I buy ebooks now that I have a Kindle. Indeed, I bought your last book in ebook format. I would probably pay $10.

I'm a gal who prefers so-called "dead tree" books because they don't give me migraines from staring at an electronic screen, so please pardon my ignorance. How much do e-books cost? In the long run, would relying on eBooks be more expensive (doesn't all that electricity cost money, or at least batteries?). Would carrying an eBook around with me be as convenient as slipping a paperback into my pocketbook? Please enlighten this near-Luddite! :-)

Haven't invested in a Kindle or an iPad yet, but your book would give me a great reason to get started with it. Considering that it sounds like a sort of a reference book, a clickable index would be a nice addition. I'm with Astra; the $10 bracket seems about right, considering that a hardcover of that many pages would probably retail at about $25.

And to Dorian: Consider the electricity and other forms of energy involved in producing the dead-tree version: making the paper, printing the pages, binding the books, and shipping copies to the bookstores.

I bought your book on my nook, and that's how I buy most of my books now unless I can't get them that way.

DorianTB, the ebooks have their downsides, but overall, I find them a better experience than paper books. The main con is that if you're out of power, you can't read. Also, I won't use them for cookbooks, since I get food all over my cookbooks, so you need to be more careful with them than paper books. But a big pro is that I can take the dozens of books I have on it everywhere I go. It also makes it easier for me to spring for impulse purchases when I can buy books anywhere at any time. I've read a few good books that I might not have otherwise that way.

From a purely business perspective, I just finished editing a book for a colleague who is publishing on the Kindle. Since she is not giving an enormous cut to a publishing house, she is able to give me a more generous cut of the profits.

In the past couple of days tried the Kindle app for Android and one of the sample books has a table of contents that links you to the chapter starting pages.

I would buy the book on a Kindle for up to $9.99. Most Kindle books have a table of contents that you can always jump to from the menu and select a chapter.

I love reading on the Kindle - there is no glare from the screen and I can carry thousands of books with me always! And the battery only needs to be recharged every couple of weeks. Before I had the Kindle I was reading on the Kindle app for iPhone.

If you can't find a publisher, it means you are washed up as book writer. A publisher offering an advance.
Get over it, next page.
I did, although maybe...just maybe...I will try another book. But you gotta write a whole manuscript now, and hope someone buys it. A lot of time invested, no assurance of return. You are not a book writer; you are a wanne-be book writer in today's world.
You know how you meet people who say there are "actresses" but never seem to have a real, paying part in a show or movie?
Don't give up your day job.

I purchased your last book as a three dimensional physical object. I find the presence
of real physical books helpful in recalling and finding again what is in them. I have many technical books in e-book form, but tend to forget about them. Often out of sight is out of mind. I have printed out and bound, for example,
works from Project Gutenburg that I have serious use for. Also each book has its unique feel and smell, an enjoyable addition to the reading experience.

I'm not a big fan of e-books, because I find the format clumsy and don't like reading from screens for extended periods. Also e-books often lack efficient navigation facilities, which is a burden w/ reference and technical works. So I rarely buy a book in e-book form, unless the e-book is bundled with a bound copy, and is either free or very cheap. I would not buy a 300pg work on manners as an e-book.

Another approach that you might consider, seeing that you have 300 pages, and 30 chapters to draw from, is the development of an app (e.g. for iPhone). Something that draws from the book, but in an interactive format. This could then serve to market the work, and can be upgraded w/ any e-book content.

I don't buy e-books. As someone who works with computers, I have a strong appreciation for hard copy.

You should read J.A. Konrath's blog. He published six very successful mysteries before abandoning traditional publishing to self-publish. This isn't a guy who couldn't get published. He is now making a fortune publishing his books himself rather than go through a publisher because he keeps a bigger percentage if the total book price. He actually gives the numbers in his blog.

The big difference between him and most people who self-publish because they couldn't get published by a traditional publisher is that he was built up a substantial loyal audience before switching to self-publishing. This is probably the bottom line. Do you have enough of a following to sell books without a publisher?

If you follow Mr. Kontrath's approach (I think he publishes through Amazon but I'm not sure) then you can still have a physical book, too. Buyers have the option to purchase the ebook or hardcopy.

I keep hearing that e-books are the future and the future is now. But… I’m an old fart and want to hold the book in my hand. The younger crowd seems more comfortable with the electronic version of books.

I only read digital copy now. Mrs. Snake and I routinely alternate between Kindle and IPad depending on who is more likely to be reading outdoors.

But 300 pages, Amy? That's a lot of work on your end. If you have that much material, I'd recommend the Tucker Max/Stuff White People Like method: publish half the material on your blog (or a separate new section) at regular intervals and save the other half of "new!" material for the book.

If you can't find a publisher, it means you are washed up as book writer. A publisher offering an advance.

Publishers find me and offer me advances. Last year, my own publisher offered me an advance for a book I declined to write (wasn't quite my thing, but all I'd have to do, they said, was come up with an outline). I just got an e-mail this morning from a publishing company whose books I love. I'm their first choice to be the author of a book they'd like to publish. I'm going to talk to them about it in the next few days.

Now, I haven't called the nice royalty department lady in New Jersey yet this year, but it's likely I've just earned back my advance or will very soon. While I can get a publisher -- the question is, is that in my best interest? The fact that many people -- including me -- prefer to read hard copies of books is a factor.

Oh, also, not being able to get a publisher doesn't mean that you are "washed up as a writer." The economics of publishing have changed. Numerous talented writers who have published successful books are having a very hard time getting their next works published. One talented professional writer friend of mine had a publishing company kill an entire division -- the one that was publishing her book. She's been unable to resell it. I just talked to a successful (and good) novelist about this at a party a few weekends ago. He's having a tough time now, and not because his writing has started to suck, but because of the marketplace.

I probably should have given you the site:

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/

The first copies of Stephen King’s The Stand were only 600 or 700 pages long. The published make him cut at least 1/4 of the book because they said his original large book wouldn’t be profitable. Now that King can publish whatever he want The Stand stands at its original 1.000+ pages.

"I See Rude People" got a lot of very positive reviews from blogs & papers with a wide readership (American Spectator, Hotair, etc, etc). I have my doubts that all that good publicity would have come your way if it had been published solely as an ebook.

As a life-long bookworm, the pleasure of holding a well-crafted book in my hands outweighs the benefits of the ebook format. Especially a book with the sexy author on the cover, perpetually luring me to pick her up.

I read paper books exclusively, so I wouldn't be interested in an e-book at any price. I spend so much time looking at a computer screen, and it exhausts my eyes. Paper books don't.

If you are lucky and skilled enough to be offered an advance from a publisher, then go that route (obviously). Take the money.

If you self-publish, you are saying to the world, "this is a vanity publishing effort."

This probably won't help, but I read both dead trees and iPad books pretty equally. The iPad reads tend to be the "sitting around the house needing something to do" reads, or going back to school books (the highlighting and dictionary link features are incredibly helpful). The dead tree books are the ones that I'll read on the subway, as I haven't reached the point where I'm comfortable flaunting my iPad in NYC ("Hi! I'm a $400 birthday present. Snatch me, please!"). I'll happily read your new book either way. Of course one perk of the paper version is it's more likely to be seen and asked about when it's being read in a public place.

I need the hard copy in my hands - my eyes process the image differently than electronic copy, in a way that improves my memory and recall.

I rely on electronic copies for research, but often print out the pages I need while I'm referring to them for my writing, and even print out my own stuff to edit it.

If I bought your book online, I'd have to factor in the price of printing out all 300 pages, and that would give me pause. I would buy the app in a heartbeat though.

I'm in my mid-thirties. I'm not sure if my younger friends read whole books (aside from text books). I think they might just bounce from one online article and web site to the next.

That said, "self publishing" does not necessarily carry the stigma of "vanity publishing" among folks who champion DIY music producers, artists, writers. A generation of people who are raised with blogging are being encouraged to "self publish" in order to, at the very least, self-brand.

I think there's a distinction between the credibility that comes with being published through a publisher, and generating sales.

I go through books the way junkies go through heroin, and I hate ebooks. If I'm going to read, I want something to hold and read. I'm not a big tech fan though, so take my op for what it's worth.

I read quite a bit. I buy, borrow, and take out of the library, but I do not have a Nook or Kindle. There's nothing quite like curling up on my couch with a book. I bought your last book and would happily buy your next one, just not in eform.

160 of the 181 books I read last year were on Kindle (one of which was yours). I'd probably spend the same $9.99 or up to $12.99, provided there was a lot of content. I resent spending a lot of money for a skinny little snip of a book.

Have you looked into any of the on-demand publishers, like Lulu? I'd be interested to know what volume you need to achieve before breaking even w/ those services.

Well, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Steven Pressfield has an interesting series of blog posts called "What It Takes" (hmmm, that's familiar) about the process of publishing & promoting a book in the modern age. You might find something useful here:

http://www.stevenpressfield.com/category/what-it-takes/

Miss Alkon, I'd probably give you ten or fifteen dollars for it, or whatever your last book cost. I don't have an e-book reader, but this might just be the thing to make me go out and buy one.

By the way, you know what I'd really like to see in an e-book, especially regarding complicated mysteries or thrillers? The ability to go back and find out when and where certain characters are first mentioned or introduced. It would save me the trouble of leafing back through the pages, wondering, "Who was that guy? Why was he important?"

Oh, Miss Alkon, regarding whether what's in your sweater makes you look dumb: No, but guys do tend to fixate on certain assets at the expense of others. Which causes them to forget their own assets, and sometimes costs them other assets.

I got a Kindle three months ago. I strongly prefer reading on the Kindle now. I'll pay up to $10 for a new book; otherwise it goes on my Wish List till the publisher gets the price down. As for dead tree books, I haven't bought one except for professional books since I got the Kindle. If a new book I want isn't available electronically, to the wish list it goes.

I'm sure Mike has his own reasons, but I prefer the nook/Kindle because it's not like reading on a computer screen at all. It's a completely different experience. It's easy on the eyes, and I can change font size if I need to. And I like that on my nook, I can turn pages without letting go of the subway bar that's keeping me from falling into a stranger's lap.

I just got a Kindle about a week ago and am now reading my first book on it. I'm a huge book nerd (former English major) and I read a LOT. I LOVE this Kindle, especially when it comes to reading huge books (I just downloaded Stephen King's Under the Dome) because it's a whole heck of a lot easier to hold the Kindle than a five pound paperback. Also, I can now carry around a whole ton of books on one small device - as a person who always has a book with her, this makes it nice, especially when you're almost done with one book, so you end up carrying two. I also like the ability to change font size - nice for when your eyes get tired. I do love the tactile experience of a dead tree book, and I basically have a library in my spare bedroom, but I'm going to Kindle books from now on, and I may work on replacing most of my best-loved paperbacks with Kindle editions. I do like to go into a room and see a bookshelf, but if you're a book fiend like I am and buy a lot of books (and I only buy the ones I know I'll read more than once, as a general rule) eventually you just run out of room.

Amy,
I read both dead tree and e-books. I have an ipad, a gift from my wonderful hubby a few months ago, but I have had various electronic toys that I could download reading materials to for years. I still buy hard copy books of things I don't want to lose, tho. I find the e-books...ephemeral, for lack of a better word. Electronics die, or get upgraded and the memory doen't get transfered for whatever reason, and files get lost.
If there were a way for me to ensure my electronic library would be as safe as my hardcopy one, I would switch over entirely to e-books, as my military hubby's migratory lifestyle has made my 1000's of books a liability. I already had to give up my comic book collection :(

For everyone who's worried about hurting their eyes reading ebooks, MonicaP makes a good point. For things like the Kindle/Nook/Sony E Reader, the screen isn't back-lit -- so it doesn't hurt your eyes at all.

I would kill, possibly just maim, for a Kindle. My 83-year-old grandmother has the Sony E Reader, and she loves that she can make the font HUGE (even large-print books are now too small for her).

So, yeah, assuming I can get my hands on a Kindle, I would totally buy your ebook.

Actually, during my last bout of unemployment, I edited ebooks part time. Supernatural romance novels, of all things. Gordon makes a good point of having a loyal audience. The author would crank out absolute crap about werewolves having sex with vampires and what-not, and her audience would be waiting with bated breath to snap up the next ebook for $7.99.

I do not own, nor am I likely to acquire, a Kindle or any other such device (I've not yet finished reading the internet!) However, I wholly endorse/admire/obey Amy Alkon and would thus crawl through fifty miles of broken glass on my bare-naked belly, just to hear the sound of her enticing lips sipping Courvoisier from a tin cup over a pay telephone.

crawl through fifty miles of broken glass on my bare-naked belly, just to hear the sound of her enticing lips sipping Courvoisier from a tin cup over a pay telephone.

Thanks for that, now I have to go scrub my mental vis-screen with a brillo pad :P

I'm not going to get a kindle unless the next incarnation has color, I'd love to be able to see every copy of national geographic.
my problem is the cost of ebooks.

I dont mind if a just released ebook is practically the same price as a physical book. My problem is when a 10yr old physical book is less expensive then an ebook.

Counting just the book on my bookself in the bed room I have over 300 novels, most of these are my personal favorites and 'new' books I havent yet read, but just looking up about 20 of them on amazon the ebook format is going between $7 and $10 a file. In some cases for more then when I bought the book brand new at Barnes and Noble.

So for just the books in my bedroom I'm looking at roughly two to three grand to switch, then there is all the other books I have that I dont have the space to keep in my room.

I cant afford to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to buy something I already have, and even if I could afford it I still wouldnt do it.

I go through books the way junkies go through heroin, and I hate ebooks.

I go through books like that, too, but I have come to love ebooks. I thought I would hate them, as I do love the tactile sensation of holding and paging through a book. But it's just so damn handy to have as many books as I want in one seven-inch device. I have a Kindle app on my phone and liked it fine, but the NOOKcolor is amazing. You can change font size, type/background color (I love the mocha--white type on taupe background--for day, then I switch to "night"--white on charcoal), page size and brightness (I usually have it a bit less than halfway and I turn it all the way down at night). It's pricier than the Kindle, but it's more like an iPad because it has full web access.

The drawback is that it's a little harder to flip back and forth on an ereader, though the nook has actual page numbers, so it's easier to navigate that way (my Kindle app just has a "location" bar). You can go directly to certain chapters from the contents page, too. If there's an index, you can go back and forth via links (as I have just been doing while reading My Booky Wook, which is fantastic, by the way--definitely use the index if you read it)--just tap the link that took you to the index and you'll be back on the page where you were.

So, while I do prefer hard copies, I have come to love ebooks because they seem to be friendlier now than at first. I would definitely buy your book as an ebook, and I'd pay up to $12.99, which seems to be about full price for a NOOKbook.

I will not buy e-books. I make notes in them. I read them in the tub. And I don't like to depend on mechanical things that will fail. Unless the book is physically destroyed, it can be read anywhere, with or without power.

I used a vanity publisher for my first book (iUniverse), published in 2006. I am not a writer, so didn't try to get a publisher. I self promoted via web and mailing copies out, and sold a couple thousand. It is non-fiction and one of the first books about meth, and even some college sociology departments picked it up (U of Oregon, can't remember the others).
I decided I should get a small trade publisher, and added to the book, and had it published in Oct 2008. However, the publisher massacred the great cover I designed, did print on demand when it was supposed to be type set, and has been very slow about getting me royalties. But then again he gets all the snail mail from the prison meth head women offering to marry me, etc. Fool me once shame on you, etc. And I don't make a living by writing anyway, so when extra money comes in, cool.

That said, Amy has a publisher so that' a moot point.

On ebook kindle, etc. Occasionally the ebook for me. Don't own a kindle. I'm 47 and have stared at a computer screen since 1982. bought Amy's first book in hardcover, would do the second one the same.

So, from my experience:
One alternative would be make the kindle/nook/electronic book primary, and set the hardback and or softcover to be print on demand. Nowadays it's hard to tel POD from true typeset when you consider the quality of the printer. Everybody gets the best (environment, something to hold and sign on tour and read in the bathtub, or the electronic version). I'm sure your publisher can do print on demand, it's not just for 'the vanities' anymore.

mi dos centavos

I would also suggest to read Konraths Blog. I am a follower of his blog for Years. He is also a very funny guy. I am reading 2 Blogs regulary, his and yours.

After scanning previous comments (and having worked in related areas of marketing and print production):

- how much of your previous book's sales came from small bookshops? Are you going to mount the same promo campaign?

My impression is that you did a lot of promo events in smaller markets - which gives the impression that you were placing the book in local stores. Is that true? If it is, then printed copies will have to be part of your mix.

Otherwise, it's easy to offer both files and books to online purchasers.

And yes, there is no longer any stigma to self-publishing, and you can use several good on-demand services to publish a minimum amount and get listed on amazon. Very quick turnaround times and very low cost to keep that option stocked for people who want actual books. Some of them will also ship small quantities to smaller bookstores.

For a text-based book with no color illustrations, the quality is indistinguishable from trade publishing.

I have a question for all you e reader owners. Do you have to have a kindle to buy amazon e books? Or will some other e reader do as well? Also, if you have a kindle, can you buy e books only from amazon? I want one of these e readers and I read good things about all of them, but I want one I will be happy with from the start. I like to read outside, too, and the sun can be a pain for seeing an electronic screen. PS I like hard copy books for the reason that I can donate them to our local literacy foundation if I choose, to help others learn to read and discover books.

You can read Kindle books from pretty much any device (iPhone/iPad, computer, blackberry) with the Kindle app. But I'm pretty sure you can only read Kindle books from a Kindle. The nook has both Barnes and Noble books and Google ebooks. If you want to read books from more than one place, you should probably just use the Kindle/NOOK/etc. apps from an Android or iPad, or, of course, your regular computer. And the apps are all free to download. Great if you have a tablet (or if you carry a laptop everywhere), but those are pretty expensive.

As far as the electronic screen goes, my nook has been the best of all I've tried (iPhone, borrowed iPad and borrowed Kindle) because of the many options of color and brightness. My mom says it's hard to read on her iPad in the bright sun because of the backlighting, but it's easier to turn down the brightness on the nook, plus you can play with different text/background color and brightness combos. Though I have the NOOKcolor, which is more expensive than the regular nook, so I don't know what the options are for that.

Also, I'm reading a book with color photo inserts and they look great.

The Kindle is supposed to look more like actual pages, so that may be better for being outside if that's a concern. But I have yet to have a problem reading outside.

You can read books from just about anywhere on the nook, which is why I chose that over the Kindle, although my husband is very happy with his Kindle, too. I definitely dislike that I can't give my books to other people when I'm done with them. I hope publishers address this at some point. With the nook, I can loan them for two weeks, which is a little better than the Kindle. I have the regular nook, and I have no trouble reading outside.

My husband bought me a Kindle last summer because I travel a lot and was adding a lot of weight to my luggage in reading material. I like it a lot for my "fluffy" reading (sci-fi, fantasy, etc.) but I am also surprised that it has changed how I buy and read books. I have purchased several books on the Kindle that I would not have bought in dead tree form, usually because I wasn't sure I wanted to read the entire thing and didn't want it lying around half-completed or because I knew it would be a quick read. It also allows for instant gratification. In Venice, I downloaded a biography of Peggy Guggenheim after seeing her palazzo. (Bio was just okay, but hey, it's an e-book!)

I still buy a ton of "real" books: keepers, reference books (cookbooks, gardening books), and relatively obscure or older histories that are not available in ebook form.

My husband's Christmas gift to me this year was an e-reader, the Pandigital Novel. The reason I chose this rather than Kindle or the Nook is because according to reviews it works better with PDF format e-books that are available at my library.

This is ultimately the reason why I love my e-Reader: if I "need" a new book to read Sunday evening at 9pm, I can go to my library's e-book section and check one out.

In any case, Amy, although you've probably got plenty of information already, I'll add to the crowd that reads both ebooks and physical books, and would happily spend about $10 for your ebook.

Whichever version is available at the library. Slight preference for electronic.

I won't disagree with you about profit models, but you asked about ebooks, and that's what I'd prefer.

When I worked at the Texas Tech University Library, I was in charge of digital acquisitions. We had to pay several times the normal cost of an item. A book or movie that would ordinarily be, say, $10, might cost the library $90. But I'm only familiar with the acquisitions side of this. When a library pays this high purchase price, does any part of that cost benefit the author? I had assumed so and thought it was fair in which case. But maybe I'm wrong?

Actually, I have gotten free tax preparation at the library. No housepainter yet, but they did have a good selection of books on doing it myself.