Do you remember when the ebook was the ugly stepsister to the print book? It seems that a fairy princess somewhere has waved her wand and changed the dynamics within the family. The stepsister has been ushered out of the dungeon. She is no longer kept sequestered. In fact, she has become a raving beauty. Sure, Cinderella’s slipper still doesn’t fit her, but no matter. There are now many styles of glass slippers being manufactured just for her.
A scant few years ago, even experts were asking, “Are ebooks here to stay?” With so many companies and forward-thinking individuals spending time and money inventing new types of ebooks and new fangled reading devices, it appears that the future of ebooks is clear. Even the major publishers are doing more than dabbling in ebooks now. One claims that twenty-two percent of their profits come from ebook sales.
Most Cinderella books (print) have an accompanying stepsister (ebook). As publishers and authors, we want to accommodate all readers and there are more of us since we have more reading options.
Should you publish an ebook or a print book? It probably doesn’t matter a whole lot as long as you understand that, no matter which route you take, you must promote it in order to sell it.
My book sales are up at amazon.com since the book festival. As I told you, I sold out of Publish Your Book and Promote Your Book at the LA Times Festival of Books. I handed out tons of promo pieces and the SPAWN Catalog with my books in it. I see that the popularity/sales for those books are way up since last week. So I thank all of you who went home from the festival and ordered the books.