Are e-books real books?
Last weekend I attended a release party. A fellow author from one of my publishers and I had discovered that we live in the same city. Her book was just released in print and she invited me to a party she was having at her home. I asked her, is this a big bash? And she said no, just a few friends over for cookies and she’d do a reading. I pictured a few of her girlfriends who like romance and decided it would be great to meet another e-pubbed author in person – all my writer acquaintances are on-line. So I went.
Well there had to be a hundred people there, all total strangers to moi. Release Author was waaay too busy to talk, which was fine, she was the hostess and the star of the moment – enjoy! But I was interested to know if she’d gotten her print book into any local bookstores, how she’d done it, what other kinds of promo she’d planned, to talk about our writing processes, and our e-publishing experiences – I’ve never met a real life romance author in person!
I repeated my story of how I knew Release Author over and over to the other guests– we write for the same publisher. Then one of them asked me, “So, do you have your book in your purse there?”
I replied, “Sort of.” And pulled out my Sony Reader. (‘Cause none of my books are out in print yet.)
One woman turned up her nose and said, “Don’t you miss turning the pages?” (She also asked me, “Can you really make a living writing romance?”)
Strangely, the men were most interested. (Yes, the crowd was half men). I showed them how it worked and they were fascinated, and one man confessed to me he actually wanted to write a book (not romance!).
I think Release Author had not really shared with her friends that her book was out in electronic format first. They seemed surprised. They seemed surprised that our publisher is primarily an e-book publisher. They seemed surprised that such a thing even exists. So I had to wonder if Release Author had actually done a very good job of promoting her e-book and e-publishing in general – or is she one of those who believe that only a print book is a real book?
What do you think?
Date: May 3rd, 2009 @ 15:43
Categories: News
A book’s a book. All full of words. Save a tree. Buy an e-reader and support your local writers.
Karalynn
I find this utterly bewildering. Someone can get a hundred people (including a bunch of guys! –now that’s persuasion) to celebrate her book’s publication but didn’t bother to promote her original release with them?
I’m sad that Wikipedia is now accepted as an authority as much as encyclopedias were back in the day, but somehow fiction books, when available online, seem to change into something dubious — even by those who wrote them.
I’m really glad you had your Sony Reader on hand; it sounds as though if you hadn’t been able to demonstrate, people wouldn’t have understood the concept at all. I wish Release Author had taken the opportunity to educate folks on ebooks, as you did. Thanks for that.