Comments on: What are ebooks? Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic Books

By: Leonore H. Dvorkin

Leonore H. Dvorkin — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 19:13:16 +0000

Hi, folks.
My husband (David Dvorkin) and I are both authors. We now have most of our 20 published books in ebook format via Smashwords.com and Amazon.com. On the same sites, you can find three wonderful books for children by Brian K. Nash; I am his editor. We all love this new format.
Smashwords lets you download 50% of each book to try before you buy. They also let authors set their own cover prices; almost all of our books are just $2.99 each. Smashwords pays 80% of the cover price in royalties four times a year, and Amazon pays 70% monthly. That compares VERY well with traditional publishers.
Publication on those two sites is free if you can do the rather technical formatting and your own cover design; David is a tech writer and programmer, so he had no trouble with that. He and I also offer editing and cover design services to other authors.
Brian Nash has been blind from birth, so David designed his covers, too. Brian also tells us that ebooks are quite blind-friendly, given that they can be read aloud by the machine.
So, with the low prices for the books, the ease of downloading, the ease of publication, the high royalties, the saving of paper, and many other advantages, I really do not see what there is to dislike here. To us, it is no wonder at all that ebooks are taking off like a rocket. They deserve no less. — Leonore H. Dvorkin, Denver, CO

By: Sara Rosso

Sara Rosso — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 12:07:21 +0000

Jesse, Amazon for example lets you download a “Sample” of the book for free which can be from approximately 1-3 chapters of the book.

By: Jesse Condray

Jesse Condray — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:49:56 +0000

At a bookstore or a library, I can examine a book before I decide to buy it or not. What is the e-book equivalent?

By: Julie @ jbulie's blog

Julie @ jbulie's blog — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:26:16 +0000

Congratualitons on the success of your latest book. That is great. I found this list throught Michelle Fabio at Bleeding Expresso. I just published my first ebook too, and it’s going great. It helps people get their blog started and growing FAST. Check it out if you’d like to.

Julie

By: Tomas Baker

Tomas Baker — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:16:12 +0000

One of the great advantages of ebooks is that anyone can write and sell one themselves – anyone can become author and publisher in their own right. As a suggestion for follow up articles – you cover ‘reading’ ebooks, so why not cover writing and publishing your own ebook. I detail the publishing options on my site: Sell eBooks and Software Online

By: M.Banani

M.Banani — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 04:31:54 +0000

You didn’t really include any disadvantages .. just reasons why its not popular now. The advantages section was great though .. thanks .. but can you add a section on disadvantages