Friday, April 22, 2011

For Earth Day - Save the World - Publish an E-book!

Every book can't fit in a bookstore, nor should we try.

There are a lot of pundits out there that say that e-books are no better for the earth than printed books... but consider these truths:
  • Bookstores fill their shelves with consignment inventory so they look beautiful and enticing
  • Large publishers don't care if they get 90% of their stock returned
  • Many large bookstores tear off the cover of a book and send that back as a return, and the bookstore tosses the naked books in the trash (loads of them)
Both printed books and e-books have valid reasons to exist, and readers like each for different reasons. I love the ability to enlarge the type and conduct searches on an ebook; but I love the feel of paper in my hands with a paper book.  If I need information, I use the e-book. If I need entertainment, I most often choose the paper book.

On this Earth Day, I just want to appeal to publishers:  Make your book available in both formats so people can choose what is right for their own use.... There are 7.5 million++ titles in Books in Print right now (some estimate the real number of titles in print is 29 million+); can you imagine if 7.5 million titles were in a bookstore just once?  {Well imagine this: If you put one copy of each book in print end to end (averaging 6x9 size), you would be able to go around the world nearly 226 times!  Is it just me, or would that make a REALLY big bookstore?}

No comments:

Post a Comment

Ask your questions here, or send your self publishing questions via email to lisa@conciergemarketing.com. Thanks!