Earthmen and Other Aliens

[DavidDvorkin]

The e-book revolution has me in its grip. I've put out my short story collection, Earthmen and Other Aliens, as an e-book:

http://www.dvorkin.com/earthoal/

[Poll_Blind]

1. Cool! What's the e-book revolution of which you speak, though?

Sorry, maybe I'm being dense. (?)

PB

[valerief]

2. It's the update to the d-book revolution, I believe. nt

[DavidDvorkin]

3. It's d++ revolution.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. It's an ongoing and accelerating change in how books are published and read

E-books or digital editions are books published in the form of electronic files instead of in printed form. They can be read on dedicated devices, such as Amazon's Kindle or Barnes and Noble's Nook, or on computers and smart phones.

The idea has been around for years, and mainstream publishers have been making their books available in that form as well as the printed form, but as an afterthought. E-books (increasingly spelled ebooks) appealed to a small number of people for a long time. In recent years, the number of e-books being sold has been increasing steadily, and the dedicated reading devices have been improving in quality, usability, and readability.

Suddenly, it's all taken off. E-book readers, such as the Kindle, were given in enormous numbers as gifts this Christmas. Within a short time, perhaps 2-3 years, more books will be sold as e-books than in printed form. In the not-too-distant future (10 years? 20?) "book" will mean "e-book". The printed form will be used for some specialty publications or expensive special editions of classics.

Part of the revolution is that individual authors can now easily publish their own books as e-books and have them be available on major sites, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Obviously, getting attention for one's book is as great a problem as always - maybe even greater, now that so many people are jumping into self-publishing e-books.

That's why I'm posting about it here. Er, I mean, to make everyone aware of the e-book revolution, of course!

[Poll_Blind]

5. Ah! Very cool! If you don't mind me asking, did you have to go through a publisher or...

...did you deal directly with the vendor- like Amazon or whatever?

PB

[DavidDvorkin]

7. Did it myself

I've been dealing with the traditional publishing world since the mid-70s, when my first novel was published. I've burned out them (and they seem to have burned on me, as well).

I'm doing all my e-books two ways:

1.) Through Smashwords, which handles the conversion from my Word file to the various e-book formats, distributes the e-book to the various online sites such as Barnes & Noble, and collects the money for me.

2.) Directly through Amazon. Smashwords does Amazon as well, but there's been a long delay in that because a contract dispute, so I decided not to wait and to do the Amazon part myself.

Some people prefer to do the conversion and uploading themselves for every online site, so that they can make sure that the e-book is optimally formatted for each type of e-book format. I'm too lazy for that. And I have too many more books to write; I want to be able to spend my time on that.

[H2O Man]

6. A close friend

was telling me about this. Very cool.

The title of the OP reminds me of my oldest brother, who refers to humans as "techno-chimps."

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Funny!

[hfojvt]

9. I sorta lost interest with the zombies

From the cool title I was expecting science fiction.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. It is science fiction

It's a collection of stories, mostly science fiction, some horror.

[Motown_Johnny]

11. I see your wife has a free e-book

Do you link to it or in some other way use it to promote sales of your book?


It couldn't hurt



Edit to add



Is there an easy way to buy it as a gift? I know someone who got a reader for Christmas.

[DavidDvorkin]

12. Hers isn't free

Maybe you're referring to the free e-book about breast-cancer thrivers, which includes her essay? We do link to that book on our Web site.

All our books cost $2.99 each.

Amazon now lets you give e-books as gifts, I think. It may be some sort of coupon.

[Motown_Johnny]

14. How We Became Breast Cancer Thrivers (a free e-book)

yes I was referring to that.

[DavidDvorkin]

13. You can give an Amazon e-book as a gift, it turns out

Here's an article about it:

http://technorati.com/technology/gadgets/article/give-new-amazon-kindle-ebooks-as/