Is e-publishing the future?

Jay Mandal

Jay Mandal

The latest poll: Is e-publishing the future?
When Amazon was giving details of e-books, it looked like people would buy the e-book, and then go on to buy the paperback. At the moment, though, e-reading is difficult - sitting at your computer is not ideal, and e-readers are still expensive. But e-books would be great for schools instead of textbooks.

Butterfly

Not sure if e-books would be good for schools. You'd need each child to have a computer screen all day. As they get through many e-books each day. Normally only one computer suite if they are lucky. I can see it might work on an interactive white board in each class room, but all children read at different rates, so this might be difficult also. No I think schools need textbooks.

Carol

There's just something so satisfying about holding a book, turning the pages, the feel of the paper. Know what I mean.
I'm sure e-books will have a place, but is it the future? For me...no.

Jay Mandal

Children would each have their own e-reader, each e-reader holding all their textbooks.

Jay Mandal

See also Writers & Readers - electronic readers; and Writing Queries - The future is print-on-demand.

writeman

In January, my debut novel will have been out a year as a paperback and becomes available as an e-book.  I will be following this with interest to see whether e-books are indeed the way forward.  My publisher seems to think it will be because they are cheaper than paperbacks and can be instantly downloaded without postage costs or to wait for it to be delivered.

Jay Mandal

A quote (OK, a plug!) from Flick re my e-book:

Right Jay, read it last night.It's lovely. A heart felt tale of love and what it really means and how it can be won and lost and won. I really enjoyed it. You have a very gentle style of writing that suited the storyline perfectly. Well worth the £1 and as it was my first e book, I was interested to see how I felt about that too. Not so nice as holding the paperback in my hand but perfectly acceptable as a format. It probably helped that it wasn't too long a story but I'd certainly buy an e book again!

Verica

e-books certainly have their place, but not in schools.  Children nowadays have their eyes glued on televisions, computer games, etc, too much anyway, but the love of books ought to be fostered.  Maybe where foreign language learning is concerned, as they already learn these in language labs.

Verica

e-books certainly have their place, but not in schools.  Children nowadays have their eyes glued to televisions, computer games, etc, too much anyway, but the love of books ought to be fostered; maybe where foreign language learning is concerned, as they already learn these in language labs.  (I've just realised that the above had two errors, so I've corrected them.  Sorry.

Jo Linsdell

I've personally published several ebooks and find that they sell better than my in print versions. It's for this reason that I'm concentrating on writing more ebooks at the moment. They might turn into paperbacks later down the line but for now I'm happy selling them in e-form. I'm not sure why my ebooks sell better. It might be because they cost so little (on average 1-2 euro a book) and therefore people are more willing to risk it.
I originally choose to do an ebook because there was no cost involved in producing it. It meant I could get my work out there without having to risk losing money if it didn't sell.
For me the future (or at least the near future) is ebooks.

Flick

i think it is the future. With the ever increasing numbers of e-publishers out there, there has never been a better time for budding authors to make their work available to a wider audience. Yes, we'd all love the deal with Penguin or Headline, but for the vast majority it is never going to happen.

Jay Mandal

I've just checked, and I sold 82 e-books during the last year.

Tessa Txx

It's 50/50 for me... nice points and debate though.
Tessa xx (had to re-sign owing to new ISP probs)

Tessa Txx

Still, I did vote "yes"!  We ancient people have to move with the times...

Jay Mandal

I'm not sure why, but Amazon have stopped selling e-book versions of books (other than their own, I think). They certainly used to sell them, and I'm not sure what impact this is having on sales of e-books generally, although the assumption is that e-book sales will decrease - but will sales of paperbacks increase?

Kangaroo

I don't think I could totally convert to e-books. I do read the first chapters of books online, to see if I would like to buy the book.

Jay Mandal

The e-book is already here, at least on a trial basis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6240000/newsid_6248600/6248667.stm