E-Books Have Changed Everything (And Not Just in the Ways Most People Think!)

So it’s the start of the new year, and I can’t help but think about one big change that’s happened in my life — not just this last year, but over the last few years.

I started publishing my books as e-books. And it’s changed EVERYTHING in my career, and not just in the ways that most people talk about.

I sold my first book, Geography Club, in 2000 (to HarperCollins), and it was released in early 2003. And since the book was a young adult novel published in hardcover, it soon became clear to me who my book’s real audience was: librarians, teachers, bookstore owners/readers (who would then push it to teachers and librarians), industry reviewers (mostly women in their fifties), and those very few adult readers wealthy enough to take a chance on a hardcover novel by a debut author.

Plenty of teenagers were reading my books, true, but in the vast majority of cases, some adult was buying the book for them. Very few of them could afford to buy the book for themselves.

So, naturally, those book-buying adults were my primary audience.

Basically, I was writing for the “gatekeepers” — the people who decide what books teenagers should be reading. “Gatekeepers” is a buzzword in publishing, but it’s a very accurate buzzword. It describes something very real.

(My audience got a little wider when the book was released in paperback the following year, but not that much wider, since even the paperback was priced at $8.99 (in 2004 dollars). Mostly, I was still writing for librarians, teachers, reviewers, and bookstore owners/readers.)

Then around 2009, e-books hit. Around the same time, social media went really, really big.

Since then, my writing career has been COMPLETELY — and I mean COMPLETELY — transformed.

For one thing, my new books are immediately priced at $5.99 in the e-book edition — pretty darn affordable, even for teenagers and twentysomethings. A year later, when my book would have gone into paperback before, the price of the e-book now goes down to $3.99 — cheap. These e-editions are available everywhere too — all over the country and world, even in places that are hundreds of miles from a traditional bookstore.

For another thing, social media now allows my readers to directly spread the word about my books to their friends. It also allows them to directly interact with me, telling me specifically what they do (and don’t) like about my work.

Did I mention how this has completely transformed my writing career?

Basically, I am now writing directly for my readers — the people who most “get” me and my books. To sell books, I no longer have to first appeal to a select group of adults — often smart, well-meaning adults, but still adults who were pretty different from what I considered my most passionate readers.

I now write my books for my passionate readers, and then they buy them. What a concept, huh?

I know this brave new world of direct access to readers scares a lot of writers. They were used to the old system — a system that served them well. And change is always at least a little sad, because it means that some older institutions (like certain independent bookstores) have to die.

But as for me? I couldn’t be more excited by these changes. In every respect — creatively and financially — it’s been better for me as a writer.

What do you think? Is the rise of e-books a good thing or a bad thing for you as either a reader or a writer?

P.S. Just to be clear: my books are still available in print copies too!

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