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J.Warrens
Inner circle
Canada
1038 Posts
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Posted: Sep 21, 2010 6:40am
I must say I've been feeling a little sad about something lately.
I went into an actual brick and mortar shop last week that I'd not been into for quite some time. It use to sell many magic books.
Now, it contains only two small shelves of rather beat-up "new" books. By "new" I mean: not sold before. They used to have many.
The titles were common, and not of much interest to one who reads as voraciously as I - having read all of them a long while ago.
The owner told me that books were dead sales these days, and as I heard these words, I looked over noting several large cabinets brimming with videos. The sight of such a mountainous collection of discs (many of which, were a one-trick pony) reminded me of all the times I'd seen "magicians" performing routines from Ammar's ETM series, using his exact patter more often than not.
Clones. They're everywhere.
I went home empty-handed and sad that there would be no new tome to scour over a nice pot of hot coffee until the wee hours of the morning. No smell of a new spine, and freshly printed paper, and even worse - nothing new on the horizon either.
After staring at the floor for a movie or two, coffee in hand, I concluded one thing:
I should probably get to a church and become a christian or something, because it sure feels like the world is coming to an end or something!
I have many friends with University degrees who can't even add 7 and 8 together without either:
A) A calculator.
B) The calculator on their mobile phone.
C) Their laptop or home computer.
Then we have spelling. Just so everyone knows, here they are: they're, there, their. It seems like nobody even knows the difference between these and in which contexts they are used and applied.
I can understand not being able to spell (ok, I lied - I actually don't) but please, I've seen resumes where (not WEAR) folks were (again, not WEAR) too lazy to even use "spell-check".
All of this, and you can't even find anyone to have a conversation with now that you've got no new book to absorb. And why is that, you ask?
Because they're all too busy texting each other with their ***ized english, shoddy spelling, and chat slang.
Go figure. I fear for the species, I really do.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is: I REALLY MISS BOOKS.
Rant: OFF.
Cheers.
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mdspark
Special user
764 Posts
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Posted: Sep 21, 2010 12:27pm
You summed it up nicely. I feel your pain.
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Rennie
Inner circle
Manteca, California
1853 Posts
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Posted: Sep 21, 2010 11:46pm
Do I ever side with what you are saying. My big fear is all the "classics" of magic are being turned into "E" books, which I have a real problem trying to accept..
There is nothing like the feel of a hardcover classic in your hand, they even have a "classic" smell to them..
"LONG LIVE THE CLASSICS"
Rennie
The effect is the important thing, how you achieve it is not.......
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volto
Special user
603 Posts
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Posted: Sep 22, 2010 4:21am
To play devil's advocate for a moment; books in electronically searchable form are an excellent research tool. Once I got above a couple of bookshelves' worth of magic books, it became hard to remember exactly where a given reference was. Harry Lorayne's excellent index in Tarbell 7 aside, indexes in magic books - where they exist - are generally terrible. So I've bought several of the books I have in physical form in electronic form, just to be able to search them conveniently.
I think the learned pig project and lybrary are excellent resources in this respect.
Of course, I only bring this up because I have so many magic books and journals I can no longer remember what's in them. So I guess you're preaching to the choir.
A younger friend of mine was showing me his shiny new ebook reader. He gleefully demonstrated to me that it has a display that looks like paper, a battery that lasts for months and it can store bookmarks. I pointed out to him that these innovations weren't exactly improvements on "Book version 1.0", which has a display that actually is paper, doesn't need batteries and is also capable of storing bookmarks.
"Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be 'too clever by half.' The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters."
-John Major
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Harry Lorayne
V.I.P.
New York City
5725 Posts
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Posted: Sep 22, 2010 3:49pm
J.Warrens: Boy, do I agree with you! One disagreement - there are, at least IS, a new book on the horizon - my LORAYNE: THE CLASSIC COLLECTION, VOL. 3. Do you already have Volumes 1 and 2? You can check 'em out, plus other books, on my magic website - the one with the word "magic" in it, under this post. Best - HL.
harrylorayne@earthlink.net
http://www.harrylorayne.com
http://www.harryloraynemagic.com
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J.Warrens
Inner circle
Canada
1038 Posts
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Posted: Sep 22, 2010 3:52pm
I don't have any problems with ebooks, though I prefer physical copies. They are definitely nice to throw on your laptop if you have to go away for a business trip etc; and they take up very little space.
My post was pertaining more to the fact that literacy in general, is falling by the wayside. At least you're still reading when viewing ebooks.
I've noticed a trend where videos are not helping originality due to a lack of visualization on the viewer's end. You can almost always tell when a guy has learned an effect he's performing from Ammar's ETM series as the patter is identical.
My other point was regarding the fact that there is very little in the way of new titles being released today because the demand is down and the market for videos is so massive. What books are being released are usually (but not always) not that great either.
Hope that helps clear things up a bit 
Cheers.
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J.Warrens
Inner circle
Canada
1038 Posts
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Posted: Sep 22, 2010 4:13pm
Sorry for the double-post - Harry's response appeared while typing up my last post.
Harry: I have almost all of your books, including "Personal Collection" which is one my favourites. I think I'm only missing the "Classic Collection" titles.
I will more than likely purchase all 3 from you when the third volume is released - that will keep me busy for a while !
Nice to see I'm not the only one feeling this way.
Cheers.
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Harry Lorayne
V.I.P.
New York City
5725 Posts
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Posted: Sep 22, 2010 5:20pm
J.Warrens: You should, as should all who are interested, send me your email address - send it to my personal email address (first one listed under this post, with the word "earthlink") and I'll put it on my email mailing list. Then, you will automatically receive an email (Attachment) of the full-page ad for Volume 3 of The Classic Collection. Best - HARRY L.
harrylorayne@earthlink.net
http://www.harrylorayne.com
http://www.harryloraynemagic.com
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volto
Special user
603 Posts
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Posted: Sep 23, 2010 11:16am
J.Warrens - I entirely agree with everything you said. A lot. :o)
My post was just to make an additional argument in favor of ebooks as a research tool.
On originality - “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” -Melville
You'll notice that's a quote. :o)
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Bill Palmer
Eternal Order
Only Jonathan Townsend has more than
23786 Posts
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Posted: Sep 23, 2010 12:25pm
Although I agree almost completely that the alleged disapperance of the "real" book is somewhat tragic, consider this: an e-book requires a literate reader to be of any value.
There are a lot of pluses to e-books. For example, I no longer have to maintain a taxable backlog of hardcopy books. Instead, if someone orders one of my sets of lecture notes, I can give them a choice. I can print out a copy, take it to the post office and mail it, or I can send them an e-book. The e-book costs them less and arrives instantly. For me, it's pure profit, and I don't have to get off my duff and mail it.
There are a lot of books that are not available in any other form. For example, about 20 years ago, I translated a group of books by Lubor Fiedler for a magic dealer. He decided not to print them, because the perceived market just wasn't there.
A couple of months ago, Lybrary.com bought the rights to them from the dealer, and is now offering them as e-books.
The e-book has also made many otherwise unobtainable books available to anyone who wants them.
Granted, with a library of more than 4000 books, I still prefer a hard copy. And there are many positive things to be said about the physical book.
But the book replaced the scroll, except in some specialized forms, such as Torah scrolls. The scroll replaced the stylus and clay tablet. I don't know if the kindle will ever completely replace the book. You still need batteries to operate a kindle.
The real enemy to books is not the e-book. It's the DVD.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC
My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."
www.cupsandballsmuseum.com
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markmiller
Special user
657 Posts
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Posted: Sep 23, 2010 12:28pm
And with rampant illegal file sharing the magic dvd is headed to oblivion since creators are having a harder and harder time making ends meet with them.
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J.Warrens
Inner circle
Canada
1038 Posts
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Posted: Sep 23, 2010 1:40pm
@ Volto: That's a great quote!
"The real enemy to books is not the e-book. It's the DVD." - Bill Palmer.
Absolutely! Great post Bill. BTW, great job on both of the Borodin books, which are most treasured in my library. Thanks for helping bring those into fruition for us, Bill.
@ markmiller: Yup. Here's hoping that this helps bring a new resurgence in book publishing.
Cheers.
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Bill Palmer
Eternal Order
Only Jonathan Townsend has more than
23786 Posts
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Posted: Sep 24, 2010 12:03am
Quote:
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On 2010-09-23 12:28, markmiller wrote:
And with rampant illegal file sharing the magic dvd is headed to oblivion since creators are having a harder and harder time making ends meet with them.
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You say that as if it were a bad thing. 
I reviewed a number of DVD's for MUM over the past few years. There is so much cr@p on the market that it's not even worth thinking about sometimes.
The production values, especially concerning the audio of DVD's, are almost nil in many cases. There are some exceptions of course. I know that when Steve Brooks puts out a DVD, it's not a matter of days of development. It's a matter of months. And the material is already solid before the DVD even gets into the planning stage.
There was a DVD produced here in Houston by a fellow who was a youngish "card man." He put out a one trick DVD of a trick that was so far above his head that he had to get someone else to do the trick on the DVD. That's not good at all.
So many DVD's come out with pilfered material and uncredited material that I finally have given up.
@ JWarrens. Thanks for the kind words about the Borodin books.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC
My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."
www.cupsandballsmuseum.com
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markmiller
Special user
657 Posts
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Posted: Sep 24, 2010 12:48am
I agree Bill. You mention one-trick DVDs, best I've seen in the last few years Confessions of a Needle Swallower, put out by Bob Kohler.
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Bill Palmer
Eternal Order
Only Jonathan Townsend has more than
23786 Posts
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Posted: Sep 24, 2010 2:20am
The Cups and Balls Museum also houses a collection of routines, both in print and on DVD's. Some of these have excellent production values. Some don't. I remember when VHS tapes were just coming out. We would purchase these tapes from various companies. The best, production-wise, were the ones from Stevens, L&L and A-1. I remember purchasing some from Tannen's that were evidently reproduced from second or third generation masters. You would look at coins on a close-up mat, and the only way you could tell what denomination the coins were was by the color of the blob.
It's all part of a trend towards "fast food magic." The mage wants to write a book -- so he writes a book. He runs it through a spell checker. He misses half of the typos. He sells it as an e-book. Or he sends it off to Lulu and has it printed. There is no oversight. There are no suggestions as to layout and graphics. It comes out as junk. There are people who actually get paid to edit and produce books. It used to take at least six months for a book to get from the first draft to the final copy. Everything had to pass the proofreaders and the editorial board.
The same is true of DVD's. A kid gets an "HD camcorder" which he pays a whopping $175 for. He gets someone to hold it for him and push the buttons. He uses the built in microphone. Then he puts out a DVD. The acoustics are horrible, and the material is equally bad. They don't even have a script.
I remember one DVD that I purchased from its perpetrator at a lecture. It had a cups and balls routine that used ONLY three cups and three balls. One of the statements on the DVD was that the three ball routine was very unusual, but that he had heard about some old guy who had done a three ball routine some time in the past. What ignorance! He could have at least taken the time to ask who that might have been. It was Ken Brooke. (not the kid, but the guy with the three ball routine.) With the rapid communication we have about every possible magic subject, there is no possible reason for anyone to put out that kind of stupidity on a DVD.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC
My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."
www.cupsandballsmuseum.com
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volto
Special user
603 Posts
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Posted: Sep 24, 2010 9:33am
"I remember one DVD that I purchased from its perpetrator at a lecture."
That made me laugh out loud. Excellent.
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magicfish
Inner circle
2834 Posts
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Posted: Sep 24, 2010 10:55am
Jeff Pinsky is a magic shop owner and demonstrater in toronto, canada. His shop is called The Browsers Den of Magic. It is a wonderful bricks and mortar magic shop with a huge collection of books for sale. He does quite well with them while other dealers have all but abandoned their book sections. He has faith in book sales as do I. Of course I cannot speak for him, I think its a good idea for dealers to not only keep their books, but showcase them! DVD's are on the way out, I believe books will last forever. Have no fear J. Warrens.
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J.Warrens
Inner circle
Canada
1038 Posts
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Posted: Sep 27, 2010 2:32am
Howdy.
I'm actually very familiar with Browser's Den in T.O. as I lived there for a few years during the early 90's. I'm glad to hear that they're still doing well.
I spent most of my time hanging out with Herb Morrissey, as Browser's was still considered "new" back then and Morrissey's was more convenient for me to get to.
I have attended a few of Browser's auctions in the past. I remember getting a Kennedy Kinetic Crystal for about 50 bucks at one of them.
Anyways, thanks for the support brother!
Cheers.
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magicfish
Inner circle
2834 Posts
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Posted: Sep 27, 2010 11:08pm
Quote:
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On 2010-09-27 02:32, J.Warrens wrote:
Howdy.
I'm actually very familiar with Browser's Den in T.O. as I lived there for a few years during the early 90's. I'm glad to hear that they're still doing well.
I spent most of my time hanging out with Herb Morrissey, as Browser's was still considered "new" back then and Morrissey's was more convenient for me to get to.
I have attended a few of Browser's auctions in the past. I remember getting a Kennedy Kinetic Crystal for about 50 bucks at one of them.
Anyways, thanks for the support brother!
Cheers.
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Funny, I was a Morrissey guy my whole life. I used to watch the store while Herb went and grabbed us subs and Cokes. Herb used to have a good book selection in those days, now there are almost none.
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J.Warrens
Inner circle
Canada
1038 Posts
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Posted: Sep 28, 2010 6:20am
Haha hilarious! I used to watch the store for him too! Although he was always headed downstairs.....lol.
Cheers.
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Jonathan O
New user
59 Posts
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Posted: Sep 28, 2010 8:05am
I agree so much with you J.Warrens. I just hope that more people can realize that books is a fantastic way to learn magic from.
Quote:
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On 2010-09-23 12:25, Bill Palmer wrote:
The real enemy to books is not the e-book. It's the DVD.
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So true and great said!
Jonathan
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Anatole
Special user
927 Posts
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Posted: Oct 28, 2010 2:17pm
I'm a former school librarian. I love books. I love storytelling. I have held children (and adults who happened to be passing by the library during storytime) spellbound with classics like "Rumpelstiltskin" and "The Boy Who Drew Cats." But I also have a background in instructional design and some knowledge of the learning and teaching process.
If you go back to the days when knowledge was passed on from master to apprentice, there was not as much need to read because learning was a hands-on experience--learn by doing.
The main drawback I see to learning by DVD is that performing theory is often glossed over--if mentioned at all. My favorite instructional books--Hay's _The Amateur Magician's Handbook_ and Ganson's _Routined Manipulations Series__ -- had exemplary introductory chapters that addressed the theory behind performing magic. As my repertoire of tricks and routines grew, I found myself returning repeatedly to the introductory chapters of those books to remind myself that the presentation of magic was the key to making it entertaining.
Two of the all-time best lectures I ever saw had very few tricks/routines but excellent discussions of the theory of entertaining with magic. First is Denny Haney's Lecture and his notes which are available at
http://dennymagic.com/products/collectibles-historical/denny-lee-lecture-notes/
The blurb on Denny's site reads:
"Topics covered are finding yourself, your style, various types of acts including the pros and cons of each, personality, simple self promotion, dealing with agents, and much more. Perhaps the most important segment of the notes is the section on Structure of an act. Pacing and structure can make the difference between a good act and just an act consisting of a bunch of tricks. "
I saw Denny's lecture on the business end of magic and the knowledge I gained enabled me to get bookings with a professional entertainment agency.
The second lecture I saw that opened my eyes from a show business aspect was I think by Geoffrey Williams. No real tricks were taught. He focused on things like how essential make-up is for performing magic; the difference between make-up for the stage and make-up for TV. At the lecture he sold a basic make-up kit customized to be appropriate for each purchaser since different skin tones require different kinds of make-up. (I think Micky Hades also published a nice booklet called "Basic Make-up for Magicians_ by John Pomeroy. I also liked the Richard Corson book _Stage Makeup_. That prompts another plug for the Henry Hay AMH book. The annotated bibliography in that book listed not only magic books but also books on theater like the Corson book and John Booth's _Forging Ahead in Magic_. The Booth text was a standard book on the shelves of The Magic Shop in Norfolk, but very few people paid attention to the slim volume that had (pardon the expression) volumes of valuable information on how to become a better performer of magic.)
Sorry for getting off on a tangent. But sometimes the best lessons are the ones that depart slightly from a strict lesson plan because of a teachable moment.
----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez
----- Sonny Narvaez
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panlives
Inner circle
2088 Posts
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Posted: Oct 29, 2010 8:47am
Quote:
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On 2010-09-24 10:55, magicfish wrote:
Jeff Pinsky is a magic shop owner and demonstrater in toronto, canada. His shop is called The Browsers Den of Magic. It is a wonderful bricks and mortar magic shop with a huge collection of books for sale. He does quite well with them while other dealers have all but abandoned their book sections. He has faith in book sales as do I. Of course I cannot speak for him, I think its a good idea for dealers to not only keep their books, but showcase them! DVD's are on the way out, I believe books will last forever. Have no fear J. Warrens.
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magicfish,
Nice to see you acknowledged Jeff Pinsky.
Jeff still believes in the literature and when his shelves are full, they are bursting with magical greatness.
As we accelerate into the digital future at the speed of light, physical books will become a specialized collector’s item or museum artefact...I am conflicted. I like books. A lot. But the idea of 10,000 or 100,000 books, notes, pamphlets, etc., in one light device, fully searchable and with the ability to hold notes, is a intoxicating.
Music went that way; books will follow. An electronic device that will finally become the book-killer has not been retailed as yet, but it will be – and probably within a few years. Faster, cheaper, lighter, longer battery life, much more robust storage capacity...all coming soon to a neighbourhood near you!
DVDs will of course morph into something else – that is hardly the point. The ultimate transformation will be from a printed page or a physical object like a DVD to a pure data model. Again, look what happened to music.
Life goes on.
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
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Bill Palmer
Eternal Order
Only Jonathan Townsend has more than
23786 Posts
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Posted: Oct 29, 2010 12:37pm
With music, there are two different references here.
1) Sheet music. This still exists, and there is still a fairly big industry dedicated to the production of sheet music. Music books are still available as well. There has been an attempt to replace teachers with instructional videos, but it really hasn't been successful, because NOTHING can replace good one on one pedagogy. There is no "give and take" or analysis on a video.
2) Recorded music -- certainly we do have downloadable sound files. But the convenience and quality of the sound coming from a CD player is, at least to my ears, considerably better than the sound from a downloaded file playing over a small digital playback device. The recorded music business has not died at all.
This morning, I had an experience that underlined to me why "physical" books will continue to be with us long after almost everything has been digitized. We had a power failure. All of my e-books are on my computer. I haven't purchased a Kindle, a Kibble or any other kind of e-book reader. I can't read a tiny screen. The display I'm looking at right now is a 24" LED panel. I'm not the only one like this.
In any case, I could still take down any "physical" book I have and read it.
I should also point out that even though almost all the books that were written during the last 25 years of the last century were submitted to the publishers in a digital form, i.e. a PDF file, there is still too much of a legal hassle for EVERYTHING to become available digitally. Even with all of the quasi-legal bullying from Google books, etc., there are still a large number of publishers and authors who are holdouts, and we will not permit our material to be distributed without compensation and/or control.
While pursuing IP cases is an expensive venture, if there are enough of us who decide to attack the monolith, we will prevail.
Ask yourself this: what does Google, Inc. actually consist of?
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC
My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."
www.cupsandballsmuseum.com
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Anatole
Special user
927 Posts
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Posted: Nov 5, 2010 9:52pm
This discussion reminds me somewhat of the predictions Ray Bradbury made in some of his stories and novels--that the printed word would become extinct. Somehow I find that difficult to believe. If the power of electronic imagery were so great, then movies and TV shows would no longer have titles and credits. There is also an advantage that subtitles have over dubbed movies. Someone learning a foreign language would hear the target language while at the same time having the benefit of subtitles for words not yet in his/her active vocabulary.
Video is fine for teaching the mechanics of a trick. But to teach the theory behind the magic, the written word has perhaps its own unique power. As Goethe said in _Faust_, "... was man schwarz auf weiß besitzt, kann man getrost nach Hause tragen" (Bayard Taylor translation: "what one has, in black and white, one can take home [with him])."
I may have mentioned "Dale's Cone of Experience" here before, which states that "People generally remember 10% of what they read; 50% of what they hear and see." I read Arthur C. Clarke's _2001: A Space Odyssee_ before I saw the movie. A couple of years later, when I was watching the movie on TV with some friends, I pointed out some information in the book that was not conveyed in the movie (e.g. why the monolith on the moon had been buried underground). My remarks allowed my friends to appreciate more fully the wisdom and strategy of the people who planted the monolith on the moon. (Arthur C. Clarke is responsible for one of the most famous quotes about science's relation to magic: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")
I apologize if I've gone too far off on a tangent here. But that's one of the pluses of dialog.
----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez
----- Sonny Narvaez
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DomKabala
Inner circle
I'm pooped after diggin' holes for
2780 Posts
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Posted: Jan 14, 2011 1:54pm
Quote:
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On 2010-09-21 06:40, J.Warrens wrote:
I must say I've been feeling a little sad about something lately.
I went into an actual brick and mortar shop last week that I'd not been into for quite some time. It use to sell many magic books.
Now, it contains only two small shelves of rather beat-up "new" books. By "new" I mean: not sold before. They used to have many.
The titles were common, and not of much interest to one who reads as voraciously as I - having read all of them a long while ago.
The owner told me that books were dead sales these days, and as I heard these words, I looked over noting several large cabinets brimming with videos. The sight of such a mountainous collection of discs (many of which, were a one-trick pony) reminded me of all the times I'd seen "magicians" performing routines from Ammar's ETM series, using his exact patter more often than not.
Clones. They're everywhere.
I went home empty-handed and sad that there would be no new tome to scour over a nice pot of hot coffee until the wee hours of the morning. No smell of a new spine, and freshly printed paper, and even worse - nothing new on the horizon either.
After staring at the floor for a movie or two, coffee in hand, I concluded one thing:
I should probably get to a church and become a christian or something, because it sure feels like the world is coming to an end or something!
I have many friends with University degrees who can't even add 7 and 8 together without either:
A) A calculator.
B) The calculator on their mobile phone.
C) Their laptop or home computer.
Then we have spelling. Just so everyone knows, here they are: they're, there, their. It seems like nobody even knows the difference between these and in which contexts they are used and applied.
I can understand not being able to spell (ok, I lied - I actually don't) but please, I've seen resumes where (not WEAR) folks were (again, not WEAR) too lazy to even use "spell-check".
All of this, and you can't even find anyone to have a conversation with now that you've got no new book to absorb. And why is that, you ask?
Because they're all too busy texting each other with their ***ized english, shoddy spelling, and chat slang.
Go figure. I fear for the species, I really do.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say here is: I REALLY MISS BOOKS.
Rant: OFF.
Cheers.
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I feel the same way. I recall back in '04 when I visited Harry Allen's magic shop in Daytona Beach they had a huge inventory of books. They kept them in the back storage area of the shop due to space limitations and there were shelves filled with hardbacks, paperbacks, pamplets, lecture notes, etc.
When I visited them last year the books were now located in the back of the main room and they had dwindled down to only one shelf.
There is also a brick and mortar shop in a nearby town and their book selection is paltry to say the least.
Cardamagically,
Dom
We don't stop playing when we grow old...we grow old when we stop playing.
God is enough, let go, let God.
"Anything of value is not easily attained and those things which are easily attained are not of lasting value."
  
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Bill Palmer
Eternal Order
Only Jonathan Townsend has more than
23786 Posts
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Posted: Jan 14, 2011 2:08pm
This is an interesting thought and an interesting trend, but there is a factor that I don't think is being considered here. This is the relatively large amount of internet sales. When I translated The Cezanne Code, only a handful of the original 150 copies were sold via direct over the counter sales. The rest were sold by internet sales. Sheherazade was sold the same way for the first year, with the exception of a few OTC sales at Stevens Magic Emporium. The new Siegfried and Roy book is available only from the publisher.
Books also have a longer life than DVD's or videos. According to the Library of Congress, the maximum life of the DVD's they have tested is only about 20 years. There is no consistency of potential lifespan of a DVD based upon the price or the manufacturer. The lifespan is affected by the coating that the manufacturer uses to protect the programmed surface of the DVD. Granted, their destructive tests may not be accurate. But they are one of the few groups that actually test these things.
Even books that are not printed on acid-free paper last longer than that in many cases. For example, today I just got a copy of Barrows Mussey's Magic. It was printed in 1942. There is minor damage to the dust jacket, but it's still a perfectly viable book.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC
My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."
www.cupsandballsmuseum.com
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Clay Shevlin
Elite user
493 Posts
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Posted: Jan 14, 2011 10:40pm
Interesting subject and posts.
Are magic books really disappearing? Somewhere I read that more physical books are being published annually than ever before. Regarding magic books specifically, just in my areas of interest (biography, history and bibliography), I can say the same thing with a good degree of confidence – every year more books on these topics are being published than ever before. It's interesting that, in the past few decades, just as the digital age has matured and permeated our way of life, the number of magic books of this type has exploded.
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Father Photius
Grammar Host
El Paso, TX (Formerly Amarillo)
15701 Posts
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Posted: Jan 15, 2011 1:33am
I would agree that the cost of producing an e-book vs. the cost of a printed book certainly gives the edge in cost and production time to the e-book. Plus, since one does not need a publisher to both produce, market, and distribute the book, but can do it themselves, it certainly means a lot more texts can be made available. I've seen some excellent e-books out there, but to be honest, I find it very difficult to read off of a computer screen or a kindle and the like. It is much easier on my poor old eyes to read the hard copy book. I also don't have to put my hard copy book through a special screening when boarding an airplane, nor does the stewardess get aggrivated at me for reading it before the plane is in the air , nor during landing. I suppose, I have a preference for the old hard copy. After all, I have extensive personal libraries in psychology, theology, martial-arts, and magic. And yes it takes up a lot of space and is a pain when I move.
Each medium certainly has it's advantages and disadvantages. I've written three dissertations in my life, two were written when you had to use only hard copy material to use for research purposes. Waiting for inter-libray loan to come thorough. Trying to chase down a particular out of print text or periodical. The last dissertation was written in the modern internet age. While I still used a good deal of hard copy material, I have to admit the net certainly sped up my research time and made accessing a lot of texts much easier. But I also found a whole lot more usless garbage. Sites and web publications that were poorly documented (if documented at all), lots of virtually ficticious information, and many well intended but highly inaccurate sites.
In scanning the electronic medium for magic texts, I've found much of the same. Some excellent quality material that probably would have never been published if the author had to deal with all the hassles of getting their work into print and distributed, and a whole lot of junk and rip-off material. There is a huge amount of misinformation available on the net. (Not that the printed media is devoid of it. Anybody with the money can get a book into print.)
I still prefer books, it is hard to write little comments and notes into a Kindle or on my computer screen in some .pdf file. It does bring on extra eye strain to read from a computer. I do speed read, and to be honest it is much easier to do that with printed media than it is with electronic media. And as cumbersome as it can be with a huge stack of books around you and jumping back and forth between the various texts and chapters, there is something of a functional nature about it that I have not found with electronic media.
Who knows what the future holds. There are programs that will read the text to you. Maybe we will all become illiterate again and depend on the machine to read it to us, and to type it for us. Newspapers are rapidly becoming things of the past due to electronic media, and as much as I hate dealing with the left over papers and them piling up, I still find it much easier to browse and read a daily paper than to try to read the electronic version. Maybe I am a product of the dinosaur age I grew up in. I won't say there is no merit in electronic media, but I do prefer hard copy.
"Now here's the man with the 25 cent hands, that two bit magician..."
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Bill Palmer
Eternal Order
Only Jonathan Townsend has more than
23786 Posts
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Posted: Jan 15, 2011 4:54am
There are some terms that need to be clarified, I think.
1) Publisher. This doesn't necessarily have to be someone like Barnes and Noble. If you write and e-book, YOU are the publisher, unless you sell the right to publish to someone else.
This is as opposed to book manufacturer
2) Book manufacturer (also called in the trade, a bookmaker, not to be confused with a "bookie.") This is a company or person who provides the following services -
3) Printer -- not the doodad attached to your computer. This is a company that actually prints various kinds of publications. Also known as the press or the pressman. Usually the pressman is the person who operates a printing press.
4) Bookbinder -- this is the person or company that puts the cover or "case" on your book.
Usually a good book manufacturer can give you help with the common types of software that they prefer for you to use to set up your book.
If you want to figure out how much a book manufacturer knows about the business, ask them if they can provide Smyth cases. If you want to be a bit gentler with them, ask them if they can provide Smyth binding. This is the trade term for a book that is bound in signatures. If a book manufacturer doesn't know this term, then you don't want to deal with them, because they know less than you do.
I had Sheherazade and Final Curtain manufactured by Sheridan books. They do a lot of work for people like L&L. They have a staff that can help you through the whole process. They cost a little more than some other places, but they provide a really good, clean product, and they will "hold your hand" all the way through the process.
More and more books are being printed in China now. It is much cheaper to have a book printed in China, because their ecopolitical model encourages them to manufacture everything at prices that can't be touched in the US.
Print on demand is becoming more and more popular, and I can tell you from my own personal experience that Lulu.com is NOT the best place to get this done.
There are other things that you need to know about if you plan to sell your books. You need to know how to get them distributed. But magic is a very small section of the world, so it is much easier for us to reach one another than it is in some other businesses.
"The Swatter"
Founder of CODBAMMC
My Chickasaw name is "Throws Money at Cups."
www.cupsandballsmuseum.com
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