An E-book Moment With My Kids

My kids had an ebook moment last night. We had to go out to the annual baseball parents meeting and there was a chance that the kids would have to sit and be still for an hour or so. I told them to bring a book. My oldest, 10, is doing a book report and has to finish his book by the weekend. I bought his book on the Nook and he’s not been able to use the excuse that he can’t read his book, because he left it at school. He immediately wanted to bring the Nook. I said it was okay but then of course, little brother wanted to read on the Nook too. So I said, okay, you can read on my Droid. He was happy about that. When I called up his Nook book on my phone and it went right to the page where he left off, he got a smile as wide as any kid ever had. Technology is cool sometimes, even for a jaded eight year old.

Tales Uploaded to Kindle

I’ve uploaded the initial version of my anthology, Tales From Ocherva to the Kindle Store. It should be live by Wednesday. The price will be $2.99. All of my books will debut as e-books, with trade paperback versions to follow by a few months. This digital before print release schedule is going to be the norm for most POD publishers. I have sold nearly a thousand e-books in the past three months and in two years of selling print books, have not managed to sell one hundred books.

The only reason to even do a print version of my books is so that I can get out and meet the public with book signings and talks. When I have thousands of loyal fans that are interested in buying hardback, collectible versions of my books, I will partner with a local press and do the pre-order thing, just like Seth Harwood and Scott Sigler. For now, this digital before POD paradigm makes the most sense for me.

So if you have a Kindle account, do check out the new anthology. It’s ten short stories of Space Western goodness all set in the same universe as Starstrikers. I’m also in the process of uploading to Smashwords. If you require your e-books in a particular format, please purchase it there for the same low price as the Kindle, $2.99.

Future plans involve uploading to Barnes & Noble.com and iPad, when they both start allowing independent authors to do so.