During the last year I have been collaborating with several fellow authors on distinct projects unrelated to my own novels. One of these collaborations, which has been fun from the first day, is with Amy Joy and the Indie Writer's Network.
Amy is a very talented writer whose debut novel, 'The Academie', was a Quarterfinalist for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I have been chasing her for a while to contribute a guest post (she's a very busy lady) and it's with great pleasure I present to you my guest blogger this month:
Amy is a very talented writer whose debut novel, 'The Academie', was a Quarterfinalist for the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I have been chasing her for a while to contribute a guest post (she's a very busy lady) and it's with great pleasure I present to you my guest blogger this month:
Amy Joy
The
Rise of Digital Books
With the rise of e-readers and tablets,
countless articles have been written speculating on future of our beloved books.
A lover of technology, when I entered the world of indie publishing a year and
a half ago, I had already embraced the e-reader even though I had yet to own
one. The idea of being able carry my entire library around with me simply
appealed to my nerdy self in a way print couldn’t. Usually I’m a
sentimentalist, but not this time. (The smell and feel of books? Have you
checked out a library book lately?) I was ready to empty my many bookcases and
many more boxes of books that never found a home on a shelf, replace them with
ebook versions, and take them with me everywhere.
But while I was on board, it seemed the
cyber-commentators (often sentimentalists and others with a stake in the
traditional publishing industry) were in denial. The refrain at the time was
that most e-reader owners were in fact hybrid readers. This, they believed, was
due to the fact that ebook readers still loved both mediums—print and digital,
and they weren’t ready to give up one at the expense of the other. However,
what they didn’t take into account was the fact that a great many books simply
weren’t available as ebooks yet, forcing those who might have bought all their
books digitally to continue to buy many in print or go without. Half a year
later, I found this out for myself when I bought my first Kindle and tried to
load it with all my favorite titles—most of which have still not been released
digitally, even a year later.
But some things have changed in that year.
Ebooks have now outsold hardcover, and people are talking less about whether
ebooks will overtake print, and more about the grim outlook for big box bookstores.
While the sentimentalist in me will
miss browsing the titles, grabbing a stack to peruse in a café while enjoying a
cup of coffee, and trying to justify why I simply can’t live without buying
them all, another part of me enjoys just as much staying up late using the internet
connection on my e-reader to explore new titles and discover old favorites that
just went digital.
Eight bags of books now sit in my
basement, ready to be donated to my local book re-seller. For me, you just
can’t beat the library that travels with you and requires no shelf space. And
my digital library books never smell funky or stick to my fingers.
*
Amy Joy teaches college composition,
is
the co-founder of The Indie Writer’s Network (http://indiewritenet.com ),
and bestselling author of the young adult sci fi thriller,
< [ click on the book for the Amazon link ]
When she's not teaching, managing a bunch of unruly writers on the Network, or writing great novels, you can find her on Facebook at http://facebook.com/theacademieseries or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/amyjoywriter.
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