“Amy Winslow isn’t looking for a mystery, and she doesn’t even like secrets. In fact, secrets have nearly destroyed her life. But when her brother’s accident forces her to take over a mysterious California lighthouse in his place, Amy finds herself immersed in its shocking past and uncertain future.

“Case McKenna hasn’t quite reconciled his own painful history when he sails his crippled boat into Newburg Harbor. Despite an overwhelming urge to flee, Case follows intrigue and passion, as he too is drawn in by Point Surrender…”

So goes the blurb for my lastest novel, POINT SURRENDER. As you can gather from the copy, there’s a lighthouse, and two people who may or may not be destined to uncover its long-held secrets. PS is the first in a trilogy of lighthouse-mystery-romantic-ghostly books with a broad appeal.

As much as I love ebooks and advocate them at every turn, I am hesitant to accept my publisher’s challenge that I can sell 100 copies within 30 days. She’s even making it easier this week, by offering 25% off any ebook that retails for over $3.00. Read about it here. I think that makes it around $4.50, which is a super price for any full-length novel, and especially for mine. $12.95 in paperback, mind you. CLICK TO BUY!

So how do I go about selling 100 more ebooks? Offer autographed cover flats? (Yes.) Run a contest? (Nah.) Beg? (Why not.)

If you buy it from Echelon, you can get it in PDF or HTML, readable in any computer and most hand-helds (including your iPhone.) If you need it in another format, check out Fictionwise (where it is not on sale but is still only $5.25, and is available in MS Reader, Kindle, Mobipocket, eReader, Sony Reader and others.

I hope you choose to help me out. Prove to me that it can be done!

There is a lot to write about with regard to digitally formatted books. Right now, my focus is on how to sell more of them. I buy almost exclusively ebooks myself, most of them from on-line bookseller Fictionwise. And no, I don’t read them on my computer. I have a small PDA (”Personal Data Assistant”) device — you may recognize the pioneer name “Palm Pilot” — that I download books onto and read at night in bed. I love it, and now have difficulty changing back to paper books on occasion. Since I read in bed, paper books don’t work because they require light, space and they make noise. Not to mention that they take up space on the shelf when they should still be standing in the forest. But that’s another issue.

By now, you’ve probably heard of the Kindle, Amazon’s offering in the digital book arena. Two of my friends own them and I must say, they are pretty nice. Kindles, along with their nearest competitor, the Sony Reader Digital Book, work for a variety of different scenarios. However, as they both utilize the revolutionary “eInk”, they don’t light up at night, and they don’t display in color.

Nonetheless, either of these (and several other) ereaders work  just fine for the reading of any of my seven available ebooks. Fictionwise, in fact, makes my titles available in no less than thirteen different formats for different readers. Prices range from 85 cents to $5.95 for my latest, full-length romantic mystery, POINT SURRENDER. Is that a bargain, or what? The paperback sells for $12.95 plus shipping. The savings is about $8.50, and it wouldn’t take too long to make back the price of the ereader, would it?

I believe that once the price on the ereader comes down to under $100, we will start to see greater momentum on the ebook front. The fact that California, Texas and other states are experimenting with digital textbooks is a good sign.

I’d like to know what others think. Others who are still on the fence, or starting to think more about going green with ebooks. What would make you switch?