Ebook publishing is the latest and most amazing addition to the global family of content-based media products.
Ebooks are:
In 2000 when I launched Dandelion Books, as a full service digital "On Demand" enterprise using the latest production and delivery technologies, people thought I was crazy.
"Print On Demand is NOT the way to distribute and sell books," they lectured. At that time, they were right. Internet marketing was still in its infancy. MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. weren't even born yet.
Even though "Web" and "log" tied the knot in '97 (at that time Google hadn't even begun to boogie), they didn't start to raise their family of Blogs until the early 2000s.
Until recently, most publishers were still rolling off hard copy books from metal plates (sound archaic?).
Field of Green: “Build it and they will…”!
Suddenly it’s IN to be green. Although printed paper books will probably be around for at least another century and maybe forever, ebooks are now the rage.
Why Kindle ... What’s so great about Amazon’s Ebook reader?
“Why Kindle? Why is everyone jumping on the bandwagon and buying this over-priced toy?” a successful business woman asked me the other day. (Since then, the price has already dropped, and like all digital products once development costs are met, will probably experience several more drops in the near future.)
I had been chattering non-stop to this woman about the wonders of an amazing device that 1) lets one download a library of over 160,000 books to carry around in our purse or briefcase, 2) is slimmer and weighs less than a standard paperback book, 3) wirelessly connects to the Amazon store for buying-on-the-fly, 4) gives us newspapers, blogs and current events wherever we are, 5) allows us to listen to books, with plenty of room for hours of listening time; and memory card add-ons in we choose, that are smaller than the size of a postage stamp… and on and on.
“Why would a business person think it’s a smart investment when they can buy books for just a few dollars?” she countered.
Although I didn’t want to do the math for her, I knew I needed to.
As a starter, I reminded her that when you buy a book, you’re also investing in storage space (book cases, racks, shelves, etc.), dusting hours (labor+time=money), and product depreciation. Over the years I’ve found myself replacing my favorite dog-eared, heavily marked-up food-stained books more than once.
Ebooks are less expensive than hard copy books--and they last forever in virtual data bases on large web servers as well as your own hard drive (and external drives… by now you’ve learned to back up everything). If you have hundreds of thousands of books, newspapers, blogs (articles) and magazines (ezines) available to you for $350 plus a few dollars every time you purchase and download one of these selections, compare it to the cost of buying it in hard copy. I purchased a large chunk of the Harvard Classics for $.99 a book!
Let's say you’d only want to own about one or two thousand Kindle titles. Do the math once again.
How much money does a business woman spend on cosmetics monthly? Beauty salon and spa appointments? Impulsive buying (“I have to have that tennis outfit!”... “That necklace would be perfect with my new evening dress!”... etc.). Guys, what’s your budget for incidentals? Liquor and wine? A weekend at the Club?
Sometimes what may appear at the time to be a frivolous purchase turns out to be one of our most valuable personal and professional accessories.
One final question
“So… if you’re not a reader, why buy a Kindle?”
I would immediately respond by asking another question: “How can you be in business and not be a reader? How can you do anything in this world without being connected to the media? Reading and writing are basic requirements for anyone who has a desire to enrich their lives with information, inspiration, entertainment--and enlightenment. A high school diploma or college degree is just the beginning. Education is an ongoing process.
Let’s say you’re not in business and you’re not interested in more education. Surely you want to be informed. Even if you do your reading in bytes on your smart phone, why not subscribe through Kindle to some of the best and most informative blogs on the internet, and read them one byte at a time?
Maybe you like to read your books in bytes or read several bytes from different books simultaneously. Kindle allows you to do this without having to hire a caravan of trucks to follow you around.
Although I would personally choose Kindle over other ebook reading devices on the market, this article is not intended to be an advertisement for merely one device. The Sony LIBRIe e-Book Reader is also amazing; I own one of these as well.
Here’s a list of several other ebook reading devices:
Carol Adler, MFA’s first ghost-written book listing her name as co-editor, Why Am I Still Addicted? A Holistic Approach to Recovery, was endorsed by Deepak Chopra, M.D., and published by McGraw-Hill. Other publications include three novels, four books of poetry, and well over 200 poems in literary journals. She has ghostwritten over 40 non-fiction and fiction works for a number of professionals in the education, health care and human potential industries.
Carol is President of Dandelion Books, LLC of Tempe, Arizona; a full service publishing company. She is also President and CEO of Dandelion Enterprises, Inc., Write to Publish for Profit and President of the International Arts & Media Foundation, a non-profit subsidiary of Dandelion Enterprises, Inc.
Her business experience includes co-ownership of a Palm Beach, FL public relations company and executive management positions in two U.S. rejuvenation and mind/body wellness corporations, for which she founded publishing divisions.
Carol has served as editor of several poetry and literary magazines. Her career experience includes extensive teaching of college-level creative and business writing, and conducting of writing workshops in prisons, libraries, elementary, junior and high schools, and senior citizen centers.
Additional Resources on Publishing can be found at:
Website Directory for Publishing
Articles on Publishing
Products for Publishing
Discussion Board
Carol Adler, The Official Guide to Publishing
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