Why Print?

What I'm reading: Dick Francis's Gamble by Felix Francis

I'm continuing my "All About Characters" seminar at Coffee Time Romance with a discussion of the various types of characters today: Stars, Supporting Cast, Extras, Walk-ons and Spear Carriers. Please drop by. But don't forget to come back.

The big switch in publishing is into digital formats. Whereas a couple of years ago, people wanted to know if they could walk into a bookstore and buy my books, today I'm more likely to hear, "Is it on the Kindle?"

Side note: As a NOOK color owner, I don't really like the idea that everyone assumes an e-book reader is Kindle, but I think it's slowly becoming generic…kind of like Kleenex. But there ARE other readers.

When I decided to bypass the publisher for DANGER IN DEER RIDGE, another Blackthorne, Inc. novel, I formatted it for every digital outlet I could handle. Barnes & Noble, Amazon,  All Romance eBooks, and via Smashwords, also Sony, Apple, and more. I did it all myself, and I didn't find it too complicated, perhaps because I've been involved with publishers who required digital submissions. I knew enough about formatting a Word doc so I wasn't intimidated by the Smashwords formatting guidelines. And I definitely recommend starting there. Once you've mastered Smashwords, the rest is easy.

I also recommend the free program, Calibre, which will convert a document to most formats, since All Romance eBooks doesn't do the conversions the way the other shops do.

But I've digressed. I meant to talk about print books. I know there are still readers who want to read print. My mother, for example. Even though I know sales of my print version will be minuscule when compared with digital, the more formats, the more readers I can reach.