e-books: the new undead
There are many endings when writing a novel. First, there is the ending of the book that you plan for and write towards. Then the there is the ending that happens when you get there and realize it isn’t quite the right place to end it. So a new search begins for the right ending. Because, for all you know, you’ve already passed by the ending, and it’s chapter shuffling that needs to occur so the right ending is in the right place. Or else you still need to keep writing to discover where and how it’s going to end.
From there, various readers read it. Your spouse—so there is no spinach on your teeth. A second friend reads it, one who is deeply knowledgeable about the subject matter that you are woefully dabbling in as a novelist. Then, another friend reads it, who you also pay to copy edit it. At each point, working over the edits, you end it again and again. Finally, the end of writing is reached because you cannot go on any longer, and you send it to an agent or a publisher.
Now there are a series of new endings contemplated, one of which involves a self imposed exile and another of which is the total ending of self—of the pen thrust into neck variety. At some stage a publisher, miraculously, takes the book on and asks you to change the ending which, out of utter loyalty, you do, twice.
Next the copy editor, then the proof reader, both provide new sorts of endings to your relationship with this book because they are closing off your ability to improve it. Bastards.
Finally, it is published. But this is not the end.
The first of three real and true endings happen after several months have gone by and there is nothing left to do to promote or read from or “sell” the book. Everything goes quiet. The book begins to die. And some of you feels sadness at this ending; but, some of you is happy because you are tired of the book and its refusal to ever end.
The next ending comes about a year later after every single possible award has come and gone. It is at this stage when the book is palliative. The end is near, you can sense it, for the dozen publishing seasons that come and go. And sure, you visit the book from time to time, the odd book club in-person invitation, but you know the ending is not far off.
Then, almost unexpectedly, it happens. The remainder letter arrives, then the out of print letter. It’s dead. It’s over. You may now wish it goodbye. And you do. You’ve moved onto new books, and begun to experience the endings all over again.
This is the cycle of endings as you have grown to understand it as a writer. And all is well.
Then e-books arrive. And the dead rise up. And you no longer know the cycle. You no longer understand or even know if there are endings anymore. You are asked, gasp, to read from a long-dead book of yours—the horror of it all, them all, with new lives lurching like zombies through the Internet and across the screens of tablets and e-readers, for which they were never written.
What have you done? Who can put an end to this, but you? But how?
