Evanston: eBooks
Evanston: eBooks
During the past year I have become a convert to eBooks.
I read on my iTouch, my laptop, and a recently purchased Kindle.
Each has its advantages.
The iTouch’s are portability and color. It fits in my pocket, and since I’m carrying it anyway to listen to music on long flights, as a reader it means I don’t have to cary a book along. I have been surprised and impressed by how easy it is to read from its relatively tiny screen.
The laptop’s are screen size and color. Charts, photographs, illustrations can be viewed much more clearly than on the iTouch or the gray scale Kindle. Many people don’t like to read long works on a computer screen, but I am used to writing books on them and don’t mind.
The Kindle’s are battery life, comfortable weight, a larger screen than the iTouch, and at only $139, price.
While I am an owner and admirer of almost all things Apple, I don’t own a single iBook. Rather I e-read using Amazon’s Kindle for Mac or Stanza, both free applications, and available in Windows versions.
Last year I tried briefly and unsuccessfully to turn my books into electronic editions. For a number of uninteresting reasons, the formatting didn’t transfer.
A few weeks ago a reader emailed me suggesting that I ought to do this, so I decided to try again. (Thanks, Rick.) Software has improved, and this time I succeeded.
STORM PASSAGE and THE FIFTH CIRCLE, whose above cover I designed while watching the Patriots inexplicably and depressingly lose to the Jets last Sunday night, are now available at Amazon’s sites in both the U.S. and the U.K. I’ll try to get THE OPEN BOAT and THE OCEAN WAITS up soon.
The process, if you are interested in doing so yourself, was easy for THE FIFTH CIRCLE, where I was working from a word.doc, but tedious working from a professionally done scan of the hard cover edition of STORM PASSAGE. THE FIFTH CIRCLE took one morning. STORM PASSAGE three days.
You may recognize THE FIFTH CIRCLE cover as a center crop of the photo I took at Whangamumu a couple of months ago. Until I started looking through my images for one to use as a cover, I hadn’t given much thought to the necessity that covers be in portrait rather than landscape orientation.
That the Kindle editions are priced at $2.99 is dictated by Amazon’s royalty schedule, which is 70% for books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and only half that otherwise.
The PDFs of the books will continue to be available as free downloads here. I am aware that computers and most e-readers can read PDFs. I consider those of you who visit this site as being in my circle and don’t want to exploit that relationship. This is not about the money, anyway, but getting the words read.
Having said that, if you ever are inclined to buy a Kindle edition of one of my books or suggest that a friend do so, and perhaps even post a review at Amazon, I would be appreciative.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011