For over fifteen years, newspaper articles and TV items have predicted the death of the book. Recently the prophets have been more active and the horrifying spectre is the e-book or digital book. To paraphrase Mark Twain – news of the demise of the book have been greatly exaggerated.

An e-book is a computer file – it can be read on a computer and on smaller devices like the Kindle, the iPad, iPod and the Nook. It is a broad term that includes several different formats (pdf, epub, mobi, app) and the term e-book incorporates a wide range of publications – from novels to video and audio filled encyclopaedias.

One of the clearest benefits of an e-book reading machine over the paper book is its size – both have roughly the same measurements and weight but the e-reader machine can hold about 1,500 books. You can buy an e-book at any time of the day or night and start reading within seconds, it is also usually cheaper than a paper book. The e-reader is easy and simple to understand but it’s much more expensive than a mound of paper books – there is no smell of paper or ink, there are no tea stains, no sand or train tickets between the pages and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to read it in the bath. But I think that one of the main advantages of the e-reader is it’s ability to magnify or reduce the size of the typeface.

The e-book isn’t a threat to everyone – we must have authors and each e-book must go through the process of publishing, editing and marketing but there is no need to print, distribute or store stock. The fact that an e-book cannot go out of print and the possibility of paper copies printed in small numbers on demand are elements to be welcomed.

Some publishers are naturally suspicious of e-books – one concern is that an e-book can be divided between two, three, fifty or six hundred readers. It is possible to restrict an e-book for example to one buyer or to one machine – but this may mean that you cannot share your e-book between your own machines for your own use. I think that any DRM system (Digital Rights Management) that locks e-books poses a risk of further problems arising – and you can be sure that if someone is determined to share an e-book that person will be able to find ways to do so.



In the spring of 2011 I started to experimented with e-books – I wanted to know how to create them, what were their advantages over paper books and why so many people see them as a threat. I wanted to convert a major novel to an e-book and as I have a copy of Enoc Huws (possibly the most famous Welsh language novel) on my shelf where better to start. The process was slow – scanning all the pages of the book and then converting each page image into a computer text file. It was only after this that the experimentation could start – creating a raw and simple e-book file and then modifying and reviewing it until I had a readable novel with an effective front cover.

How would I convert a book which was more complex in form and format than a novel? I had a digital file of Cartrefi Cymru downloaded from the Project Gutenberg website which offers free digital copies of copyright-free books. The layout of the hymn lyrics and poems as well as rearranging the content pages was a challenge.

I did not intend to do anything further but now I had two completed e-books. It is possible to publish and sell e-books through www.lulu.com as well as sell print on demand paperbacks. Enoc Huws and Cartrefi Cymru were uploaded to the Lulu website and also became available as paperbacks on the Amazon web store.

Amazon have widely promoted their e-reading machine – the Kindle – over last year and has sold 1.2 million of them in Britain over Christmas. Most Kindle e-books are sold through the Kindle store on Amazon's website and this shop is open to any publisher or any individual. But for me there was a problem – I could not load a Welsh language book to the store.

This side effect of this difficulty was that I set up a website – www.cromen.co.uk – where e-books can be bought in different formats for different e-readers. There are only two books available at the moment but new books will be added each month – the intention is to publish books in Welsh as well as in English which are about Wales.



The truth is that an e-book can achieve things that are impossible for paper books – The Waste Land was published last year to great acclaim – as well as reading the poem yourself you can hear recordings of T S Eliot, Alec Guinness, Ted Hughes or Viggo Mortensen reading; there are notes that introduce and explain references in the poem and the impact Ezra Pound had as an editor; you can look at videos of writers such as Seamus Heaney and Jeanette Winterson presenting their impressions. This year the copyright on James Joyce’s work comes to an end, his estate is constantly protective of his work, but it is certain that similar Ulysses will get the Waste Land treatment .

I would argue that the development of e-books give publishers a freedom to experiment with paper books. I’ve been creating and displaying artist-books (limited editions – numbered and hand-made) since the early 90s – and this field has grown rapidly over the past ten years. Publishers such as Visual Editions create completely original books – they focus on things that are impossible to achieve with a digital book and it is worth taking time to look at the video of the production of Tree of Codes.

Another obvious recent change is the emphasis on hard cover books from traditional publishers. People may buy the novel as an e-book, after reading it and enjoying it they decide to buy a hardback copy to keep on the bookshelf or to give as a gift. Developments such as these mean that the e-book and the paper book can live happily together with one enriching the other. Unbound is a new initiative that uses the old system of collecting subscriptions to pay for publication – there are 5 different contribution levels: an e-book when you contribute at the lowest level but if you contribute at level 5 you receive hardback copies with your name listed in the back as well as a meal in the company of the author.

I find it surprisingly how little has changed since Gutenburg printed his Bible around 1450 in the world of the book. The Welsh book market isn’t large enough or rich enough to follow some of the models mentioned earlier but even though the advent of the e-book is going to upset many readers, sellers, printers and publishers we must recognize that it offers new opportunities for all those vested interests.

One of the first free books I download from the internet after purchasing my Kindle was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – I did not realize for some weeks that I have a paperback copy at home. It's nice to flick through the pages of a book and read a chapter here and there – that’s not so easy with an e-book. But while I can carry the Tom Sawyer paperback in a jacket pocket, with the Kindle Tom is in the company of Sherlock Holmes, Wilkie Collins, Jo Nesbo, Proust, Dickens as well as Enoc Huws.

Tags : cromen, digital books