DECEMBER 22, 2000 VOL. 26 NO. 50 | SEARCH ASIAWEEK

Munshi Ahmed for Asiaweek. Now an online author, Lim had never used a computer before August.

The Day Books Become Quaint
It's not here yet. But when Catherine Lim is the newest e-author, the possibility is real
By MARIA CHENG Hong Kong

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Catherine Lim is an unlikely Asian pioneer in a struggling new branch of Internet content: e-books. The 58-year-old Singaporean author, a self-confessed technophobe, has written dozens of short stories and 16 novels — all in longhand — over a two-decade career. Until August, she had never even used a computer. That changed when Lim signed with well-known portal Lycos Asia to write a web-exclusive novella and 30 to 40 short stories. "They really thought I should have a computer," she says. Lim agreed, but only on condition that the offending appliance be in aesthetic harmony with her home. "They had someone come over to my home to see what would fit in," she says. An indigo-colored iMac was chosen. "Luckily, it matches my furnishings."

Color coordination may be the least of Lim's worries. That's because she has embarked on a project that seems to have a much greater chance of failure than success. Even though several dedicated Internet appliances are being designed and built specifically to make e-books attractive to consumers, the broad reading public has yet to be convinced. Andersen Consulting predicts the global market for e-books will be $2.3 billion by 2005. It's difficult to find the reason for such optimism. After all, no less an author than Stephen King prominently failed to make his e-book succeed. King said two weeks ago that he was abandoning The Plant, a book being written and distributed monthly over the Internet starting from July, after six installments. His basic problem: a shortage of paying customers.

That's not stopping Lim and Lycos, although they have altered the way they've constructed their pitch in hopes of avoiding some of King's mistakes. King began by making the book available on the honor system, asking people to pony up $1 per download of a chapter, which he planned to produce monthly. But after a promising start in which 120,000 people clamored for the first installment, only 40,000 downloads were registered after November's chapter. On top of that, King says only 46% of downloads were being paid for, well below his stated minimum threshold of 75%. Lim's novella, called A Leap of Love, is 22 chapters long and began running Nov. 28. It will be available two chapters at a time every two days. After that, previously unpublished short stories will be posted at the rate of two or three every other day. The accelerated timetable answers critics who said King's offering was being dribbled out too slowly to maintain interest. But the biggest change from King has to do with payment: Lim is requiring readers to pay 38 cents before getting the download. Lycos, which makes the book available through the main page of its shop.lycosasia.com portal, clearly hopes Lim's readers will browse for other purchases.

"We want to create a sense of excitement in online reading," says Lynn Chow, director of the Lycos portal. The novella is the story of "young love tempting fate," according to Lycos's promotional material. And the method of release is meant to enhance the sense of drama: "By releasing the story bit by bit, we hope that people will get caught up and keep coming back," says Chow. She defends the fact that there were only about 1,000 downloads in the first two weeks of the story: "This novella is a new Web experience for Asians." She adds that the project intends to target audiences that don't traditionally read books. "People will get the feeling that they are downloading stories that were written just days before."

Asking Lim to put away her pen and paper in favor of a computer is one thing, but asking her to produce under tight deadlines is something entirely different — and unacceptable to the author. "I insisted that they couldn't start posting chapters until I had finished the entire novella," says Lim, who is now writing the last of the short stories. "It was such a daunting enterprise that I didn't want to be pressured with a deadline every other day." The 22-chapter novella ultimately took Lim about a month to complete, sans editorial interference. "They gave me complete freedom," she says, "I determined what went into the story, down to every last comma."

Once the schedule was established, Lim's foray into e-publishing has been smooth — and the freedom exhilarating: "I'm allowed to push the bounds of creativity as far as I like without having to worry about what my publisher thinks." Her print publisher, Lim explains, wouldn't exactly be thrilled about giving her so much freedom to indulge in social commentary and philosophically inspired stories. But as an e-author she answers to no one but herself. "On the Web, I can experiment with writing any way I want." In practice, she says, that means keeping her idiosyncratic style and the local Singaporean color that usually gets cut out in a commercialized attempt to attract a broader audience.

Still, Lim isn't ready to abandon the traditional publishing industry just yet. "I'm not sure how many new readers we will attract," she admits. Ironically, Lim says she wouldn't dream of trading in her own favorite tomes for e-book versions: "There's just something romantic about having an actual book in your hands. Curling up next to your computer for a good read just isn't the same."

These are words that will cheer traditional publishers. King says he will return to his book, The Plant, sometime down the road, but not necessarily online. In fact, given King's failure and the still relatively limited demand for e-book hardware, print publishers may be feeling like winners. They mustn't get too smug. History is full of examples in which new products — the automobile, the television — weren't at first recognized as the life-altering advances they proved to be. How long will it be before a soft, pliable computer screen combines with lightning fast downloads and huge advances in computer memory to make carrying a library on a chip second-nature? Soon enough, but Lim still has time to write a few more novels. Her part of the process, for now at least, seems secure.

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