A Word On The Printed Word

There were people who thought print would die (books in general, actually), when TV went colour way back when. If I were alive in that day, I think I would have disagreed.

I make my living writing and most of my income, over 90%, comes from eBooks. As an independent it's been a fantastic vehicle. I can offer my work for free, cut out the middle man, and charge comparatively little for most of my titles.

Most of my eBooks are read on cellular phones, and to be honest I've only read one book on my cell, I found it confining. Now I use my iPod Touch, which I find is much better. It's still not quite an eBook reader though.

Soon we'll be seeing a rush of eBook readers, most of them will be cheaper, multi-function and feature real, COLOUR EPaper. That's where I think a lot of the resistance to eBooks and eBook readers comes from, the fact that most people haven't seen EPaper. It's not backlit, so it's easy on the eyes, the picture is very solid and the edges are nice and crisp. You don't get the feeling that you're looking at a moving picture, which is where a lot of the eyestrain people experience on non-EPaper reading devices. LCD isn't a great reading medium for books.

The arrival of colour EPaper and inexpensive readers does signal a broadening of the market, but I don't think the printed book will disappear forever. Publishers are foolishly entrenched in an old business model, where they end up losing money on eBooks, so they'll be resistant. Aside from that there will always be people who prefer turning dead tree pages, and I'm not putting them down. Without them the printed book would die in no time.

I think the printed word will be around for a long time, even if books are one day considered quaint and antique.

Why go on about print, you ask?

Well, after hearing from many readers who prefer print, I've released Spinward Fringe Fracture as a printed book on Lulu.com. You can take a look at it in my Lulu store.

RL