The Game has Changed

On June 20th, 2011- 60 year old John Locke has hit a quota few can actually brag about: selling over one million e-books on Kindle. Amanda Hocking (the young self-pub author who I mentioned in this article here) claims she has also sold one million e-books, but not on Kindle yet. With Amazon, Barnes n’ Nobles, and now even private publishers taking the role in the e-book trade, what will be left of the paper world? E-books are now the most convenient format of literacy, available across Kindles, Nooks, I-pads, smart phones, computers and any other device that has a screen and an internet connection! I’m a fan of books (just love the smell of a newly purchased book in my hand), but now I wonder if in this next decade how such printed books will fair against their versatile competitors.

I first came across e-books sometime back in 2006, when I was only thirteen. A man I had known from Boy Scouts (yeah, yeah shut up), carried around a Palm PDA that he would use to carry phone numbers and important stuff like that. He knew my interest in books, so he pulled me aside one day and showed me something called an e-book. Essentially, it looked like a .txt file just displayed across the screen, but it was the start of a revolution we are witnessing now in this day. Of course, learning of this I booted up my dial-up and searched for any sort of e-book area. I can’t remember spotting any huge sites, except maybe E-pub, and the Gutenberg Project (a collection of public domain books, free of charge). Nothing seemed to interest me. Even back then, before the e-book hoarder frenzy, I’d Google Harry Potter e-books and find a thousand listings of pirated scans or crude type ups of the original tale. Now J.K. Rowling is releasing her HP tales via Pottermore.

Published, now what?

Well I hit one of my earliest milestones in my writing career and that is to be published. My short story “Cycles” has been published in The Absent Willow Review. The lovely people over there also managed to pair the story with a horrific painting of a vampire which is awesome! After publication I spotted some spelling errors, but hey even Harry Potter has mistakes.

I want to branch out more. The week hiatus I took as I dealt with school issues seemed to disrupt the amount of page views I was receiving, but I will keep posting to the end! As I write this, I have a half dozen short stories in various stages of completion; all eager to seek some sort of recognition. I’ll be doing another mad dash at magazines to try and pair some of my stories with homes. Over a month ago I mentioned a serial fiction series and that has not been abandoned. Sometime early August I will be putting that through full force, but I’ll keep u guys up to the minute on it on my twitter @damianrucci.

I’ve been inspired by some authors that I’ve met on twitter like Michelle Franklin, who’s new e-book, Tales from Frewyn is receiving awesome reviews (and I will be reviewing it sometime this week once Amazon recognizes my kindle reader on my mac!). These inspirations have driven me to start planning an e-book that I hope to launch in mid-July. This book would contain some horror shorts, poetry, and two novellas I have lying around.

Well just checking in for today, does anyone know how to register the kindle reader for mac?

Damian

Why Ebooks won’t kill the Writing Stars

Creativity is an object of desire which cultivates due to the easier techonological mediums of the day. In 1440 we saw Johannes Gutenberg create the first printing press under the Holy Roman Empire. Several hundred years later we see the rise of the trade-paper back, and when the late 1990s came whizzing by we first were faced with the rise of the E-book. Now over ten years later we have E-readers, and E-book sales are growing in proportion with each month.

Will paper prints die?

Not for the next thirty or so years. As long as the babyboomers are still alive and well they will continue to buy paperbooks. Some people love the feel of paper in between their fingers, and the smell of a new paperback is amazing. I for one, have a Nook and I do read novels on there, but I also have tons of books off on my shelves.