I see you are offering Kindle conversions. When did you change your opinion of eBooks?

I see you are offering Kindle conversions. When did you change your opinion of eBooks? Caught me! Yes, we are starting to offer EBook conversions at www.SelfPublishing.com but it is not because I had some sort of epiphany or think that one less printed book will be sold as a result of EBooks. They are being offered because it falls within my “don’t spend more than $500 philosophy”. I wrote about this back in 2004 and thought it might be interesting to re-visit that article with 2010 updates (Click here to read more)

What do you think about the future of E-Books? (Original article September 2004)

Most of those who know me are quite aware that there is very little grey area in my opinion on just about any topic. My opinion on E-Books is no exception. In my opinion E-Books are a waste of time and effort and only detract from the small publishers’ main goal of selling “books”.

Back in the 90’s, when the venture capital money was flowing faster than Niagara Falls, the e-book industry “PR Machine” predicted a “Revolution” during which time the printed book would quickly go the way of the dinosaurs. I remember attending various trade shows during this time and seeing huge exhibits of the e-book publishers as well as other e-book suppliers recounting their success stories. While I had never actually seen an e-book, it sure seemed like something I was missing out on. The way these e-book vendors made it appear, I was the only person in the universe who was not buying books in their format. It was really making me feeling old having let such a dramatic event pass me right by. However, once I left these exhibit halls and re-entered the real world I couldn’t find an e-book anywhere, or even anyone who knew what one was. The truth about this e-book “revolution” is that it was simply a figment of the imaginations of those in the e-book industry and the “revolution” only existed as long as the venture capital money lasted and that ran out some time ago.

The concept of sitting at a computer, or other similar device, reading a book never made sense to me. Looking something up on the Internet or downloading a sample PDF chapter is one thing, but a whole book? I just don’t see it. And I am not alone.

I ride the train each morning, to my office in New York, along with about 400,000 other commuters. I made it a point to start observing what people were doing with their time riding to and from the city. The morning trip is dominated by people reading the newspaper or catching up on a little sleep. The seats on Metro North were designed to comfortably seat 2-5 Lilliputians so you can imagine what the rush hour commute is like with normal sized individuals. Add to this, the image of all these people trying to read the newspaper. You would think this would be the perfect setting for a bunch of e-book readers. The commute home is a little different in that many of the morning newspaper readers have turned into book readers and the morning sleepers are reading the newspaper they didn’t read on the trip in. In all the years of riding the train I have only seen one e-book reader. I was so shocked when I saw it, I moved over to the person to ask him about it. As it turned out, he worked for BN.com and had been given the reader at no charge. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that if it were up to him, he would not have it. Years later, the commute is still pretty much the same. A few people are sprinkled here and there watching movies on DVD players or laptops, and a few more talking obnoxiously on their cell phones, but there are still no signs of anyone reading an e-book.

I have a personal theory on this whole ink on paper vs. electronic media thing. I believe it was Freud who said your personality is developed by the time you are two (or something like that). With that in mind, take a look at your children or grandchildren under the age of two. Do you sit down or lay down with them and read them a nice picture book or do you lay down with them and read them a nice e-book? A book is more than just words on paper, especially to a child. The touch and feel, even the smell, and to a one year old, the taste, makes a book unique. By the age of two, these children are “book” people and will continue to be book people as long as they are alive. Don’t believe me? Look how many kids under two are set in front of a television to be entertained. Mine were no exceptions. Wee Sing, Sesame Street, Wiggles or the Care Bears have babysat more than one child. Are these kids now TV people? You bet they are.

2010 Update –A new bunch of venture capitalists are taking another swipe at the E-Book concept, and some big players are involved, mainly Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Sony. I still ride the same train with the same 400,000 people and still see no E-Book readers. What has changed to make me alter my opinion slightly is the explosion of other Internet based communication devices… Blackberry’s… I Phones… and now Google phones. The obnoxious babbling on the cell phone has been replaced by throngs of people staring at these miniature computers… sending email… text messages…checking sports scores…tweets. I just found out last night that some of these have a function where you take a picture of a barcode on a product in a store, hit the send button and it returns all the stores in your area who carry that product and their prices. Pretty neat. I have big hands and MS, which limits my use of a Blackberry type device but was attracted to the other development in the communications field the “Net Book”. The Net Book is a lightweight, inexpensive laptop with an 8” or so screen and an almost full sized keyboard and wireless access. I bought one of these as soon as they became available. All of these devices are “E” type devices. I still see hundreds of books and newspapers being read but can now see a possible opening for a small percentage of these gadgets delivering reading content, longer than an article, like a book that someone might read. Is it worth betting the ranch on it with your self-publishing project? Absolutely not. Is it worth a $129 conversion of a printing file and an upload to e-land? Yes. It’s one more inexpensive way to offer your book for sale to the public. Once I get some real sales data and not just the industry hype, I’ll update you. For now, I would go ahead and purchase an E-Book conversion at the same time you are sending your file off to the printer. If I go from a “Buy” to a “Strong Buy” you’ll see it here first.

For more information on e-book conversions, click here.

Ron Pramschufer

Ron Pramschufer has been in or around the printing and publishing industry for over 35 years. His experience, including working in the pressroom, bindery, production office and estimating department helped give him a firm foundation to build on when he entered sales and management. He was partners in a small press publishing company in Annapolis, MD in the late seventies and co-invented and marketed two controversial political board games which sold over 100,000 copies in the early eighties. Moving from his home state of Maryland to New York City after his game experience, Ron sold printing services to, primarily, small to mid-sized book publishers for over a decade before founding RJ Communications with an old friend. Ron recognized the potential of the Internet very early as a powerful communications tool. In 1997 he started one of the first printer related websites, www.rjcom.com, which caters to the professional print buyer. This evolved into www.BooksJustBooks.com and more recently www.selfpublishing.com which target the print buying novice, primarily self-publishers. All three sites are still operating successfully and SelfPublishing.com was named as one of Writers Digest’s, 101 Best websites for writers for 2006. Educating the novice print buyer has been a top priority from day one. To help address this issue, Ron co-authored the popular title Publishing Basics- a Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher, now in its Third Edition, as well as Publishing Basics for Children’s Books, in its Second Edition. He is the organizer of the monthly Publishing Basics Newsletter where he writes a sometimes controversial Ask Ron column which addresses various aspects of the publishing process. On the same note, he started the Publishing Basics Radio PodCast in 2005 and serves as the show’s host. A wide variety of topics are covered including a very popular series titled, The Truth Behind POD Publishing, where he conducts interviews with a select group of industry insiders. Since its inception, RJ Communications has helped thousands of customers print over 105 million books. Ron is married and has three children. His daughter, Stephanie, teaches second grade and recently self-published her first children’s book in the Oliver the Clownfish series. Matthew, his oldest son, owns a website design business and Erik, the youngest, is enjoying high school.

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