e-books vs. good old fashioned paperbacks

[Ed M]

Hello all,

I'm new here, but have been writing for a while now. I found this site and thought I'd try it out.
You probably have heard a similar blog before, but I thought I'd see what responses I would receive.

What is your take on e-books versus paperbacks/hardbacks these days?
I think I'd much rather have the actual book in my hand, rather than a kindle or the likewise.
I think they are pretty neat, but to me, it just isn't the same as a book in my hand.
Do you think that e-books will be the new trend from now on, as paperbacks go out of style?

Just throwing this out there, and seeing where it lands...


Ed

[Ed M]

You're right.. My eyes did pop out. :)

[Ed M]

Hi all,

Thank you for your responses. It was nice to see the different perspectives on the paperback & e-book issues.

I suppose we will have to see what time brings along. I agree though, and don't think that paperback & hardback will go away anytime soon. A few of you said that it all depends on the person as to their preference, and that's true. There are still some that just buy non e-books, and some that only buy e-books. I know people that own both, and choose between either or. Anyway, I appreciate all of your feedback, it's nice to gather the different thoughts of these things. I look forward to more discussions with everyone soon.

Ed :)

[John McFetridge]

It will be interesting to see how infrastructure changes in the industry affect availability. I've had three books published in hardcover (two from Harcourt and one from St. Martins), two of them also came out as trade paperbacks but I can't get a mass market paperback deal. Everytime a distributor like Dorchester goes out of the mass market business it makes it even tougher. How many companies are in the mass market paperback business now?

My Canadian publisher can't afford a mass market paperback run but they can put out e-books internationally.

[Robert Christopher]

@John And if they are only doing an e-book version you can do that yourself and keep the full 70% royalty instead of getting a small portion of that.

[John McFetridge]

No, they're still going to do a hardcover and trade paperback first.

I do have a different royalty deal from the publisher for e-books.

[I. J. Parker]

For what it's worth (maybe not much), only my French publisher has published my books in two formats: trade paper and mass market. They are also the only ones to put out a book club edition in hc. And, they are the only ones that produce some very nice royalties for me. I suspect they got behind the series much more forcefully than the other publishers. And that when their advances were generous for foreign editions.