Seize the day!

          Ebooks have surpassed regular books in sales for the first time ever! What does that mean to the 21st century writer? It means that the future of publishing is here! It means that the stigma of reading ebooks has passed. It means a world-wide audience can download a book in seconds. It also means we will probably soon be seeing the end of traditional bookstores.

          Though it has been a lifelong dream of mine to see the cover of one of my books prominently displayed on a Barnes and Noble new release shelf, I’ll gladly trade that dream for achieving thousands of sales across the globe (which I have accomplished in the last two years). However, there are some artistic drawbacks to this new digital revolution. The most significant I believe is that an author cannot sign a hardcopy of his book and personalize it for a fan.

          Book signings of hard copies and author appearances may eventually disappear altogether. Author headshots on the back cover and biographical information have been easily replaced by author pages and social media pages. Authors will become recognizable faces and readers will know daily what the writer is up too, what new drafts they’re working on and so on.

          I once considered myself an introvert and dreaded the one-on-one marketing and promotion it used to take to sell a book, I now welcome and embrace readers wanting to know more about me. I happily spend hours each morning personally answering all email and loving it.

          Ebooks are the future of reading entertainment and I am excited to be a part of this new author revolution in publishing. It inspires me to write “outside the box” and create characters and storylines far from the mainstream without fear of what a publisher would think is WORTHY of being given a chance to show the public. It allows me to be more creative in ways that were never acceptable before.

          Without ebooks and the new acceptance of indie writers, 15,000 of my books that have so far been downloaded would never have gotten into the hands of readers. Write whatever kind of story you want, get a good editor, get a good cover artist, and publish away. Let the public decide if you’ve got talent, not some corporate necktie-wearer who’s more worried about making his sales numbers than the story you’ve got to tell.