And on to the, is an author an author if the author is only epubbed? Let me answer a question with a question. Is an author an author if they are never published? What if Toni Morrison never published The Bluest Eye, if Alice Walker never published The Color Purple or Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club? Would that make their work any less poignant, beautiful or real? No. The only difference is the world would be missing out on some of the most brilliant work known to mankind.

I know my way of thinking is considered by some kind of new age-y or whatever but to me the only person who can define me is me.

Both e and print is good.

I have read some wonderful e-pubbed authors. It took me a while to get into it but once I started I got hooked. I have them in my Adobe Reader on my laptop. Love the feel of books in my hands and if I really want to buy the book, I just click POD on the e-pub site. A week later I have the book in my hand. I have Talons Anthology from Samhain and the quality is spectacular. Since reading he book I have discovered some new authors and downloaded their e-books.

So, I guess the print book is an evil necessaity in the land of e-publishing. Otherwise I would have never found out about these authors.

I guess the biggestquestion that needs to be asked right now is how to get more people interested in e-books at a grassroots level.
Personally, I think it comes from good marketing and some e-pubs just know how to do it better than others.

For now I am doing my best to spread the gospel about e-books to librarians and education administrators in high schools and colleges. If you want to hook people you got to get them when they are young and tech savvy. Hey, if you think I ‘m nuts then you need look no further than Madison Ave and its push to grab kids’ attention.

Now if only we could get e-books onto i-pods then you’d have such a huge audience!

Well, good. I thought it was strange that they wouldn’t be offered that way. Maybe the publishers are getting a clue finally.

Generally, if I’m going to choose to read an ebook over a print book, then it better be pretty much as easy as opening the print book and flipping the pages.

You could use MS Lit, Converlit GUI and then read the resulting html file with ubook, but this requires more tech knowledge than the average bear wants to go through.

I’m shocked. My ebookwise I consider indestructible. Want me to send my ebookwise over to talk to yours and make it more…street tough? *G*

Man, that sound dirty.

It has several different reader programs on it – PDA, Word, maybe one other – but I was dismayed to learn it’s so old they no longer make the memory chips that fit in it. I wanted more ebooks and now I’ll have to cruelly delete some to make room.

Oh, I think paperbacks are real books, too :). I’d better, I’m in one.

I still like print books (remember the boxes in the office?) I will often buy some titles that I could buy in print at Fictionwise instead, but I still buy a lot of print books as well.

I also like to see my books in print. It is a great feeling to hold your book in your hand. It is nice to sign it, and my mom won’t read an ebook but she will a paperback. Not that I intend to give her a copy of Rogues given the male-male sex starting on page one of that book. (If you are going to do something, do it with flare, I like to say). But she’s read other of my Cricket books.

And my books in print make me money. As has been said, it is a different market and every additional market you can get makes you some money. Not as much per copy but everything helps. Last year about a third of my income was from print books, particularly of titles that had been in ebook the year before. In addition there are some of my titles that do much better in print than in ebook because the market for them is slightly different.

Add to that print readers who discover me in a print anthology then go online to purchase my electronic backlist and you can see why I like print. We have enough barriers to getting noticed by the readers in this world. Why eliminate a market just because it isn’t quite as profitable?

Cheers,
Janet Miller/Cricket Starr

Linnea’s books Games of Command, etc are offered in ebook at several sites. Ebook.com for one.

At any rate, I've found my all-purpose Treo to be a great device for reading ebooks

Melanie, I have a Treo. I’ve never used it for an ebook. What format do you use for yours?[/quote]

I’ve used both eReader pro and Mobipocket. Because I’m using the pro version of eReader, the features are comparable to Mobipocket. But, I have to say, I think I give the edge to Mobipocket. With eReader (pro), the two things it can do that the other doesn’t but I wish it did –
go to chapter (yes, I know – set a bookmark when you exit the book)display the time in the toolbar. When you tap the little clock, it also shows a battery gadget. On the other hand, Mobipocket has the following features that eReader pro doesn’t -
You can assign functions to the hard buttons. I use Opera mini for web browsing and it assigns page scrolling to the second and third hard buttons, so that’s sort of become second nature to me now for scrolling. You can rate the books you’ve read, if that’s important to you.You can assign a book to multiple “reading lists” and then filter on those listsBecause I mentioned the clock in the toolbar above, here I’ll mention you can put a battery gadget on the toolbar but no clock. All other features between the two seem somewhat comparable. All in all, I believe I prefer Mobipocket, especially when you consider Mobipocket is free while the version of eReader I’m comparing it to is the pro version.

That didn't make sense to me then and it doesn't make sense to me now. People who read ebooks are readers first and foremost. They are the same readers that shop in Barnes and Noble or Borders. IMO, what they're looking for is a good story whatever the format.

Yes.

And I’ll even go so far as to say they’re looking for a better story than they can find in print. Oh, I’m not talking about thing like editing and grammar and all that stuff there. I’ll leave those arguments of quality to the rest of you. ;) No, the better I’m talking about here is different and unique. Stuff that can’t always be found in print because the mainstream publishers can’t or won’t do it. At least not yet.

And I’m not simply talking about erotica. Lord, no.

Linnea Sinclair couldn’t get her science fiction romances published in print originally. Now she can. That’s what I’m talking about. Sometimes ebooks are a proving ground of what is better or maybe the word should be innovative storytelling. Which is a shame but there it is.

Which is why I don’t always want to pick up ebook copies of books by authors I regularly buy in print. Sure it would save me space in the long run, but I haven’t quite gotten to the point yet where that is an issue and I’m still struggling with the concept that I like having all the books by an author I like in the same format. That way I know where to look. At present I have a couple by Laurens in ebook and it bugs me to no end.

But what’s really weird and annoying is that now that someone like Sinclair is published in print, her books aren’t offered in electronic. Oye. You know, you would think publishers would get a clue about fanbases.

At any rate, I've found my all-purpose Treo to be a great device for reading ebooks

Melanie, I have a Treo. I’ve never used it for an ebook. What format do you use for yours?

Try Peggle. It replaced my Zuma addiction!