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March 2-8 is Read An E-Book Week. Here are some figures from the Read An E-Book website (http://www.domokos.com/readebookweek.html.)
* It takes 12 trees to produce a ton of printing paper--24 trees for higher grade writing paper.
* A mature tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year.
* Up to 35% of books printed for consumers (down from nearly 60% several years ago) are never read. They are returned to the publisher and end up in landfills.
Not sold? Ebooks just not your thing?
Mona Risk quoted me yesterday in her blog (http://monarisk.blogspot.com/) and I'm quoting her to give an example of how enjoyable ebooks can be:
“ I personally discovered ebooks a couple months ago. Somehow I thought it would be difficult to download them. Well the first time I bought an ebook, I couldn’t believe it took exactly ten seconds for the download. Doubting my own sight, I checked. The book was here, saved in Adobe on my computer. By the way, the first e-book I bought was Mad About Mirabelle by Amarinda Jones. I read it on my monitor screen at a comfortable font size. It was easier to read than printed books with tiny letters and provided a good break from writing while I sat at my computer, reading, laughing and relaxing.”—Mona Risk
Okay, so maybe you're a little interested, but you don't know where to get an e-book, you wouldn't know which one to get, and Santa didn't bring you a fancy shmancy Kindle.
Well, there are a lot of wonderful e-book authors here at the pink slipper writers, so that’s a good place to start. Beyond that, you can win—free stuff, hooray!--some e-books-- e-books that have won awards, garnered rave reviews, straddled genres and/or stayed in beloved ones publishers have left behind at the Cerridwen Press author’s SPRING FLING. The grand prize winner gets not just seven e-books, but a gently used Rocket 1200 Ebook reader (go green—reduce, reuse, recycle!) to read them on.
To participate in the contest, channel your inner Easter egg Hunter and look on the author’s websites (a good way to learn about books) and blogs for trees (go green! Yes, that is the theme) and words to a phrase. It's not that hard -- my website, for one isn't complicated enough to really bury anything-- and it's a nice way to learn about new books. Aren't we all looking for a new good book to read?
For details, please visit the contest page on my website: http://www.lizjasper.com/contest.html
The SPRING FLING CONTEST starts today and runs through March 15, so get cracking now!
Happy reading!
--Liz Jasper, whose 2008 EPPIE Award nominated cozy vampire caper, UNDERDEAD, is available as an e-book or in paperback at major booksellers (Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Target (hey, they sell books!), www.cerridwenpress.com) and look for it at your local independent bookstore.
Great post, Liz. If we keep educating the reading population about ebooks and ereaders, people will beileve us and we'll do the world a favor.
Going to check your contest.
I like the convenience, selection of ebooks. And as was said the fact that you can get things that aren't exactly what the bookstore ordered because it didn't fit a shelf nitch!
I'm sold on E-books after also thinking I wouldn't be, easily downloaded to my laptop. Not that I'd mind a fancy kindle reader. Well, Liz, you are quite the spokeswoman to launch this E-book campaign. Go team!
You make it sound so easy.