People have been doing it for years with music, even with films, but in the last twelve months there has been a huge increase in downloading books to read straight from the computer, or one of the new eBooks on the market.
How do I know this – apart from Jeff Bezos telling me so?
I’ve just received my half yearly royalty statement which lays out in black and white not just how many copies of my books have been sold, but where and how. Anthologies (that’s when there is more than one book in a volume); reprints; manga cartoon strip editions and “chunking” – downloading a chapter at time to your phone -- in Japan; translations everywhere from Indonesia to Finland. The newest way to buy a book is straight off the internet and while a year ago the downloads were a matter of hundreds, now they are in their thousands. Mirroring the way internet sales of books took off a few years back.
Okay, words on a screen can never replace the joy of bookshop browsing – where you discover and buy authors you’ve never heard of.
It mystifies me why some independent book stores are so snooty about stocking romance. Romance readers have to be the biggest book buyers on the planet and while they’re getting their fix of their favourite series romance they pick up books for their kids, cookery and craft books, books for presents for friends and family – because when you love to read, you want to share the joy, right?
But there are moments when you just can’t wait for the latest book by your favourite author. Now you don’t have to. You just go to the Harlequin or Mills and Boon websites, or any of the on-line bookstores, download it and you can be reading it within minutes. No trip to the store, no postage. The pure joy of instant gratification. The really terrific thing about eBooks for Harlequin/Mills & Boon authors – and readers – is that the books don’t disappear after a couple of weeks. The online book stores have done a great job lengthening the time that series books are available – but the postage is a killer unless you’re multiple buying and once their stocks have gone that’s it. With a download, however, it’s there forever and even if you want to buy just one book, there’s no postage.
So there it is. Instant gratification, no postage, saving the planet – it takes a lot of trees, power and water to make paper – and for those of us (that’s all of us, right
And there’s one last great bonus if you’ve missed a book by one of your favourite authors. You can actually go here, click on Enjoy Effortless Entertainment 2 and put in a request for a backlist book by a favourite author to be re-issued as an eBook. Or simply email ebookrequests @ harlequin.ca -- without the gaps, natch. How great is that!
In the meantime, since you're here and presumably interested in my books, here are all the Liz Fielding titles presently available as eBook downloads –At eHarlequin --
The Valentine Bride
The Secret Life of Lady Gabriella
Reunited: Marriage in a Million
The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride
The Bride’s Baby (free at http://www.harlequincelebrates.com as well as Amazon for the Kindle and Sony for the Sony eReader)
Wedded in a Whirlwind
Secret Baby, Surprise Parents
The Secret Wedding
At Mills & Boon --
Wedded in a Whirlwind
Secret Baby, Surprise Parents
The Temp & the Tycoon
