The Color of Reading: Color Nook revealed - Melissa Schroeder

The Color of Reading: Color Nook revealed

Yes, I want it like a crazy woman. It is about the price of the Nook when it first premiered so I don’t think it is all that bad. And I am linking to it so you can look it over, but this morning, I am going to bitch.

I have complained behind the scenes and in front of them about my disdain for some of the writers’ groups. I feel that when publishers started to ask for digital rights, they stuck their heads in the sand and allowed people to sign some horrible contracts because, and this is a direct quote from a board memeber, “Ebooks will NEVER have any kind of influence in the publishing world.” That was less than three years ago.  Yes, Ellora’s Cave had done really well, and Samhain was on their way up to dominate, but this particular woman told me that authors could sign these contracts, sometimes as little as 5%, for their digital rights. It was such a small part of the market, who cares.

Well, I did. I was already leaning toward being a digital reader, mainly for convenience. Seriously you unpack over 1K in books every two years and you might think twice about it.  But, I was an oddity. No one would give up their paper books for that. They want to feel the pages as they slip through their fingers. They need to hold the book in their hands. UGH. Yes, there are always going to be readers who want print. I don’t see that those people will ever give up their print, and why should they. That is what they like. But thanks to the Kindle release three years ago, times have changed. Digital is inching toward outselling print on AMAZON (and yes, overall, it still outsells digital. So PLEASE don’t email me and say I am wrong. I said AMAZON), and now with everyone jumping on board, the volume is going up. Not by much you say? Well, I had a book, my best selling one by the way, that stayed at the about the same sales rank from one month to the next. The second month it sold 500 more copies. Yes, that much. But see, I am lucky. I am with Samhain who has excellent contracts and are very author friendly. I can assure you, I do not earn 5% off those royalties, lol.

I am not writing this to say nanny nanny boo boo. I do that in person, lol. No, I am going to point out that I am still in contact with a lot of these authors. And the main topic of discussions yesterday had nothing to do with either the news of the Nook or the news that Kindle can’t keep up with their sales because they are selling too many kindles. Or, the fact that ebook sales in the first 8 months of 2010 rose 193%, and Amazon says they beat that figure.

Now, yes, I make the bulk of my money from digital–mainly because I didn’t sign those crappy contracts. But, this has implications for everyone in the business. Every author who has a book in digital, it is a BIG THING.  But, they are still more worried about contests and writing programs. There was not one comment made about these happenings. Ebook readers, good ones, are inching to 100 bucks, and I have said that you sell

Categories: Miscellaneous