It’s Not Easy Being Green

This is about electronic books, or “ebooks” as they’ve come to be known. I’ve had books available in this format for ten years now. For ten years, I’ve been waiting for this manner of reading to come into its own. It’s getting closer, just not there yet.

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?