J.A. Konrath has an interesting blog post up about what he sees as the future of ebooks...

I... I just can't agree with his vision of the future. It seems that any writer I come in contact with who has some "great idea" of how to sell more ebooks is basically ALREADY a sucess in the paper publishing industry, so selling ebooks isn't their primary income. Instead they sell their ebooks to the customers who already know OF them and are basically buying ebooks to fill up the gaps in their paper collection. They're not necessarily taking a risk by buying an old friend.

So I think his numbers are rather... well, unrealistic. At least for all the new authors out there who will see this as a sign that ebooks are the way to go, rush to put their books out with Createspace up on Amazon and then wait for the money to roll in... which it most likely, won't.

I don't think ebooks will EVER be free. Not good ones, anyway. Yes, some ebooks are free out there, but usually it's for promotional purposes and the like, which has worked with me. I got the first books in the Miller's Kill series and Old Man's War from Tor, IIRC, and of course the freebies from Harlequin for their anniversary... but those have encouraged me to pay for the newest ones, in paper form along with the back issues, again, in paper form. I didn't get "Little Brother" because I'm not interested in left-wing silliness and I'm not impressed with Doctorow's belief that if he releases all of his books for free online, people will pay for them in paperback form. Why? Because he's ALREADY SUCCESSFUL and the sales are going to happen, one way or the other. I'd be more impressed if a publisher took a relative unknown and tried this experiment, not some author who already has a fan base and thus the sales are already going to be there.

I don't want ebooks to be free, frankly. Free doesn't mean good, as anyone who's spent a second reading fanfiction can tell you - and while it's hard to get people to pay anything for fiction I don't think that means chucking in the towel and giving it all away. I just can't resolve myself to that way of thinking. To me, it's giving into the pirates who are already stealing money from the hard-working authors.

Meanwhile, Konrath gets money from authors who want to advertise in the backs of his ebooks. Other established authors give away some works for free and screech about that's the way society is running while they sign off on contracts for paper editions that will sell way more than the ebooks, and spread their names further. And more self-pub authors race to put work up on Amazon that's not ready for primetime or worse, that could be really good reading in the hands of a good editor and publisher - but it's the race for the fast cash that'll be their undoing.

Man, I'm grumpy today.

:(

thoughts? comments?

Thanks to this article here (courtesy of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and if you're not reading their website, WHY AREN'T YOU?) I'm considering actually purchasing an ebook reader. Which is quite an accomplishment, since I said before that I wouldn't consider one until they put out color images since I tend to enjoy the covers as much as the actual book itself.

But... these are tempting. Also to the Wookie, who is considering one just to put his RPG's on for fast reference. Beats dragging either a laptop or the actual books around, really.

And... it's not Amazon.

*puts up hand*

No, I'm not anti-Amazon. Far from it, we've used them to find good sales on books that are either nearly out-of-print or so rare (as in, old) that we haven't got a hope in Hades of finding them elsewhere. But I've never felt comfortable considering the Kindle, for the same reason that I brought up when it first was released.

Not just the price. The wireless thang.

Recently there was a kerfluffle over the Amazon peeps deleting all copies of an Orwell book (yes, irony lives!) off of Kindles who had purchased the story. Seems that someone slipped a quick one past the Amazon geniuses and had uploaded an illegal copy, thus thwarting the Orwell estate that, you know, likes to get paid.

When Amazon found out, they refunded the money and deleted the copies. Way I see it, there was no way for them to win on this one - if they hadn't deleted the illegal copies they'd be getting sued by the estate. Right now they're "only" being sued by a student who lost all her notes on the story in question when the ebook was deleted. Again, can't win for trying.

BUT... this points out one major reason why I find myself edging towards the Sony.

It's NOT hooked to Amazon. I can download and upload stories from anywhere, any source.

Which means that NO ONE knows what I have on my ebook reader. I'm always astonished at the amount of spam I get from Amazon for items distantly connected to items I've ordered, and I'm not exactly comfortable with their database knowing every single ebook I've ordered. Because, then, I get more spam. And maybe, just maybe, I'm reading stuff that may not be mainstream or that I don't want the busybodies at Amazon to know about. Maybe I've got some smut erotica romance that I don't want them to know about. Do I really want to start getting emails for books I'm not interested in because I bought one copy of a Lauren Dane book? (READ her if you really want to push your frontiers, btw...)

I find it deliciously ironic that while people are screaming about libraries keeping copies of what books are checked out, they blissfully hand over their entire reading list to Amazon, without a concern, until something happens and suddenly it's a shock to their system.

Sony is probably going to get my business for that reason, among others.

And darn it, they're cute!

;)

Well, almost free...

Lyrical Press is celebrating their first year of operation with a FABOO giveaway - hit the blog here, leave a comment and possibly win a great ebook!

does it get better than that...

I.

think.

not!

:)

... not that it's even a chance of showing up under my tree, but I'm not interested at ALL in getting myself a Kindle. Yes, I know that thanks to Oprah showing hers off on her show that the hits to the Amazon site have gone up like crazy and everyone's taking advantage of the saving to pay "only" three hundred dollars *cough* for this ebook reader, but...

... not for me.

why?

well, there's the usual reasons I dislike what's on the market right now as far as ebook readers go - no color, no single format or you end up locked into their own format (Kindle especially!) and not very user-friendly as far as transferring the files I have now.

but the bigger one, and the one that I'm surprised more Americans aren't freaking out about - the record keeping.

Jeff B. pointed out on Oprah that Amazon not only will sell you the Kindle ebook of your choice but they also keep an archive of EVERY book you've ordered in case you lose the Kindle. So you can download them all over again for free.

sounds good, eh?

stop. Think. Think again.

as it is now I get plenty of spam from Amazon on what I purchase from them - toys, CD, books - the usual "If you like THIS then you'll love THIS" type of emails.

do I really, *really* want Amazon to know EVERYTHING I've downloaded onto my Kindle and am reading? The smut, the romance, the nonfiction, the magazines, the daily newspapers, the puzzle books, the audiobooks, the MP3's... you see where I'm going here.

I just find it ironic that while people are racing around condemning the government for tracking their library borrowing habits that they're blissfully handing over so much info to Amazon. Think about it.

meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the ebook reader under $100 that does color and has a user-friendly format. Hopefully I'll see it in my lifetime.

:(

 there's an interesting article here from Dear Author about Terry Goodkind moving to put his older books out through another publisher rather than Tor, the print publisher that he's always worked with.

while I'm not a fan of this particular author it does boggle the mind that Tor, who tossed me a truckload of free ebooks and started me on John Scalzi's excellent Old Man's War series, doesn't "do" ebooks. Sort of bass-ackwards, if you get my drift.

however, it does illustrate about how you either give the audience what they want or risk losing your control to ebook pirates.

:(