This Shoal of Space
(World's First E-Book Ever Published Online For Digital Download)
a dark science-fiction novel
by John Argo
Preface
Chapter 1
Intralog
Part I-Chapter 2
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Part II-Chapter 66
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Outlog
World's First E-Book
Setting the Record Straight
Main Page—Introduction
Empire of Time. This Shoal of Space by John Argo (first released by The Haunted Village/Clocktower Fiction in 1996-97 in weekly serial chapters) has always been part of the future history the author has been writing for over fifty years: Empire of Time, now coming into fruition; stay tuned to Clocktower Books for more information and stories.
First E-Book—You Are Reading It. Clocktower Books managed several pioneering firsts and some close seconds/thirds in the world history of digital publishing. For several reasons, this was never duly recorded. A major reason was the fear and loathing of the print industry, and the initial refusal of academics, reviewers, news media, etc., to acknowledge that a digital book was "real." Honest! We were told in the late 1990s by the Library of Congress that we could not register copyright on our published books, because "nobody knew" if they were "real" books. Instead, we were offered the opportunity to register as unpublished manuscripts. Print on Demand (POD) in its current incarnation did not yet exist, although it was an obscure printing industry term associated with the somewhat better known (fairly trivial; non-controversial) concept of short runs in offset press technology.
Clocktower Books: Early Digital Publisher Online. Two other publishers were online, publishing book-length digital texts before us. To the best of our knowledge, one survives (Boson Books), dating to 1994 or 1995, some months or a year before our start.
Early VR Novel and First Serial Chapters for Download. There are at least two other noteworthy, historical facts about this novel. (1) It was an early virtual reality (VR) novel, long before The Matrix and Dark City. Part of the VR premise may have been a first: networked microcomputers, as PCs were known before they were PCs. (2) We pioneered the use of weekly serial chapters for downloads, which gave readers something to look forward to each Monday morning at work or whatever (one lady at an office in Joburg, South Africa was especially charming in her kind commments). We offered the option, which was often taken, of downloading the entire novel if the reader somewhere on the globe could not wait to read the ending. It was a lot of fun.
For the record, we also recall early digital download short stories being published at Planet Magazine by Andy McCann, starting about 1993. There may have been someone offering public domain books, but for the most part this type of digital publishing was confined to CD-ROM and similar portable media that could be located or ordered online. Amazon dot com started shortly before we did, but they offered printed books in an online catalog format; they did not begin publishing e-books until long after we did. Without going into a history of the earth, Clocktower Books was the first publisher in history to publish online full-length, proprietary (not public domain) novels for download on the World Wide Web (thus, the Internet). A third e-book, Pioneers, followed in 1997.
Readers, Kudos, Thanks Around The World. We came before e-commerce, so the download was free. Readers from around the world wrote to compliment us on our pioneering website and content. At a time when this was all new, readers expressed genuine gratitude for the free reads as well. It was a relatively pristine world before hackers, phishers, and other trolls arrived to make life miserable for everyone, so there was a far greater trust element and wow factor before we all became paranoid about viruses and worms. When e-commerce and e-book publishing caught up with us (e.g., 1999, Nuvomedia Rocket eBook, early B&N site 2000-2002, Fictionwise 2001-2012) these same novels were bestsellers online. We seemed to stay stuck in the early mode of being outsiders and heretics, and we never did have the savvy or oysters to be any good a self-promotion, so we are now (2013) playing catch-up. Honestly, it is at its core art for art's sake, and we're still innovating today—and having great fun with our passion.
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Copyright © 1990-2013 by John Argo, John T. Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
