Ebook "Undo": A Novel

As nearly as I can remember, I began writing this novel in the summer of '88, after leaving my job at Apple Computer, Inc., where I worked for almost four years for former Apple chairman John Sculley, as his personal technology advisor. It was a neat job title and a lot of fun, but somewhere in there I decided I wanted to become a novelist. Eight years and two title-changes later, the first novel that I set out to write, known these days as "Undo," is finally available to readers in this special electronic edition, free of charge.

Electronic books, or e-texts, have been available for some time now so this is hardly groundbreaking news. Or is it? For me, it's a pretty big deal. Primarily because the electronic books that are available to download from the Internet, the World Wide Web, and online services such as CompuServe and America Online, were published previously in hardback or paperback editions, or both. Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier," for example, was first published in hardback by Bantam in 1992, then in 1993 in paperback, also by Bantam. Sterling wisely retained the electronic rights to his book so that he may - electronically speaking - do as he pleases with his work. To the best of my knowledge, Sterling is the first author to give away his published, in-print book for free on the Net.

I don't know how many people who download e-books actually read them from cover-to-cover, though I suspect the number is rather low. Mainly because the medium isn't as easy on the eyes as traditional paper-based books. I would bet that most people who download e-books - and I'm talking about novels, vs. reference works - browse them part of the way, then delete them from their computer or PDA. As for works of non-fiction, such as Sterling's book, or the enormously serviceable "Elements of Style" (which has recently appeared in e-book format), readers refer to these works on a need-to-know basis. But novels, they're another story. A novel is something you curl up with and, if it's a good one, lose yourself in, much the way Alice found herself getting lost in that fantastic looking glass. Perhaps the valuable thing about publishing a novel as an e-text is that it gives readers a taste for the story and for the author's style, so that the reader can then go out and purchase the published edition if they want to.

But let's get back to "Undo," and why making it available for free in this electronic book version is so important to me. The reason is simple: I want people to read it, and this is - so far, anyway - the only way to make that happen. For, despite the hard-fought efforts of not one, not two, but three very reputable literary agents, the book, unlike Mr. Sterling's works, has not found a trade publisher it can call home.