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| "eBooks!" |
Here I am mostly abed, racked by alternating fevers and chilling.At times I approach the grand heights of delirium as my mind goes gah gah.
And I sleep. I fall in and out of slumber.
My diagnosis is that I am infected with a little something.
My prescription: bedrest and ebookery.
Ah what joys is it to have in your weak little hand (I need deploy but one to hold all my literature aloft) 100 plus books. It's like balancing a whole library on the tip of a finger.
(It isn't like that/it is that!)
And when I'm bored with author A I quickly jump to author B by letting my fingers do the jumping.
My bedridden state -- from which I have taken a quick respite only to drink tea, suck on an orange and upload my wisdom -- has confirmed so much what I love about the ebook universe. An ebook reader is another Little Red Book -- all you need to get you through the day and claim your share in the Cultural Revolution.
It's like The Bible or The Koran but designed for those who prefer to customize their own holy writ. Many more stories too.
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| eBook Reader Sales have taken off. |
That's not to say there aren't problems with ebooks. Price fixing is an issue. DRM protection is a major technical handicap making access for some texts cumbersome. Publishers also pass off pdf files as ebooks when we all know reading pdf on screen -- esp 6 inch screens -- sucks...
But ebook readers have taken off and since they have garnered space in the hands of so many -- sales reached 12.8 million in the US for 2010 -- the trend is a burgeoning one.
But I pity the poor biblioholic: there's hardly much fetish to be wrung from a wee ereader. There's no smell. No bookworms. No floor to ceiling bookcase. No paper. Nothing to dog leaf.
If you are like me most of your library of ebooks will cost you zilch. I likem my books free. And from the comfort of my computer I can collect books from libraries and freebee sites without sharing -- let alone using --my credit card details.
I also know that it is so easy to self publish ebooks. Anyone can do it alone and unassisted -- so that would-be authors become 'published authors' as soon as the upload is out there. And, in the main, when you buy the self published product at least 80 percent of the money goes directly to the author. All of it if they've published solo.
I keep telling my associates who publish stuff in hard copy to minuscule markets -- that ebookery is the way to go. Maybe now and then they'll try to pass off a bit of pdf as an online share -- but unless you are flogging comics or manuals, text does better as epub -- the standard ereader file format.
Text really takes off as epub.
