The Birth of the E-Book Era

It's no news that the Gutenberg era of "dead tree" books is coming to an end, and the birth of the e-book era is beginning. But as with any birth, there are a lot of questions.

As a writer/read-a-holic, what I wonder is how this will it all fall out. How does a writer  (who perhaps only wants to work with words) deal with cover art, layout, various e-book formats, and marketing which must all go into publishing an e-book? And with millions of e-books to choose from, how does a reader find a good book to read?

Let's look at this last part first.

A good book to read needs to be easily found, it needs to be easy on the eyes, and it needs to be engaging. In dead-tree times, publishers helped readers find books by publicizing them like mad. And they made sure only books that met certain standards (as defined by each publisher) were printed.  At minimum, this meant spelling and grammar were close to perfect,  characters were well defined and engaging, and plots were well formed/resolved.

This screening didn't mean no terrible books got published. It just meant few terrible books got published. Of course a few good ones managed to not get published as well.

Now, as publishers stop being the gatekeepers, how do readers find good e-books?

Today millions of monkeys can easily be swamping Amazon every day with uploads. But how do we readers find that one Shakespeare when every book that used to end up in the publisher's slush pile is now available. Should what is selling the most on any given day really determine where we'll spend our $2.99?

Then there is the easy on the eyes part.  Dead-tree people really honed down what fonts worked best, what was the best spacing between the lines,  etc.  Now will all of that need to be rediscovered? What if I finally find the Shakespeare, but it is written in ALL CAPS? Or in comic sans? Oh my!

These are just some of the things I am curious about in this birth of the e-book era. I'll use this blog to reveal what I find out.  This journey will likely take awhile -- and meander -- however hopefully it will be interesting.

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