Originally this was titled C is for Cookie… (And for stream of consciousness) -but I was told my subjects/titles need to be more content relevant. Who woulda thunk. So I’m trying to rein in my randomness and be a good girl. There you have it.

A “friend” described me as “[having the] focus and attention similar to that of a butterfly; memory and clarity of general explanations reminiscent of the movie Memento.” Well first he said gnat, but I wasn’t happy about that- and actually I hate butterflies (I hate all insects) but I know people generally like them so I guess I’ll live with it. I’ve also never seen Memento so I don’t quite know how to feel about this description.

C also is for an average/good book at TGTBTU. There. I’ve had my broken record moment. I almost titled this post “Give it to Me, Baby.” But then I figured Offspring was best left sprung. Maybe.

MORE IMPORTANTLY. I’m thinking about getting an e-reader. A number of books are in e-format, etc, and well, I hate reading off my computer screen. The back light contributes to my bursting capillaries (gross, I know but it happens so I just can’t let go of the concept and I’m also not thinking too hard about it). And then back pain from car accidents, and so on. And wanting to read upside down and/or in bed.

So, suggestions? I know everyone loves their Amazon Kindle, but let me be blunt. I’m poor. I’ve got those pesky things called student loans. (But last I heard/checked, Barack Obama does too – so I’m in good company… right?!) I could buy nearly 67 Chipotle burritos (and that’s with the new higher prices) with the money. And considering a burrito is a minimum of 2 meals for me, that could potentially be food for 4.5 months. And if I had to eat the same thing for 4.5 months I’d be so sick of it I’d stop (eating)- so really we’re talking maybe 5-6 months. (Or you know, 4-7 months worth of Subway, assuming I could stomach it daily.) Not only that, but I’m holding out hope for a 1) lowered price and 2) second generation Kindle. They have to come out with a newer, better, shinier, PRETTIER model at some point, don’t they? Soonish?

I considered the Sony e-reader, but wasn’t 100% impressed. A friend has one and it’s small and shiny and pretty, but the page lag would annoy me on my bad days. The ones where I want to throw a book across the room. So I’m also waiting/crossing my fingers on that being solved. Also cnet‘s review gave me pause and was slightly confusing.I know a lot of people have talked about this – but see the above butterfly comment. . *I also have to admit – since writing this post, I’ve become quite enamored with the Sony e-reader. A red one. The lag still I think would drive me batty. But it would be so much better than thinking I’ve broken my spine and permanently paralyzed myself while trying to read books on my laptop. [Honestly bad things happen and my body protests vehemently.]

I do love my print books. LOVE. (E ink might be the selling point really.) I also like keeping all my books new. Pristine. Able to be traded with a new bookstore copy no problem. I experiences flashes of great sorrow when I accidentally crease a cover or… heaven forbid, step on a book. (Which happens a lot, unfortunately.) I suppose an e-reader would prevent such travesties.

And most importantly – I know a lot of you with e-readers feel very strongly about them. If I’m going to be dropping ~$400.00 I’d like to be sure. Convince me. Cajole me – which one should I buy, and why? Of course – I’m also depending on your superior knowledge and wisdom in guiding me in this large, and very important purchase. Oh – and marketing reps comments are welcome too – I wouldn’t want to preclude you from doing your jobs.

Ready? Set? GO!!! … and also – thank you in advance

***Ok – so sometimes it can be a good thing for my ponderings to not be posted quickly. In the ~two months since – I’ve finally found the news. This may not be news to you and in fact old hat – but it’s the first “proof” I’ve seen. Finally- finally with all the rumors we’ve been hearing, Amazon has the Kindle 2. Ok so its not available yet. But with the leaked pictures, it should be coming out soon. Everyone remember when the G1 Kindle pics were leaked? (Yeah, my reaction was “eeeuuuwww.”) Sadly, v2 while a bit more appealing looks like a TI graphic calculator on steroids. Honest – I had a bad flashback to Calc AP. And its even larger than the 1st Kindle. What is going on here? The Sony is much prettier. But then they did mess up a bit on the PRS 700BC. I can’t afford that anyway – so I was thinking the Sangria Red 505. But most my ebooks are in Mobipocket. And now G2 Kindle – but it’s uggleee. (Yes, yes I can be coerced into buying things because they’re prettier. And so can you. Just check Apple sales. And hello, Ipod, anyone?) What’s a girl to do?!?

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I’ve resigned myself to never being able to have “hot” news – but I can’t think of other graphics for that last bit. So – I’ll continue to add on. For those of you who are all mad about having recently purchased a Kindle (but not yet receiving it) – try contacting Amazon. You have a number of options. You could cancel your order. You could hope that the Kindle has been sold out for so long because Amazon has been phasing out the G1 and you’ll get a G2. Or you might get a G1 with a discount or refund. Or you might not. There are a few games tech geeks play with varying degrees of success. But to play it safe – ask Amazon, and otherwise, cancel and wait.

 I’ve been involved in the epublishing market since close to its inception as a potentially profitable fiction market, ie around the late ‘90’s, early 2000’s. I slipped into it by accident – I write unabashed romance and I live in the UK, where if you write romance, it’s Mills and Boon or nothing. Sagas, which until recently filled the market, are more about a woman’s life than they are about romance and an American reader wouldn’t class them as romance.

Anyway, once M and B rejected my historical, because it’s in the first person, (“Yorkshire,”) I had nowhere to go, so someone suggested the USA. The big publishers seemed impossible, so I tried epublishing, figuring it would be a good stepping-stone. I’m still there.

But boy, has it changed! It’s no longer a stepping-stone, but an end in itself. Now what I have to say concerns certain comments I’ve seen recently by people who ought to know better, but maybe it’s because they can’t see the numbers. Any more than I can give them.

However, any study of any market will tell you that the top 20% of companies makes 80% of the profit. It’s called the Pareto rule, and although the numbers are obviously not exact, it’s true for almost every market you can think of. It’s true for New York publishing, it’s true for epublishing, too.

In New York, the big five (six?) make far more than all the other small publishers, and that’s not even thinking about the self-publishing outfits. It works the same way in epublishing, although detailed figures aren’t available and authors are constrained by their non-disclosure agreements with the publishers so they can’t give them, which is why I can’t tell you my sales and earnings in any detail. There must be a large audience of people who don’t participate on the message boards, the blogs or the loops who just buy books, because sales are now very healthy indeed.

I write for three of the biggest epublishers – Ellora’s Cave, Samhain and Loose-Id, and my income is – well it’s in five figures, which is what a midlist New York author can expect. This is not unusual for an author for the largest epub houses, and it’s no longer confined to the erotic only. My Samhain historicals are highly sensual, not erotic, and I’ve featured in the Samhain list of top ten sellers several times, as have other non-erotic authors.

I am fairly prolific, but a lot of that is reissues. My editors are as exacting as you’ll find anywhere, sometimes more so, and I have at least two for each book, and extra editing for print releases. I’m not showing off, I’m just tired of people saying that epubbed authors earn miniscule amounts, and then quoting someone from one of the smaller epubs. The majority of sales don’t lie there. Authors write for them for various reasons – to get into the market, because they’re friends with the owners, because they’re happy with the editing and cover art the house offers or because they expect the house to grow and want to grow with it.

It’s now very difficult to get a book accepted by the bigger epublishing houses. The bigger epublishers spend a great deal on cover art, the website and other incidentals, so it’s not true that it’s cheap to produce an ebook. And the author gets a bigger cut, too, than they can expect in New York. And barriers to entry are rising – art is more expensive, editors demand a proper salary, and promotion and website costs are rising, too.

However, asking a hardback price for an ebook is a marketing decision, not one of economics, and I’d be unhappy if anyone was asked to pay $12 or more for one of my ebooks, unless I’d written a book the length of “Lord of the Rings.”

Concentrate on where the majority of sales are and you’ll find an expanding, dynamic market which is changing to reflect the nature of the changing market. Ellora’s Cave now has a new website, Jasmine Jade, which encompasses all its imprints. Samhain has just acquired Linden Bay Romance, to increase its scope and its roster of authors. Harlequin has made major investments in putting its books out as ebooks, and the marketing team there is one of the sharpest you’ll find anywhere. They have good reason for doing so. I’m not even touching on the new readers like the Kindle and Sony. Suffice it to say that they’ve helped to boost sales, too.

While I’d love to write for New York or London, or both, it’s no longer my sole career path. Epublishing has been good to me, even considering the Wild West days, and I sincerely believe it’s the way of the future. Not least because last year I made the decision to get my new books in e-format whenever possible (I just ran out of space). And I no longer feel I have to defend the industry. I can afford to shrug and walk away. Just trying to put a few misconceptions right, that’s all.

Is everything hunky-dory in the epublishing world? Of course not. But it’s no longer something that can be swept under the carpet, although its position as the red-headed stepchild of the fiction market will probably stick with it for a while.