I’ll admit, I was a reluctant convert to e-books. Until this year, I didn’t own a smart phone or a tablet or a cool e-reader (like my NOOK pictured above), and I was really bugged by the fact that you can’t send an e-book in a care package.

In a matter of months, I’ve gone from being a paper-book only gal to reading about half of my books digitally!  What happened? Well, for me, getting a NOOK was key, but I think that if I would have had a better picture of the benefits of e-books, it wouldn’t have taken so long.

Why E-Books Rock

* Less to lug around - I keep my NOOK in my diaper bag and I have instant access to my Bible, devotionals, latest novel, and whatever else I want to have on hand! And trust me, that diaper bag is heavy enough!

* More Money in Your Pocket – Ebooks are typically cheaper than their print counterparts, and there’s no shipping!

* More Money in THEIR Pocket – There are no printing costs. And authors who would otherwise hit a roadblock at trying to get published and market their books “the old fashioned way,” can self publish and start earning NOW! Well established authors in the print world do well with ebooks too because less of the profit goes into printing (though depending on how much they are selling their title for, you can imagine it might even out).

* Lots of Freebies – It’s less cost-prohibitive for authors to give away free sample copies if they are digital, so there’s never a shortage of free titles to snag. Visit eReaderGirl to see what I mean!

Do You Have To Have An E-Reader?

Nope! I mentioned that having a NOOK was key for me because I get too distracted trying to read anything lengthy on my laptop/desktop with my email and Facebook open in other tabs to taunt me. That’s why I went with the NOOK Simple Touch – it doesn’t do a darn thing but display books. :)

If you are more disciplined than me, you can download Kindle for PC for your Kindle books, or just read your .pdf files in Adobe.

You can also print your ebooks yourself. The first two ebooks that I purchased years ago got sent off to OfficeMax to be printed same day. I knew I’d use them more often that way. Totally legitimate.

How Do You Keep Track?

I review for LitFuse, and I just purchased that AMAZING ebook bundle I’ve been telling you all about, so what do I do with the HUNDREDS of e-books I’ve acquired?

Very simply, I have organized folders by topic and as soon as I get a book, it goes where it belongs. I do this on our bookshelves at home, too. My husband thinks it’s silly. Not all librarians love Mr. Dewey. ;)

What Would Your {Librarian} Husband Say?!

My hubby is the director of our local public libraries. He is asked ALL THE TIME for his opinion on how eBooks will affect libraries, whether libraries will become obsolete, etc.

Some libraries have adapted to this new digital age by allowing patrons to check out ebooks with their library cards. Definitely check to see if yours has ebooks available – free is good! And it’s important to support your libraries in this endeavor because frankly, it’s a tough road.

Publishers are scrambling to determine how to make a profit when it’s so easy to self-publish, and libraries are feeling their stress. From my husband:

“There are only a handful of large publishers in the North American market. When you purchase an e-book through them or one of their distributors (any major retailer), you are not actually purchasing a copy of that book. Instead, you buy a license that dictates how, when, and on what device you can consume the content you’ve licensed. It also dictates how your reading habits can be tracked, and by whom. These licensing schemes allow publishers to circumvent what’s known as first sale doctrine, which is the part of copyright law that allows you to resell, lend, or give away what you have legally purchased.

 The circumvention of first sale doctrine has had an immediate impact on libraries and a somewhat less noticeable (so far) impact on consumers. Of the top 25 e-book best sellers as of April 3 rd, libraries are only allowed to purchase licenses to 13. In order to purchase one of those 13, a library must pay three to five times as much, per copy, than a consumer. Sometimes the pricing difference is even more dramatic. The popular best seller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead can be purchased in e-book format by consumers for $14. If you’re a library, it costs $80.85 (Best Sellers price comparison).

Why has this happened? Publishers are afraid and they’re closing ranks. As e-books gain market share, their business model is eroded. Think about how much it would cost you to publish your own e-book versus publishing a book in print. The major value publishers bring to the relationship between author and reader is by making printing and distribution – to a mass market – financially realistic. A Bowker report out late last year found that self published e-books grew 129% between 2010 and 2011. As e-books become more popular, publishers are becoming the easily removed middle man.

 This doesn’t have to be the case, although it will require a large industry shift to be avoidable. Publishers will almost certainly need to follow the music industry and give up notions of complicated digital rights management (DRM) systems and licensing schemes. Many people believe that DRM exists in order to prevent people from illegally stealing copyrighted material. It doesn’t. DRM encourages theft. If one has the choice to purchase a license to content that can be taken away from them without compensation at the whim of a company, or download a copy of that same content to consume, without restriction, it’s hardly much of a choice. The actual purpose of DRM is an attempt by individual companies to create a monopoly by locking individuals into a specific platform. If you can only read your kindle licensed-books on a kindle or through kindle apps, you live on the kindle platform, and the more money you invest into kindle licenses, the harder it is for you to leave – because you lose everything.  

This may seem all very well and dire. In some respects it is, but a lot of it is attributable to industry leaders testing out the waters and learning where they can change, adapt, and, in the end, profit. It is incumbent upon consumers and citizens to help guide that path, by being responsible with our purchasing decisions and supporting organizations that stand up for what we believe to be the right way of doing business. Your local library is one of those, and on a larger scale, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is another.”

So does this mean that you should commit to only reading paper books that you can get from your library? Absolutely not. Demand creates change. And besides, supporting independent authors and supporting libraries are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of libraries love to showcase indie authors – especially if they are local.

While the publishing world is going through this period of “growing pains,” you can give a little love to everybody. :) Libraries are amazing community resources and hubs of inspiration. Paper books have a “realness” to them that can’t be replaced. And eBooks give you the opportunity to branch out, read MORE, and support your favorite authors.