I'm an eBook fan!

I have numerous bookshelves in my home, and I use spots (such as the ample space atop my kitchen cabinets) to store books as well. My children’s friends call our house “the library” which is a better label for it than “a messy house,” which is how hubby views it.

However, I do tend to let the paperbacks and hardcovers stack up, while I read all of the eBooks I can get onto my PDA. That is in part due to having it with me— I usually tuck my Palm into my purse, so wherever I am, I have those eBooks. Last week, I was at my doctor’s office for my annual physical, and they were just a bit behind, so the visit took up over two hours, and I spent quite a bit of that time reading. (Regs, by Nina Osier, a science fiction book which really made me say, “Wow!” and I don’t do that often.) The Palm had seventy seven titles on it the last time I looked, and most of those are novels, rather than short fiction. Try putting seventy paperbacks in your purse....

Yes, I have Marjorie Liu’s new paranormal romance in my TBR stack, but it was Osier’s book which got the nod, and that was due to it being in electronic format. I have a borrowed novelization of the life of Mary Magdalene which I do want to read as well, but it is large and heavy, so it is gathering dust. Instead, I just began reading a new Angela Verdenius eBook, which I had with me while I was waiting for my kids to emerge from school.

Some of my friends and relatives look at me as if I have lost my mind when I tell them that I prefer eBooks, but the truth is the number of unread titles on my Palm is fewer than five, and the number in my TBR stack on the shelves at my house is a tall stack (and it is growing). Actually, there are too many to put in one spot, but let’s just say that I have quite a few.

My friend, Malcolm Campbell, recently commented on eBooks as well, and he makes a case for them, but in a different way. Do take a look at his entry posted as Trick Falls.

Titles and Devices

Hopefully, some of you are interested in trying eBooks. First, how are you going to read an eBook? You’ll need a reading device, and I have experience with two of the top devices: a laptop computer and a PDA. My current computer is an iBook G4, which I’ve had for about 18 months. It replaced a 3 year old Ti Powerbook, so I’ve been in laptop land for a long time. At first, I downloaded books in html format, but with those page breaks and chapter breaks, along with much of the formatting, bite the dust. The thing I like best about this format is you can read fast, due to fairly large type and all you have to do is scroll. As I continued buying eBooks, I switched to Adobe pdf, which preserves much of the publisher’s formatting.

Several months ago, the Whiskey Creek Press author’s group had a thread going about eBook readers and PDA’s, which sounded better than a computer for reading. I did a bit of research and although the dedicated reader was interesting, I bought a “blemished” Palm Tungsten E, at Overstock.com, for $50.00 less than most other vendors were offering their closeouts. The Palm was a natural choice, since the software is Mac friendly, and it will do more than just display my books. The learning curve wasn’t that bad, and I have really enjoyed this device. I have downloaded some of my Adobe pdf titles to it, but I much prefer eReader or Mobipocket formats for reading on this PDA. Some of my older friends say, “How can you see that tiny thing?” but I haven’t had any problems with that aspect. Really, the screen is much brighter and more crisp than my son’s GameBoy. Of course, these same older friends live in a different time period— one where you write checks for small purchases at the local discount store, after driving up in a really long car with a big V-8 engine.

Not all titles I might want to read are available as eBooks, of course, but the selection of available titles is quite good, and the prices range from free to about what you’d pay for a hardcover at Amazon. I don’t buy those at the top end of the price range. The best freebies are found at Baen books. That publisher and many of their authors are forward thinking, and by offering free samples, they are enhancing their image as a publisher and increasing their sales of eBooks and print ones, too. Some Baen hardcover titles include a CD with other titles in eBook formats from the publisher for free. Fictionwise also has freebies, especially short fiction and samples. Another thing I love about Fictionwise is that they seem to like a sale as much as I do! Also, once you’ve purchased a book there, you can download it again, for no additional charge, even if you want a different format. I bought some books from the site in pdf for my laptop, and when I moved to the Palm, I downloaded my favorites again, as PalmDocs. Cool!

There are many sites which sell eBooks on the web, but my favorite ePublishers are Whiskey Creek Press, Wings ePress, and Baen, and I’ve bought books from their sites as well as at Fictionwise. If you can buy books at Amazon or Barnes and Noble online, then you shouldn’t have any trouble purchasing eBooks. If you’re reading this, you own a computer and are online, so you are on the way to sampling eBooks. Once you try them, I think you’ll find something to like.

eBooks, fad or future

A few years ago I bought my first laptop computer, and I purchased my first eBook shortly thereafter. The only reason for that purchase was that the book was out-of-print, and rather than spending time hunting for it through some of the used book sellers online, I could get what I wanted instantly, at the price of a mass market paperback. That book, an electronic version of a print book, didn’t suffer from either of the biggest problems I’ve encountered with books which are marketed as eBooks— that is, it was not rife with errors which should have been eliminated in the editing stage, and it wasn’t too brief to be called a book.

Once I had that positive experience, I bought a few other eBooks, but I only purchased electronic versions of books which had begun as print books. However, as an avid reader of online book reviews, I kept seeing reviews of books which were only available in electronic format. Eventually, I tried a few of those. Some were wonderful reads, but as I ventured on to more and more publishers, I ran into the previously mentioned problems— poor editing and an occasional novella sold as a full-length book.

Despite these issues, eBooks have a few advantages over their print cousins, but just a few. First, it’s easy to store a whole bunch of them on the hard drive of a computer, or in the flash memory of a PDA. Travelers find this especially helpful. By carrying their reading in electronic format, they can have far more to read and far less to carry. Better yet, when you are finished, you don’t have a big box to sell at a yard sale or donate to charity. Also helpful, but not universally true, is the fact that many eBooks are less expensive than their print counterparts. However, the main reason I began reading eBooks is the same one that keeps me coming back, and that is the generic nature of the titles which are available from the local bookstore. I might find ten futuristic romances at a bricks and mortar store, but I can find a hundred by checking my ever growing list eBook retailers.

There are some reasons that eBooks aren’t for all readers. I can’t imagine sitting at a desktop to read a whole book, so the reader needs a PDA, a laptop computer, or a dedicated eBook reader. Sometimes a print book is best, whether you’re sitting on the beach under the umbrella or in the bathtub. I’ll always want print media for certain times, but at other times I’m willing to sit inside with my laptop and read until the battery gives up. Thankfully, editing has been steadily improving, but I wonder “where’s the rest of it?” when I find I’ve paid for a book which has about 25,000 words— which is less than half the usual count for a full length novel. And this may seem petty, but I don’t like it when I download the book and don’t get a close-up look at the cover art. Some publishers send it along, but many do not, usually because including such graphics will slow the download process.

Although they often sell poorly in comparison with print books, eBooks are more than a fad. As the internet matures, online media will evolve to include music, video, and eBooks. Just as digital still photography and video cameras are beginning to merge, one day people will have a paid access to multimedia files, and eBooks will be one of the attractions. Until then, print will sell better, but books in electronic format will provide an avenue for new authors to strut their stuff to tech-savvy readers. Many of these books provide readers with what they want, something different. And different can be better— a lot better.

My answer to the title question is simple, "Both!"

There are many eBook vendors, but I’ve bought multiple volumes from the sites below. If you’ve never seen any electronic books for sale, check out these publishers and vendors—

http://www.wings-press.com/
http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/
http://www.fictionwise.com