Amazon, schmamazon

In theory, I should despise Amazon. They are the Wal-Mart of the Internet, offering goods and services at such low prices, they decimate any mom-and-pop endeavors in the area, blighting towns and only hiring part-time employees so they don't have to offer any benefits. Amazon is out to rule the world, and so far, it seems that nothing will stop them.

And yet.

As an author, I'm damned happy they exist. I've uploaded my books on Kindle and created paperbacks on CreateSpace, and they are for sale in the Amazon store nearly immediately. Amazon lets me set up an Author's page, where people can come and see if I'm legit or just a fly-by-night, one-trick-writer, full of typos and horrid grammar. They make it easy for me to get my books to market, and they pay me monthly. Yes. Monthly.

Let's consider the rest of the industry: Barnes & Noble, Sony, Apple, Kobo, blah-blah-blah. At Barnes & Noble, we have the PubIt! feature, but I can't set up an author's page and they pay every 60 days. I can't figure out how to even load my own books on the rest, except to go through Smashwords. Don't misunderstand - Smashwords is a great vehicle for uploading to all e-readers, but I'm only paid a month after every quarter end.

Not as friendly as Amazon.

As much as I love people of all e-races and e-readers to have access to my books, I tallied last year's numbers and saw that I did less than 10% of my total sales on all non-Kindle devices put together.

So I'm trying an experiment. I've signed up for the Kindle Select Lending Program, for my newest book, "Are You There Erma? It's Me Gayle". For 90 days, this book will only be available on Kindle. For the next FIVE days, it is being offered as a free promotion.

This is day one, and it's at #1,093 in the Free Kindle Store, #3 in Humor, Essays and #4 in Humor, Parenting and Families. It feels a little icky to be handing out all these free copies, but we'll see how the free rankings help my sales once the free promotion shine wears off.

If it gives this book the boost I'm hoping for, I may have to go with nothing but Kindle for all my books. Sorry, Nook-folks, iReaders, Sony-ites. It's all Amazon's fault. They're treating me too nicely.

And for all you Kindlings, you've got til Friday to get Are You There Erma? It's Me Gayle. What are you waiting for?

A Christmas Sing-a-long!

I really have a bunch of cleaning to do today, but I had to get this out of the way first.

I was itching to do a promo video, and asked my son to provide the soundtrack. Unfortunately, he's all tied up with things like finals and juries (these are finals that you sing), so he was unable to help. That means it's up to you.

Let's have a sing-a-long! Here's your motivation (in addition to not being a singer, I'm also not a photographer, but play along):

Okay, in your best Karen Carpenter Dulcet Tones, sing along with me:

(insert beautiful piano intro here)

I'll be home for Christmas,
You can count on me.
Please have Nooks,
And lots of books,
And Kindles 'round the tree.

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the stories lead.
I'll be home for Christmas,
With lots of stuff to read.

Happy Holidays with much love for your support and friendship,

Gayle.

What we have heah is a failure to communicate.

A couple of posts ago, I spoke of David Mathison's talk at the Southern California Writer's Conference, and asked for opinions and discussion about the future of the paper book. The responses to the post, and to some other blogs I've been lurking on, lead me to believe I might have been misunderstood.

My quandry was this: As children, our first experiences with books are tactile ones. We chew on the fabric picture book, then we touch the patches of fluffy and slick and rough on board books, and slowly graduate up through chapter books, etc. While many of us are embracing the world of e-books, gobbling up Kindles, Nooks, and eReaders, almost everyone with Kindle-in-hand says, "but I still like to read paper books," or some such statement. I wondered what, if anything, would replace those early childhood sensations to allow us to completely give up our dependency upon the feeling of a book in our hands as adults?

Let me make my position clear: I'm NOT opposed to ebooks. I want a Kindle, or a Nook. As a nerd, I adore technology and welcome new toys.

What I want are ideas... what's out there to replace this? I know there are interactive books for the computer. My son had one, and delighted in clicking on things to find hidden clues. But what else?

Will anything replace this? We've got a few of these three-dimensional bug-eyed books and they were fun novelties to him.

Maybe they'll have a Baby's First Kindle, although it would need to be shatter-proof, slobber-proof and spill-proof. Will it be big enough to sit in Mom or Dad's lap every night and find the mouse?

Or how about books that are really works of art? This book has very few, very thoughtful words, accompanied by beautiful pictures.

I'm asking for all you folks who are thinking outside the box, who've glimpsed the future and seen some of the sights, who are dreaming of the paperless world, to tell me what's coming and what may be.

What would the paperless world look like, if you had your way?