Thursday, May 20, 2010

Cactus Rain eBooks

It isn't likely that Cactus Rain will publish eBooks. Once the book has been transformed into eBook format, the cost is relatively low from there on out. So why is there a price war on Amazon with several large publishers and Kindle books?

Like I wrote in the previous post, books are the product that pays the company expenses. So eBooks have to pay for the staff, furniture for the staff, electricity and everything else used to run a business so the eBook can be produced. The whole idea of being in business is to turn a profit. Publishers generally are not charity enterprises.

Remember way back when video formats came out with VHS and BetaMax? Every government office I worked in had a video machine and they were all Beta. The cassettes were not interchangeable. At least the new BluRay machines will play the old DVDs.

While we embrace technology in many ways there is still an awe associated to my 100+ year old books on my bookshelf. There is something about the aging leather cover, the vivid lithograph pictures, and the print - typeset, mind you - on the page that no StarTrek technology can emulate.

Social media, eBooks, phone apps, all of it is fun...but does it deliver a lasting product? Will anyone run the tips of their fingers over an eReader in a hundred years?

I have a resource for the authors who want their books eFormated and distributed. However, every time I've given in to peer pressure the results have disappointed me. Mostly I've been disappointed that I didn't stand on my convictions. I always come back to the thought that it was The Emperor's New Clothes. (If you don't know that children's story, go buy the book. Don't borrow it, you need a copy to keep.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7734166/The-majority-of-Britons-are-still-wedded-to-CDs-DVDs-and-books.html

If it wasn't late, I'd draw the Cactus Rain logo cactus with an eReader...just for this post.

7 comments:

  1. We Brits like old things. :)
    I love books, I cannot see myself hugging a Kindle thingy.

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  2. I'm the same way. I might like to play with one, but don't mind if I never do. I know we have evolved from papyrus and clay tablets. But paper books are what I know and love.

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  3. Glynis, we you and I love books. I hold a book like a woman. My signed books have pride of place. They aren't opened so their spines break. I always use a book mark. But most people don't think like us. A book is just to read.

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  4. Far from it! Glyn! A book is ALIVE... it has its feel, it has its aura and it has its own personal smell... You breathe it in not just read it! And I cannot understand HOW any one can dog ear pages to mark where they left off! There should be some way of bringing them to book!
    Books... and book marks are... well... companions.
    I LOVE BOOKS. Paper books!
    And there still seem to be some of us around, Thank God!

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  5. My bookmark is silver. Only the best for the delicate leaves...

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  6. Yeah, I like books too. It is a bit like when Forrest Gump ran out of his braces and then became a runner. For me, being dyslexic and unable to read, I'd get my hands on a book and hang onto it. I still do that. Moving is mostly boxes of books.

    The reality is that I'll have to come up with something digital for my writers...

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