RARA-AVIS: Re: Kindles and e-books in general

From: Debbi Mack (demack5@comcast.net)
Date: 05 Nov 2009

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    To the person who asked if Kindles and other e-readers are a "guy thing," the answer's no. I've corresponded with several women who own Kindles, and they've told me they love them, because 1) they don't have to lug around a lot of print books when they travel and 2) if they have arthritis or some other dexterity problem, hitting the buttons on a Kindle is easier than holding and flipping the pages of a book.

    This is what I've been told, anyway.

    I actually ran into a young woman (in her 20s, maybe) at an airport who had a Kindle. She also raved about it. I told her about my book (since it's available for Kindle) and she downloaded it on the spot.

    On that subject, yes, I'm one of those terrible authors who has a previously out-of-print novel published as an e-book. The novel was first published by a small press in June 2005, but went out of print nine months later when the publisher went under. I've sold almost three times as many downloads since June 2 as print copies during the nine months it was first issued in print. So, I may be making small money, but it's still more money than I'd get just letting it sit on my hard drive. Plus, more people are reading my work than when my book was just in print--it's called exposure and that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.

    Finally, for authors with a track record, e-books can produce a pretty significant chunk of change (even priced low). If you don't believe me, check out Joe Konrath's blog on the subject at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ .

    Even Lee Goldberg is making his backlist available for Kindle. Check out his blog on this, too. He makes fun of the idea of becoming a Kindle millionaire, but I can't help noticing that he's been making more and more of his titles available as downloads.

    Best wishes, Debbi

    Debbi Mack IDENTITY CRISIS Published by Lulu http://www.lulu.com/content/3923913 Available as an e-book on Amazon, Scribd and Smashwords http://www.debbimack.com http://midlistlife.wordpress.com/

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