To E or Not to E

EBooks are taking over at Amazon.com. They consistently sell more eBooks than paper copies. Something like 20% of all their customers have Kindles, and that’s not counting all the Nooks, iPads, iPods and other readers people are buying. Some people even download eBooks to their smartphones, although I can’t imagine trying to read a book (or watch a movie) on a three inch screen.

EBooks are a boon to the forgettable masses of authors like me, who have insufficient talent, persistence or chutzpah to get the attention of an editor or agent. Publishing to Kindle is as painless a process as I can imagine, and a million or more authors agree with me. All you need is a manuscript, a cover and a tax number, and you’re in business. There are other formats which I’ll need to explore, as well.

EBooks are not the only avenue open to the unwashed ranks of the self-published. For years, the vanity press dominated the scene, exploiting anxious writers by extracting payments to print books no one would distribute or read. Many determined writers simply found willing printers to prepare a hundred or a thousand copies to languish in a basement. I did that with a textbook, while I was teaching. More recently, Xerox and other photocopier manufacturers have enabled Print on Demand (POD) which allows authors to offer hardcopy of books one at a time. “You order one, we’ll print one,” and off it goes. My dissertation was published in POD format. I’ve sold one copy.

The peril with all these self-publishing formats is publicity. If no one knows your book is available, it doesn’t matter how good it is, it will never get discovered. POD, bulk self-published books, vanity press and eBooks all suffer from obscurity.

My first two books, Red Crush and Safety Margin, were published by Agora International, an eBook publisher in Oxford, MI. When I signed the contract, I hoped they would give me access to public relations, press releases and distribution channels. In the end, none of that happened. I am just as much on my own as if I had gone directly to Amazon, and my sales reflect that sad fact.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m part of the problem. Obscurity is just as much an issue in the print side of the business, and authors need to take up the cudgel or their titles will languish as well. EBooks are just more difficult to flog. How can you have an eBook signing at your local library or Barnes and Noble? You can’t.

My final disappointment is that I love books too much. I love the look and feel of a hardcover tome in my lap. You cannot match the sensory experience, smelling ink and feeling nice paper as you turn the pages. This book-lust is far from universal. In America, good enough is good enough. Plenty of people are happy to load up their eBook readers and stroll off with a light step, unburdened by ten pounds worth of hardcovers.

More power to them.