Okay, so now we know where the e-book is going. Ever upward.
To have predicted that twelve years ago, when I had all my novels reversed from major publishers and launched all my writings in e-books and print-on-demand, was a no-brainer. People thought I was mad. No brownie points required. It was a slam-dunk. Publishers, authors, retailers, the whole kit and caboodle of the book industry were asleep at the switch.
Read more: The Coming Battle of E-Readers
Don’t believe all that hype about government interference that is designed to foster an Amazon monopoly of the ebook business. What the six major publishers were alleged to have done was collude in fixing prices that, if true, was a desperate act that they must have known would fall afoul of anti-trust laws.
The new ploy by book publishers is to characterize Amazon as a monopoly poised to take over and dictate terms and run rampant over those who create ebook content. That is like saying Starbucks is a monopoly because it currently dominates the coffee retail business.
Read more: Don’t Believe the E-Book Monopoly Ploy
The electronic punditry, with their technological, elitist mindset, is now making noises that the single-use e-readers like Kindle, Nook and the SONY Reader are merely stopgap devices that will one day merge into the tablet, offering immersion reading, like the novel requires, as merely one of a million other ways to gain “information” and fill leisure time.
They argue that a single-use device is inherently obsolete in the face of the multitasking onslaught of the tablet, which packages in one carry-around-gadget everything one needs for the fulfillment of most communication activities from video to gaming to record keeping, scheduling, shopping and most other entertainment and information requirements.
Read more: Will the Tablet Kill the Novel?
So, Amazon is to become the official publisher of its own books. It was, of course, bound to happen, too tempting to resist. After all, it does represent a large chunk of the retail book business and does operate its own production and distribution facilities both through its Kindle and print sites.
In effect, it now competes not only with its suppliers (meaning other publishers), large and small, but also with other authors, both traditionally published and a giant wave of self-published authors.
Read more: The Publishing Civil War
It was completely predictable that the e-book phenomenon would spawn various enhancements like video and music designed, according to their creators, to “enrich” the reading experience.
I suppose there are some readers who will welcome having their e-books enhanced by such accompaniments. Indeed, I have known many writers who compose their books while listening to music.
Read more: The E-Book Intrusion
While I have often patted myself on the back for recognizing more than fifteen years ago that e-books would one day surpass the printed book as the ultimate first choice of dedicated readers everywhere, I had not reckoned on the unintended consequences of an unfiltered tsunami of self-published books that would one day overtake the traditional distribution patterns of the publishing industry.
The number of self-published e-books has surpassed and will continue to surpass, by far, books published through the time-honored process of editing and distribution that has been the practice of publishing companies for centuries.
Read more: E-Books: Unintended Consequences
In another few weeks, I will be moving to another apartment in the same building in Manhattan where I have spent the past few years. While moving in itself is a traumatic event as everyone knows, my principal problem is books.
I have a huge collection of books. In the three or four major moves in my lifetime I have culled, boxed, given away and donated thousands of books. During each nesting experience, however, I have acquired yet more books and have repeated the culling process each time. I could never pass a bookstore without buying one or more books.
Read more: My Book Problem
If you are a reader of print books, the bankruptcy of Borders will have the impact of inconvenience, since the big box bookstores like Barnes and Noble largely carry the same books, you will simply toddle over to the Barnes and Noble store, which might or might not require a short ride or walk.
If you are addicted to best sellers, you will be able to pick up your favorite read at a Walmart or if a mass market paper book is your choice you’ll still be able to purchase it at your favorite drug store or supermarket.
Read more: What Happens Next for Authors and Publishers
Now that the skeptics in the publishing industry, the media, assorted prognosticators and self-proclaimed experts have finally realized that they had it all wrong about e-books, it is time to move to the next big idea affecting readers and authors.
Matching up the serious reader with his or her natural author mate?
How does one find their reading material of choice when the filters, meaning the old army of “experts” who once dominated the book pickers round table have been lost in the fog of the Internet. Let us confine this discussion to the realm of fiction, which, for obvious reasons is my abiding concern.
Read more: The Enigma of Matchmaking Between Author and Reader
It should now be obvious to anyone who reads books on a regular basis that digitized versions of books will dominate the marketplace for dedicated readers far sooner than anyone had predicted.
Having made the entry into digital publishing of my own works of fiction ten years ago, I have never lost faith in the idea that content was king no matter how it was delivered. Admittedly, the early days were a rocky road indeed. Many visionaries who believed in this technology in those early days have fallen by the wayside.
Read more: The Dedicated Reader is Alive and Well
One of the joys and curses of being an obsessive and compulsive writer of long form works of the imagination, meaning the novel, is the inability to cut off the flow. In other words the greedy muse must be served.
Most of my work is stand alone non-genre stories although I have among my published books written a six book mystery series about a female detective in Washington D.C. My stories are character and theme driven and deal with human conflict in mostly contemporary settings in some ways similar to The War of the Roses, and Random Hearts, which have been made into movies, and The Sunset Gang which became a trilogy on PBS.
Read more: Why I Released Five Novels Exclusively and Simultaneously on Kindle and Amazon
SEATTLE, Dec. 13, 2010 – Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that bestselling author Warren Adler has made five e-books, none of which have been previously published in any format, available in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). These books, all of which draw from Adler’s skill as a novelist and his keen insight into the nature of intimate human relationships, will also be available in print editions through CreateSpace. All five books in the series – “The David Embrace,” “Flanagan’s Dolls,” “The Womanizer,” “Residue” and “Empty Treasures”—are available for sale today for $7.95 with the e-books exclusive to the Kindle Store for two years.
New Kindle Exclusive: Bestselling Author Warren Adler Releases Five New E-Books Exclusively in the Kindle Store
New books by the author of “The War of the Roses” and “Random Hearts” available for Kindle and Kindle app customers in less than 60 seconds
SEATTLE, Dec. 13, 2010 – Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that bestselling author Warren Adler has made five e-books, none of which have been previously published in any format, available in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). These books, all of which draw from Adler’s skill as a novelist and his keen insight into the nature of intimate human relationships, will also be available in print editions through CreateSpace. All five books in the series – “The David Embrace,” “Flanagan’s Dolls,” “The Womanizer,” “Residue” and “Empty Treasures”—are available for sale today for $7.95 with the e-books exclusive to the Kindle Store for two years.…
This will probably be the last good Christmas for the big box bookstores like Barnes and Noble and Borders and many of the book chains that one encounters in major airports.
I say this with a sincere sense of regret and sadness. The love of books, both as a writer, a reader and a collector has dominated my life. As a young man my greatest joy was to browse through bookstores, especially those second hand bookstores that once lined the streets not far from New York University, my alma mater, where I now teach novel writing.
Read more: The Last Good Christmas
People’s Choice Voting is Closed.
Winners Get Published on Kindle and Amazon and Win Cash Prizes.
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Read more: 6th Annual Warren Adler Short Story Contest
I am a great fan of Apple products, own an Apple computer and an iPhone, but I am not yet convinced that the upcoming iPad will dominate as the reading device of choice for e-books. This does not mean that it won’t find its place for all the other applications, especially games and movies and the avalanche of coming iPad apps. Indeed, the technical aspects of the reading experience might even be somewhat superior, albeit temporary, to what is now available in reading devices exclusive to e-books e.g. Kindle and the SONY reader.
Read more: The iPad and the Dedicated Reader
Ten years ago, I digitized all of my then published novels and short story collections. There were twenty odd then. There are now thirty and counting. All had been published by mainstream traditional publishers and required getting rights reversals from all of them.
I had two motives in mind. I wanted to be sure my books never went out of print and was looking ahead beyond my lifetime to a reading public that I felt certain would exist in the eternity of cyberspace. It would be hugely immodest of me to claim that I was the first author in the world to do this, but I didn’t know any who had. Nor had I encountered any in the organizations I joined that were pounding the drums for content digitization.
Read more: Getting on the E-Book Bandwagon
