.S.W., a dyed-in-the-
wool how-to-do-it, is one we had the honor of
publishing and introducing. It's available ex-
clusively in the e-book format. See the preview. [RD,WH] B [LB,LB]
¡
[BK,WH] Reminder: When you see a red letter on a white [WH,LB] │
[BK,WH] background it is a [YW,BL] hot key [BK,WH] which will display [WH,LB]──┘
[BK,WH] hypertext you probably want to see. [WH,LB]
[BK,YW] "Ride The Green Lion," [LB,LB]
a romantic mystery, and
[BK,YW] "The Immortal Race", [LB,LB]
a mainstream thriller by David P. Shreiner, M.D. a
writer who has a firm grasp of story values. Read the
reviews. [RD,WH] C [LB,LB]
David also operates two web sites, the non-commercial
[BK,YW] Orpheus Fiction and Poetry Cafe, [LB,LB]
http://www.webcom.com/orpheus/
[BK,YW] and the commercial version [LB,LB]
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/orpheus/
They're joined by hyperlinkage. Who knows what
goodies you may find there.
[BK,YW] "UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS," [WH,LB]
J. G. Orand's, intriguing mystery novel of
rich folks and thieves in horse and buggy days.
Read David Shreiner's review. [RD,WH] D [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] │ All use the magnificent, flexible and eminently │ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] │ practical E-Z-Book Authorware with useful, color- │ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] │ ful and logical hypertext. Any or all may be │ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] │ be downloaded with three or four chapters, various│ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] │ preliminaries and related hypertext unlocked for │ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] │ instant reading. │ [LB,LB]
[BK,LC] └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ [LB,LB]
[BK,YW] CUTTING EDGES, [WH,LB]
a gripping novel of modern love, manners, morals,
music and rape, deftly told by Ruth Nestvold. Runs on
any IBM/DOS with 2.11 or later. It awaits your down-
loading in Compuserve's PCApplications Forum (GO
PCAPP). Look for it in Demo/Misc. And you'll probably
find it in GEnie's Digital Publishing library and
other online services. The absorbing story showcases
an interesting use of hypertext. Read the review. [RD,WH] E [LB,LB]
[YW,LB]â███████████████████████████████á[LB,LB]
[WH,BK]▓▓▓▓ MORE TO COME ▓▓▓▓[LB,LB]
[YW,LB]█████████████████████████████████[LB,LB]
[LR]â▀á [WH,LB]harles L. Wiedemann, president of Rexxcom Systems,
[LR]█ [WH,LB]pioneer of e-publishing and developer of the
[LR]ä▄à [WH,LB]trail blazing E-Z-Book authorware, says several
author/publishers are at work producing a variety of
e-books -- all different. Chances are you'll see them
online shortly. Look for many more to follow in '96 and
'97.
GEnie established Digital Publishing Roundtable
Library 12 exclusively for E-Z-Book volumes. Perhaps
savvy sysops on other services and BBSs will see and
act on the vision.
If you're fed up with the crapshoot of queries and
mailing and waiting weeks for mass-produced rejection
slips, you may want to publish your own with E-Z-Book.
If so, you'll have good company.
From this distance I can't judge the quality, but I
can assure you the quantity is beginning to snowball.
[BK,YW] Yours for good reading and GRRREAT writing. [LB,LB]
Kicks in '96.
Nick McSwain, President
McSwain Electronic Publishers
102147.3166@compuserve.com
[MG,MG]
[BK,YW] THE FUTURE IS NOW
[RD,RD]
[LB,WH]⌠ ──── ⌡[LB,LB]