n the book]. I take the view that the
book is a "practice" -- a collection of social and economic and
artistic activities -- and not an "object." Viewing the book as a
"practice" instead of an object is a pretty radical notion, and
it begs the question: just what the hell is a book? Good
question. I write all of my books in a text-editor [TEXT EDITOR
SCREENGRAB] (BBEdit, from Barebones Software -- as fine a
text-editor as I could hope for). From there, I can convert them
into a formatted two-column PDF [TWO-UP SCREENGRAB]. I can turn
them into an HTML file [BROWSER SCREENGRAB]. I can turn them over
to my publisher, who can turn them into galleys, advanced review
copies, hardcovers and paperbacks. I can turn them over to my
readers, who can convert them to a bewildering array of formats
[DOWNLOAD PAGE SCREENGRAB]. Brewster Kahle's Internet Bookmobile
can convert a digital book into a four-color, full-bleed,
perfect-bound, laminated-cover, printed-spine paper book in ten
minutes, for about a dollar. Try converting a paper book to a PDF
or an html file or a text file or a RocketBook or a printout for
a buck in ten minutes! It's ironic, because one of the frequently
cited reasons for preferring paper to ebooks is that paper books
confer a sense of ownership of a physical object. Before the dust
settles on this ebook thing, owning a paper book is going to feel
less like ownership than having an open digital edition of the
text.

4. Ebooks are a better deal for writers. [Ebooks are a better
deal for writers] The compensation for writers is pretty thin on
the ground. *Amazing Stories,* Hugo Gernsback's original science
fiction magazine, paid a couple cents a word. Today, science
fiction magazines pay...a couple cents a word. The sums involved
are so minuscule, they're not even insulting: they're *quaint*
and *historical*, like the WHISKEY 5 CENTS sign over the bar at a
pioneer village. Some writers do make it big, but they're
*rounding errors* as compared to the total population of sf
writers earning some of their living at the trade. Almost all of
us could be making more money elsewhere (though we may dream of
earning a stephenkingload of money, and of course, no one would
play the lotto if there were no winners). The primary incentive
for writing has to be artistic satisfaction, egoboo, and a desire
for posterity. Ebooks get you that. Ebooks become a part of the
corpus of human knowledge because they get indexed by search