Mommy porn on the Kindle

When I first read a report that said paperback sales were down by 25% year to year, but hardback sales were holding its own, I was surprised. I thought, it would be the other way round because e-books do cost substantially less than first editions, but not the cheaper paperbacks. Then I read another story, Ebooks are rekindling women's x rated reading, it all began to make sense. The Kindle is the perfect device for consuming pornographic media, especially 'mommy porn'!

I am surprised I didn’t see it earlier, although I did have a nagging feeling of a piece missing from the logic puzzle, somewhere. How could I not have seen it? Porn has always driven technology. Let’s go back to the VCD and VHS craze from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. The explosion in the sales of these devices was mind-blowing. Was there really that much media to consume, even taking into account the addictive Hong Kong soaps. One day (I was living in Puchong at the time) a neighbour invited my wife and me for drinks because we were new there. Maybe, there was little to talk about after the niceties were over; maybe, it was because the men and the women were having different conversations; maybe he thought, since I am a man, I was constantly horny, he decided to show me his collection of video tapes. He had about thirty of them and every one was porn, with nothing left to the imagination in the cover art. Being neighbourly and all, he offered to let me borrow them. I declined, saying that I didn’t have a VHS player, a declaration that had him gaping at me in disbelief. He offered to let us watch it on his player in his house, to which I said, “Yes ... maybe ... one day,” but never brought that subject up again.

Bad press

Porn has always had a bad press, but if one dares to look at it objectively, it has been the game changer, the killer app, in more industries then we care to admit. Almost overnight, the VCD/VHS phenomena facilitated the consumption of porn in the privacy of living rooms (and bedrooms). I’m not going to be judgemental about this, but some disturbing stories did emerge: a close friend, who used to send her son to a baby-sitter in our neighbourhood, was shocked to find him watching porn with the family in the living room of their house when she went to pick him up early one day, unannounced. (We used to wonder where he learnt some of his more colourful vocabulary -- he was in kindergarten --  though we tried not to make too much of it.)

Next, came the DVD revolution; porn in high definition -- don’t even try to visualise it, or you will be struck down by a thunderbolt. One only had to ask the sales staff of the electrical appliance stores which brand and which model was good for pirated media and, in particular, porn. (There was one major international brand – no names mentioned here – that insisted on being ‘kosher’, but found its market share dropping so fast that it quickly released a jail-broken model for the local and regional markets.)

The next major game changer was the internet browser, Netscape. “Wah! Fantastic man; just type ‘xxx’ and you can watch all the porn you want,” drooled a colleague. I dare say I was one of the early adopters of the computer – from the IBM 1130 in the university, to the LSI desktop at work and the Apple 11e at home. But I was so far behind the loop on this one: the entire office was talking about porn on the net, and I was still fiddling about with spread sheets.

Mommy porn

Then, Amazon.com became a favourite place to buy porn magazines -- Playboy, Hustler, you name it -- and have it delivered to your home discretely wrapped in brown paper, eliminating the risk of being spotted procuring them from magazine stands at railway stations like a perv.  Next stop: Android, of which Steve Jobs famously said, “Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.” Guess what? They did. But with Apple keeping porn off the iPhone, it's a win-win situation : buy your kids iPhones and iPads for Christmas, and get yourself an Android for private use.

And now, it’s Kindle time! When Silverfish first opened shop, a major distributor, who deals primarily in best-sellers, brought us a box of then popular romance novels to choose from, but we declined for fear of being hammered by our customers because there were too many visuals of bursting bustiers on the covers. Now, if you are a Jackie-O look-alike, sitting at the lobby of a five-star hotel, in your leopard-skin pillbox hat, reading from a Kindle while waiting for your appointment, and he walks in in his business suit, what’s going to be his first comment? About what you are reading, or about your Kindle? Would he care if you are reading Dostoevsky or mommy porn? Okay, fast forward three years later: still same coffee shop, still same hat, the novelty has worn off, and you are reading the latest collection of essays by Milan Kundera. Would prefer to  read that in public on a Kindle, or a ‘book’ book? One thinks, you would rather be caught holding the latter, a hardback if possible for, now (as before), it’s about bragging rights. Second, you don't want anyone to assume you are reading ‘mommy porn’.

Evolution

Men would be in the same boat too, of course, but one suspects our nether regions are more readily titillated by visual imagery than by prose. That would probably explain why, while the earlier tech revolutions were led by men, this one, with the e-book, will be dictated by women.

Blame it on evolution.

Indie survival guide in the post tsunami book world

(for authors, publishers and retailers)

Small guys are zilch

I read a story some years ago in Time magazine, about why big businesses are better than small ones. There was a story of a Japanese convenient store business in a small town where the owner knew all her customer; chats with them for a while and serves them tea before they depart with some groceries. Moral of the story: it is nice customer experience, but inefficient. Imagine the number of burgers McDonald's would have flipped within that half hour! I read another similar story in the Economist recently. The bottom line: economics is important, culture is not (except for tourists -- and that's economics). And small inefficient businesses, no matter how much cultural cache they hold, have no business existing.

Biodiversity

I am no economist, but I'm a believer in biodiversity. Don't put all your eggs (not that kind, you filthy mind) in one basket, every child is taught. Wrong advice? When a big guy (like Borders) goes down, the entire industry is shaken up. Books are returned, remainder-book dealers are overstocked, retailers dealing in them have a great time and, consequently, more major stores wobble. It's happening in Malaysia; just ask anyone in the industry. If a few small guys go under, they'd be replaced by others with hardly a ripple. The new bogeyman in that universe is the e-book. A major chain in the city that halved the size of its largest outlet recently and moved one floor down, gave the e-book excuse in a newspaper story. Please, who are you kidding? You had a bad business plan, one that could only succeed with a backer with infinitely deep pockets.

A lecturer in my engineering school would say, "When in doubt, go back to first principles." The era of the major book store is over. It was an aberration to begin -- huge floor spaces in expensive down-town malls, selling low margin bestsellers at crazy discounts (ostensibly for market share) was a doomed strategy from the start. That formula didn't last a decade. So, now, we have to get back to basics.

Vermin survive holocausts

Books are culture. Bookselling is part of that culture. As much as the Harvard types want to reduce it to a commodity, the only hope for the book (dead-tree or digital) lies with the indies, the small guys -- authors, publishers and retailers. Particularly, in the last two decades, authors have been blinded by the dazzle of that big fat advance. I read in the newspapers recently that the chances of winning a certain American lottery is one in 176 million. About the same for authors who want to get on the international bestsellers' list, maybe less. Many Asian authors who publish in UK and the US, disappear after the second book, if that. The reality is grim, but that does not mean authors need to despair. Few authors can be all things to everybody. (It is not a surprise that there is only one JK Rowling in the entire population of the world.)

How is the book going to survive, then? By going small. Authors, keep your day jobs and become the champion of your town, your province, your country, your part of the world, in your genre. Enrich your community, your culture; you will be remembered for a hundred years because nobody worships  heroes like small towns. With e-books, your work can still be made available worldwide at a relatively low cost. Let Amazon work for you, not you for them. However, treat any income from that source as a bonus. Your gravy will come from those who live with you, who identify with your writing. Do the local circuits; it costs a lot less. Visit schools, colleges, universities, libraries, clubs, and give talks at indie book stores, rotary meetings, at any place that will have you. Do your social thing. You have to push your book yourself. The publisher who helped you get it out there is probably too poor to do much. Publishers, promote your local writers; forget about the big hitters unless you specialise in translations. Be disciplined, stay focussed on your niche and be the best that you can be. Don't let the temptation of riches lead you astray. Enjoy what you do. Publish different formats. Have multiple revenue streams. Go into retail. Get thrilled when someone from across the globe recognises what you do. Retailers, what is there to say? I have never felt more impersonal than in a chain store; I have never felt impersonal at an indie. Indie retailer, ever thought of going into publishing? Become the Shakespeare & Co of your town. Do your thing. Host your town authors; be the nerve centre of your town.

Little guys are like vermin. And, like cockroaches, we will survive a nuclear holocaust. Hundreds of small indie publishers and retailers were trampled on and destroyed by the behemoths in the first decade of the new millennium. Now that the invaders have left, or self-destruct, it's time for us to rise again. (Sounds like a sci-fi movie; War of the Worlds? Listen to the soundtrack!)

It's the product, stupid

And, indie authors, publishers and retailers, embrace technology, technology, technology. You know the best part? There is so much free stuff on the internet, its crazy. Beware some bloodsuckers offering 'free' software; they can be damned sneaky. But most are genuinely good people. Search for 'open source'. These are the angels. (I still haven't found a good free alternative for inDesign and Illustrator, though.) Visit the Silverfish Books website that has been entirely built for free (not counting sweat and tears). A CEO of a major chain recently boasted that he spent a million ringgit on their on-line store. I remained quiet. I paid zilch. But then, one can only do the free stuff if you are small and don't have a Board of Directors hovering. If there is one thing I have learnt, it's that the PC and the web are the great levellers, a boon to all indies, no matter what trade you are in. In particular, they have brought  down the cost of entry into the book industry. Silverfish Books would not have been possible without the computer and the internet. Be careful; let technology work for you, not the other way round. Go at it with a vengeance.

As Steve Jobs would have said, "It's the product, stupid!"