出版与作家生涯2012antipope.org
电子书的兴起将如何改变小说的类型分类
How the shift to ebooks will affect genre categories in fiction
导读
这篇讨论电子书与“无限货架”如何改变小说的类型分类：传统书店把书塞进单一类型，是实体销售流程的产物，而非创作本质。对写作者而言，值得读的是它提醒你：类型标签、系列布局、试读与社交发现都会影响读者能否找到你。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把“类型”看作销售和发现工具，而不是创作戒律；先想清楚读者会通过什么渠道找到你的书。
- 02
电子书让旧作、系列前作和免费试读更容易被找到，写作时可利用系列化、清晰的开篇钩子和可试读的章节。
- 03
不要只依赖“书架邻接”式曝光；主动经营社交网络、书评网站、论坛和作者与读者的关系。
- 04
单一类型归类是物理销售流程的遗留，跨类型或混合类型作品可以用标签帮助读者定位，但不要被标签限制。
HN 评论精选
类型分架是实体销售渠道的产物，电子书正用社交发现替代书架邻接。
两个要点：1）排他性的类型划分是人为而任意的，是实体书销售流程的偶然遗留。无论电子书是否流行，它都会消亡，因为人们买实体书时已经转向亚马逊和巴诺的“无限书架”。电子书正是无限书架的原生格式。可以想象一个世界：Kindle兼容电子书通过一次性SD卡或可扫描二维码在实体店离线销售，它们最终也会按排他类型被分开。把一本书塞进单一类型，是销售媒介的特征，不是书最终格式的特征。2）我们失去了“书架上邻近书”的效应，但换来了社交网络、博客和论坛组成的外部发现生态。我买书时并不主要在亚马逊发现新书：知道想要什么才去那里；我靠GoodReads、Any New Books、Twitter上关注的作者、Facebook上朋友家人的推荐来找下一本。这确实是转变，但相比去书店看哪本书的书脊吸引眼球，我认为是巨大改进：更不任意，也更有希望少受作者和出版商操纵。
tomku查看英文原文
Two main points: 1) Exclusive genre is artificial and arbitrary, an incidental relic of the physical book-selling process. It would die whether e-books became popular or not, because people were already shifting their physical book purchasing to the "infinite bookshelves" of Amazon and B&N. E-books are simply the "native format" for the infinite bookshelf. If you can imagine a world where Kindle-compatible e-books were sold offline in brick-and-mortar stores via throwaway SD cards or scannable high-res 2D barcodes, they would end up divided by exclusive genres as well. The pigeonholing of a book into a single genre is a characteristic of the medium of sale, not the actual end format of the book. 2) While we're losing the "nearby book on the shelf" effect, we're replacing it with a vibrant ecosystem of social networks, blogs and forums external to the actual book sale location. When I shop for books, I don't really do it on Amazon - I go there when I know what I want, but I rely on sites like GoodReads[1], Any New Books [2], Twitter (where I follow authors I'm interested in) and Facebook (where I sometimes find recommendations from friends and family) to find my next read. This is definitely a shift, but I find it to be an overwhelming improvement from the old system of going to the bookstore and checking out whatever book's spine catches my eye. It's less arbitrary, it's (hopefully) less subject to manipulation by authors and publishers, and I've enjoyed reading the books chosen this way more. Your mileage may vary, naturally. I think that to a certain extent this is similar to the "filter bubble" mentioned in the context of Google and searching. Having the "infinite bookshelf" and the powerful filtering/tagging makes it easier to find what you want, but it eliminates the natural wandering that some people rely on to be introduced to new things that they wouldn't necessarily look for intentionally. It may be that we simply have to force ourselves to wander a bit if we want variety and novelty, and hopefully the digital world continues to make that easy as well. [1]: http://www.goodreads.com/ [2]: http://anynewbooks.com/
电子书试读和长尾库存改善了类型小说的发现与阅读体验。
我是科幻迷，也喜欢Charles的作品。他肯定比我懂这个行业，但以个人经验说，用电子书发现科幻书远比纸质书愉快。理想中的书店会有丰富库存，可多数书店的科幻选品很薄：有知名作者的新书，却很少有他们早年的作品；如果是系列，往往只摆最新一两本，前作根本没有。比如可能有Stross的《Rule 34》，却没有他更早也很棒的《Halting State》和《Accelerando》。科幻迷怎么办？去二手书店淘，或者一年只在探亲时去一次Powell's，再不然订购。现在有了Kindle，容易多了：免费拿样本，翻几章，喜欢就买，一分钟内到手。不管有没有DRM，体验都愉快得多，我也因此读到更多更好的书。
keltex查看英文原文
I'm a big SciFi fan and love Charles's work. I'm sure he knows more about the industry than I do, but from my own personal experience I much prefer the discovery process of SciFi books with eBooks than with pBooks. In an ideal world, bookstores would have their shelves well stocked with a deep assortment of titles. Unfortunately, most bookstores carry a thin selection of good SciFi books. They have some of the latest books from well known authors, but rarely did they have some of their earlier titles. And worse yet if the book was part of a series, you would see the latest one or two books but never any of the previous ones. So for example, they might carry Stross' "Rule 34" but not his earlier (and great) "Halting State" and "Accelerando". So what's a SciFi fan to do? Track them down in a used bookstore. I only get to visit Powell's once a year when I visit my parents. Back order them? Now with my Kindle, it's much easier. Grab a sample for free. Peruse a couple of chapters and if I like it, buy it and have it in my hands in a minute. DRM or no, it's a much more pleasant experience and I get to read a lot of better books.
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