Interlude on e-books

Posted by Ken Edwards on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Under: Reality Street
We interrupt this series to pose a question.

Recently, a couple of authors who have Reality Street books forthcoming have enquired about e-book versions of their published work. Am I planning to make such available? Or if not, do they retain the right to do so?

The answer to the first question is that I haven't given it much thought, but a moment's reflection suggests that there isn't (yet) a history of readers willing to pay for e-book versions of small press poetry collections and works of imaginative writing of the sort that Reality Street publishes. There are of course plenty of websites where you can download poetry collections for free (there's one of mine available). And it has in fact occurred to me that it would be a good idea to make available online free downloads as a taster for new Reality Street books, particularly if they are first collections or works by authors who don't have an extensive track record.

But paid-for poetry e-books? Well, the world is changing fast, the technology is improving all the time and soon there will be some consensus on formats, so who knows? I'm still sceptical.

If anyone has any views on this, please respond. If you don't have my email address, you can use the Reality Street contact page - or simply use the "comments" feature.

After London next.

In : Reality Street 

Next post: Unknown countries...
Previous post: Unknown countries...

Tags: e-books 
« Back to posts

blog comments powered by Disqus

About ...


Ken Edwards This blog is written by Ken Edwards, co-founder and editor/publisher of Reality Street, and it's mainly about the press. Ken's personal blog can now be found at http://www.kenedwardsonline.co.uk