The cooperative literary press I work with, Hamilton Stone Editions, has begun putting up versions of our books as ebooks– even though most of the authors do not yet use the devices! Note I say “do not yet,” as I hope before the year is out to try it out. The problem is choosing which device, as the costs are high enough that it seems like a serious expense to me.
To prepare the books has been a hassle: we have to take digital versions of books (no surprise there) and strip out most of the formatting, because each ereader’s software does different weird things, and about the only things that translate are italics and capital letters.
If you get a chance, take a look at our first two books: Carole Rosenthal’s It Doesn’t Have to Be Me, and the final book of my Blair Morgan triology, Trespassers. You do not, by the way, have to have an ereader to read these: one version is a regular old .pdf that anyone with a late model computer can read, if you can stand prose on a computer screen. The advantage of the dedicated ereaders (for thos who don’t know) is that the actual reading experience is far more like book reading than staring at a tv screen.
I would be thrilled and delighted if you’d take a look at smashwords and tell me what you think!
Tags: books, Carole Rosenthal, e-readers, ebooks, Hamilton Stone Editions, It Doesn't Have To Be Me, Meredith Sue Willis, publishing, Trespassers