I’ve touched on this before, but I think it bears repeating. I have a few friends who say things like, “Oh, I don’t have a Kindle,” or “I don’t have an iPad,” or “You know, I just LIKE the feel of a real book in my hands. Why don’t you have your novels in hardcover? I’d love to read them, but….”
Okay. Here we go. In July for a week ANYONE can download a free copy of the first Jack Steven’s Adventure novel, “Tropical Knights” and it will cost them nothing. You can’t give away printed books to a lot of people, unless you are a millionaire.
Now, that same book, if it was published “on demand”(which is the cheapest way to get printed books out), would have to cost the buyer $14.95. And after the publisher and Amazon get their takes off the top, I would receive a little over $4.00.
And, of course, most book purchases now are eBooks. So why on earth would I, for a very limited audience, charge someone fifteen bux for a book they can get for $3.99 and we both come out better?
Really, it just doesn’t make economic sense to print publish anymore. Unless you want to impress your visitors with bookshelves full of all the great books you’ve probably never finished, why would you not own a Kindle? I can put a whole library of books on my Kindle, and change the type size to fit whatever condition my eyes are in at the time.
I prefer to have more readers at a lower price than to have fewer readers at a higher price just so they can hold paper in their hands. In a short number of years, ePublishing will be the only way to get books, with the exception of specialty or scientific books.
Yes, like you, I used to love to hang out in book stores. I liked the smell of old books and the feeling of just being around them. But times change, technology makes it easy to have more books at lower cost. That is not going to change, so you’d better join us in the twenty-first century and get that Kindle so you can start enjoying reading again.
johnbeckmanbooks 