E-Books? !
Now less that five years after the first electronic readers were introduced, we hear of a marketplace revolution: books are available without printing, paper, or ink!
True, the nay-sayers are numerous and credible ("I want to hold a normal book the normal way, especially outside or at the beach."). And some have questioned if all the "downloads" of ebooks are going to be read. But remember that Marshall McLuhan argued that a large portion of traditional books were bought but never read. Surely a large number of downloaded ebooks reflect new owners of e-readers who are loading up on their favorites, the classics, or the free electronic texts. But take a flight and you'll see as many as half the people who read in route, using some electronic device.
For writers, this is good news. The decline of traditional bookstores is bad news but the e-readers are good evidence people still find something to read. In addition, the best publishers are now comfortable to add more titles--even in electronic format--since the investment risk is less. Tyndale House in the Christian market has launched "Digital First," a platform for electronic books that may never go the paper route. "Fiction is the hottest category in the e-book marketplace," says Lisa Jackson, associate publisher. "Our challenge is that we can see more publish-worthy novels than we can reasonably publish in a year. This initiative gives us a way to say yes to books that deserve an opportunity . . ." We can be sure that highly successful e-books will also enjoy a print incarnation even if some people will look on e-books as mere trial balloons or the minor leagues.
Writers with a finished and polished manuscript which they cannot find publishers to take on in any format, may be considering doing the e-book process themselves. Numerous services and platforms offer to handle that task, similar to the self-publishing or subsidy publishing market. The Wall Street Journal (April 21, 2011) reports one successful mystery writer, John Locke of Louisville, KY, who has priced his spy novels at 99 cents, selling through Amazon, B & N, and Kobo at the amazing number of 75,000 in January 2011 and 369,000 for the month of March 2011. He has a following and is making good money. But . . .
This has to be the best of the best case scenarios for one writer. Browsing the internet for e-books quickly reveals that the quality is all over the map and quite a bit is not worth the electrons that light up your iPad, even if free or 99 cents. The writer mentioned in the previous paragraph has some good content going for him and lots of word of mouth.
The Writer's Edge has seen hundreds of good books come through our approval process which never enjoy publication. We are disappointed, like the writers, that the world has not found ready access to the content we clearly see. The e-book opportunity makes possible the readership those books deserve. We hope we can participate in the formatting, visibility, and even sale of e-books in the future. Meantime, we also hope the publishers we serve will regard our evaluation screening as another good method for finding books worthy of any format they make available.
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