The alternative to books

Kindle, iPad, ebooks, audio books… the way we “read” has changed a lot since Gutenberg. Last week I told readers on Twitter that I was in the middle of an awesome book, Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties. Five of my fellow tweeters bought it via my Amazon link – all of them on Kindle.

Now Kindle is coming to Canada, and book lovers and gadget whores are salivating to get their hands on one. Plus there’s the Sony reader, and Chapters/Indigo has their own version, too.

Ebooks have become big business, as there is little overhead and lots of solid profit. It’s starting to make the big publishing houses nervous that authors are choosing to self-publish and self-promote instead of giving everything over to them.

An article in the Guardian last week caught my eye. Author Ray Connolly has decided to serialize his new book, The Sandman, on his website. Readers who become hooked on the story and want to read the whole thing at once have the option of downloading the book immediately for £5. That same book through a publishing house would be sold in stores for around £12, to cover printing, promotion and profit. In Connolly’s case, he gets all the profit and it costs almost nothing to distribute and promote.

Most of the how-to business manuals I’ve bought in the last few years have been ebooks, too. They’re so convenient – instant gratification, easy to store (no messes – my nightstand is a testament to what happens when there are too many books in the house!), and dirt cheap.

Ray Connolly and Kindle have shown us that books don’t have to be non-fic to have an e-market.

So if you’re one of the millions who have a story built up inside them just busting to be told, this is the right time to tell it. Whether you want to impart knowledge in a non-fiction book, or pull us into a world of your making with a work of fiction, get started writing. Publish online, use your blog, Twitter, Facebook and email to promote it, and keep the profits to yourself. Publishing ebooks no longer has the stigma of “vanity publishing” that it once had – the big guys are paying attention to online publishers who are pulling big numbers.

Sticky eBooks can help you get started with writing, publishing and marketing your ebook. Naturally it’s an ebook, and therefore inexpensive and immediate. See how convenient that is??

As with any kind of book, article or essay, the hardest part is sitting down and just writing the damn thing. All that information, floating around you head, not making any sense… it’s tough. But just sit your ass down and get started. You’ll be amazed at the market out there on the internet, just waiting to download your opus.