Read an E-Book Week - WOW What a Success!

Thank you to everyone who took advantage of Read an E-Book Week to download a free copy of my book Options. 55 of you took the time to go to http://www.smashwords.com/ and download the book. Some of you even stopped by here first and read my blog entry before going to smashwords.

I took advantage of my 100+ friends on Facebook and reminded them everyday this past week that it was Read an E-Book Week and gave them a link to my blog to get a free copy.

It's hard slogging to get the word out about a self-published book and this week has definitely paid off. There are now 55 more copies of my book out there and hopefully some of those readers will post a review of the book on smashwords, or send me an email with their comments (rosemarie@rosemarie-damico.com). All comments, good, bad or indifferent are welcomed.

My book also showed up this week on http://www.kobo.com/, which is the website for Chapters/Indigo that sells electronic books. So, the word is spreading and thanks to people like Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords), self-published authors are actually getting a toe-hold (albeit tiny) in the publishing world. Now if I could only convince Heather Reisman to put my hard copy book on the shelves at Chapters!

Free E-Books

Have you have tried reading e-books on an e-reader (Sony, Kindle, i-Phone, etc.) or on your computer? I have and I LOVE it!

I hear a collective gasp out there and about a year ago, I would have sucked in my breath too at the thought of someone my age accepting the new technology. But it was Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/) who was the reason I self-published my book Options (http://www.rosemarie-damico.com/) in the first place.

You see, it is now easy to publish your own book, and a big piece of doing that is having your book in an electronic format (.doc, .pdf, etc.). I think the only people in the world not to 'write' their books on computers would be the Amish, so you know what I mean when I say having your book in electronic format is the first step. Once it's written in Word or WordPerfect or whatever, it's easy to convert it to a format that allows readers to read your book on their e-reader of choice. My son-in-law does all his reading on his i-Phone, which has a screen far too small for me to enjoy but the generation behind me are using smaller and smaller devices for their reading. Imagine reading a book on a cell phone? I don't think so!

Smashwords published my book on their website as soon as I gave it to them in Word format. They converted it to several various e-formats and it is available for sale on their website. They have since signed agreements with Barnes & Noble, Sony, Amazon, Kobo and a few others to sell our books through those websites too.

In January this year I made the big step and purchased an e-reader for myself. After much research I chose the Sony e-Reader and I am VERY happy with it. I still read paper books and will never give those up. It only makes good business sense as far as I'm concerned, being an "electronically published" author as well as a "paper published" author, if you know what I mean. I can store up to 3,500 books on my e-reader and that makes travelling a heck of a lot lighter. Now my suitcase/briefcase isn't loaded with books when I travel -- I just have to throw my e-reader in my purse!

e-books are generally less expensive than print books. AND, imagine how happy I was to find out that my local library has e-books which I can borrow for 20 days (plus two renewals). Fantastic! So, don't knock it until you've tried it. Log on to your local library's website, search for the e-books, and download a couple to your computer (the library will likely advise you to download some free Adobe software first). Try reading a book on your computer.

Go to http://www.smashwords.com/ where my book and several hundred more are FREE starting March 7th (until March 13th). Smashwords are participating in a global event -- "Read an e-book Week".

To view my book and download a free copy starting on March 7th, go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2075

If you find that e-books aren't your cup of tea, I would be glad to sell you a paper copy of my book. Just go to http://www.rosemarie-damico.com/ -- I will even autograph your copy!

Happy reading!