Thank Goodness for eBooks…

Authors work hard. Really hard. Sometimes years and years go into creating a book. First draft, second, third, maybe more, the revisions, rewrites, edits, and so on. It’s a crazy journey from start to the finished product, and we authors are downright proud of our accomplishment. So when I asked a family member what they thought of the paperback version of my debut book, I was told that it was still in the process of being read (had it for a year), and was most-likely sharing space at the bottom of a child’s knapsack. My jaw dropped. Really? My book, my baby, my blood is where? I honestly had to pinch myself.

So this got me thinking…Thank goodness for eBooks. At first, I was a little leery of eBooks. You couldn’t hold or smell one. People—myself included—really didn’t understand the value in these strange new book formats. It’s hard enough to promote, market, and sell eBooks to schools or libraries, though that is slowly changing. When I signed my first publishing contract it was with a brand new epublishing house. There was the promise of paperbacks of course, but their main format was eBooks. I, like many other people, wondered if books would go the way of DVDs or CDs, and in truth the traditional publishing industry has taken an arse-kicking because of this new publishing paradigm. I even think the trees are yelling ‘woo-hoo’ as I’m typing this.

The point of this post is this: the life expectancy of a paperback can vary, but an eBook lives on forever. Try leaving an eBook in the bottom of a knapsack. Can’t be done. Yeah, you can leave your ereader or computer or cell phone or tablet in a knapsack, but you won’t leave any these electronic devices in there for long. They’re what this generation craves, uses, and needs. Plus they’re far too valuable to leave sitting in the bottom of a knapsack. And you know what? The book that took me over ten years to create is valuable too. It’s all a matter of perception.So, thank goodness for eBooks. No mildew. No mold. No dog-earred pages. No ripped covers. No funny smell. No missing chapters. And guess what? They live on forever.