Monday, March 21, 2011

Jumping into the ebook market

When ebooks became the new trend, I wasn't really sure how they'd go. Would teens and middle graders really want to read books on their computers? Would they be willing to invest in ebook readers?

It turns out that they are. And I can't blame them. I bought a Kindle two years ago and fell in love with being able to carry my library of favorite books around with me so easily. Last year my wonderful husband got me an iPad, and now I carry around even more books on it, as well as music, movies and the web. Now I wonder, would any of my readers actually want to read my books on their ebook readers?

Several of my publishers have brought out some of my YA titles in ebook format, and I've been thrilled to see the books available, but with the delays in the length of time it takes publishers to inform authors of subsidiary sales and the royalties they've earned, I still have no idea whether anyone is buying them.

So I decided to take one of my early ghost stories, Tournament of Time, and do a little experiment. I controlled ebook rights to it, so I formatted it for Smashwords (much easier than I expected, using their helpful style guide) and uploaded it there at $2.99. I'm also in the process of getting it approved for the iBookstore, since I love reading on my iPad, and I'm sure other iPad readers feel the same way - if given the opportunity to buy an ebook in a variety of formats, most of us would go for the iBook version that could be read on our iPad or iPhone. If you enjoy ebooks, mysteries, and English history, check out my take on the murder of the Princes in the Tower in Tournament of Time. Decide whether you're Team Richard or Team Henry, then find out whodunnit.

I've already had several downloads since the book came out this morning, so I'm thinking it's off to a good start! And I hope you enjoy ghostly history mysteries, and ebooks, as much as I do.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you very much, Elaine, for posting this topic! Just last week I was researching whether a Kindle version of my Civil War YA would be a wise choice, and your information has helped tremendously with my decision-making process. And congratulations on the success Tournament of Time is enjoying; I hope it leads to many more downloads.

    http://michellefayard.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete