A guest post from Bloomsbury author Chris Priestley:
Not too long ago I received a package from my publisher, Bloomsbury. It contained the bound uncorrected proofs of my new novel, The Dead of Winter.
Bound proofs show a level of commitment from your publisher – which is always comforting. They will hopefully be sent out to booksellers and event organisers and shown to foreign publishers at trade fairs – maybe even (gasp!) to film and television people. Mainly, it allows your new book to hit the ground running.
But more than this, the truly exciting thing is that bound proofs actually look like a book.
For months The Dead of Winter has only existed as a folder on my desktop, as rows of double-spaced 12 point (it used to be 10, but my eyes are going) Courier New. I have seen printed proof pages – double spreads in the published typeface – but that’s not the same at all.
Now it’s got a spine and a cover. Now I can pick it up and strum the pages. Finally it’s recognisably a book.
But of course in these days of eBooks maybe that is irrelevant. Not for me – and not for a lot of authors. All writers I know have a love of books. And by that I don’t mean just a love of the written word - though of course they do have that - but a love of the physicality of books themselves. We write, first and foremost, because we love to read, and part of that love of reading came out of that tactile relationship with the book: the feel of the paper between your fingers as you turn the page.
Ever since I was a boy I had a dream of seeing my name on the cover of a book – of seeing my name there instead of that of Rosemary Sutcliff or Henry Treece. And I still get pathetically excited when I see one of my books in a bookshop (providing it’s not remaindered).
But will young children now dream of seeing their name on an eBook thumbnail on iTunes?
I wonder.
Chris Priestley
Chris Priestley was an illustrator and cartoonist for many years before becoming an author. Since then he has written over a dozen books for children, both fiction and non-fiction. In recent years he has focused on chillers. His Tales of Terror series has been shortlisted for several awards and his new novel, The Dead of Winter is published by Bloomsbury in October 2010.
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I don’t know how the stats hold up, but youngsters seem to be avid readers these days. Of my four boys, three adore books and it appears to be the same amongst their friends. My oldest boy avoids books like the plague, preferring visual arts (film & photography). When he looks at a book (that I am probably trying to persuade him to read) I can see by his face that he sees an ugly and inaccessible object.
Once when moving country (yet again), I decided I needed to be free of possessions. I gave everything away including all my books. Me being a person who will lift a book off the shelf and smile and caress it as I remember the joy it brought me. I put the boxes of books in the office and it nearly killed me watching people all too casually selecting my books and piling them on their desks. I am still coming to terms with it. Maybe some people didn’t read them; just placed the books on their bookshelves. The agony of thinking about it. I miss those books. Hang on while I fetch a hanky and have a bubble...
Chris you are so right.
I also dream of being a writer in print.
Display of your creation on the shelves of libraries, bookshops or wherever, is a complacency of initial compensation. But when we hold the first ever paper copy in our hands, wow, the feel of pages, glossy cover and that familiar Publisher's typos, all these factors amalgamate into compost of your joy.
Will I feel that with e-book?
Perhaps censuring such change, I'm preparing mentally to this fastidious change, it is feasible part of the era and like mobile phones, ipod and so on we will soon embrace the impugn invention.
Chris, congratulations. Good to see you in print. Hope you sell millions.
Shankut