One of the benefits of the e-book is that authors and publishers can easily re-release out of print books. The summer I turned thirteen, I read a book by a teen ager. I was so impressed that a young person had been published, and enjoyed the book so much, that I never forgot it. It was The Green Bronze Mirror by Lynne Ellison. It was a time travelling book of a girl who leaves modern England and finds herself in Roman times.
Over the years I kept my eyes open for it, but it wasn’t until this year that it showed up. It was available as a very inexpensive ebook download. Yeah! So now it’s in my e-reader and I have read it through a couple times, searching for all the components that captured my imagination as a kid. Now I can see that there are some rough patches that a good edit could have improved, but I also see what I loved in it, as well.
How easy it is to re-release old books now that there are ebooks!
I just keep thinking e-books are the future, and perhaps it’s worth cutting through all the middle men to offer one’s book directly to the readers. The more I hear, the more I am convinced that this is the right move. I am working out the details, but it’s coming together for Grace Awakening to be released as an ebook later this summer. It was always in the plan that Gumboot would release an electronic version. It’s quite possible I maybe ready to release it even earlier than the scheduled Gumboot release. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
Old books are easily re-released. New books are easily released. A good offering should find a readership. With the right promotion, it should generate the movement it needs to find the readers who will love it.
And so it begins.
Before any great journey, the provisions must be prepared. The day of embarkation is within sight. When the tide is right, we will sail!
Shawn L. Bird 