Ebooks are forever. Think about this sentence for a moment.
You write a novel, get it formatted, have a nice cover made up, get an ISBN,
and then download it onto Kindle, or Smashwords, or any of the hundreds of
ebook distributors, and poof, it’s available globally to anyone with an ereader.
Not only that, it will be available until the end of time. That means fifty
years from now if I want to show my great grandchild one of my books, all
they’ll have to do is type in the title and, poof again, there it will be. Talk
about immortalizing yourself for all eternity. Isn’t that what art is all
about? I’m very lucky to be living in an age where I can imprint myself to the
world and be remembered forever through my books. I do feel sad for all the
paperback writers throughout the last centuries whose hard work and effort only
got them a six-week shelf life for their masterpiece and then their book would
disappear forever, going out of print and into the paper shredder. With ebooks
I may still be getting royalties when I’m a hundred years old, I can write and
publish what I want and let the worldwide public decide if the book is good,
without being evaluated for the amount of profit the story might generate. My
novels won’t sit stacked on some shelf in the back of a dusty old bookstore (if
bookstores still exist in five years). They will always be fresh and ready for
download, ready to draw a new reader into my crazy, noir, eccentric, imaginary
worlds. It’s an incredibly comforting thought knowing my stories will be around
forever, like the myths of ancient Greece
It’s actually “upload” to Kindle or Smashwords, etc., from which your readers “download” the book to their device, but I quibble… and digress.
ReplyDeleteYes. It’s very cool, the whole idea of being able—continuously, for months, years—to tell people that you have a book available for them to read, and they can read it right then, that day, from their house, without having to go to a bookstore and try to find it, or having to make plans and wait in line at an author signing because after the signing is done the book won’t be at the store.
Yes. It’s a profound shift in the process of the dissemination of information.
And ain’t it great to be part of it?
It's exciting to be a part of it, for my own books, and for those of my late husband. Because of ebooks, I have been able to put a number of his books back in print not only in ebook format but also in print through Amazon Createspace. And I am in the process of re-publishing 2 more of his books, originally published in 1970. (and do they ever smell musty...and I don't like the smell of old books).
ReplyDeleteI love having control over our work, freedom to price our own books, choosing our cover designs, and also getting a decent royalty. (I love Amazon and Jeff Bezos!)