Ten to fifteen years ago, a new technology was developed called print-on-demand (POD). Publishers and small authors alike who didn’t know any better explored it as a means to getting their works into print. The Web, fairly new by publishing standards, helped become a vehicle for this phenomenon. Back in those days you didn’t have to worry about garages or basements filled with over 500 or more titles not being sold. No, you could order two or three at a time without having to sweat. Vanity presses took the most advantage of this, but now anyone and their mother can become a writer-turned-printer-turned-publisher (if you get the gist). Still, no matter how far POD has come, no matter how much it has been utilized and what it is capable of, media in the form of a virtual entity will eventually – no, I’m sorry, inevitably – reign supreme.
Amazon’s Kindle 2: http://www.amazon.com/gp/…548931&pf_rd_i=507846
So toward the end of February 2009, Amazon’s new eReading gadget, KINDLE 2 makes its stunning debut. You can go and preorder it now for a mere $359.00 – kind of steep, if you ask me – or you could wait five to ten years until every book, magazine, and news periodical known to man makes the switch regardless. And that goes for the unknown or semi-popular ones, too. Think about it: saving trees and saving money, even saving shelf space unlike ever before, while being able to listen to music, read your favorite blogs, and go wireless on buses and subways or the road. Amazon and Sony know what they’re doing. In these tough times, where publishing companies are laying off hundreds if not thousands, where pro and non-pro magazines are folding left and right or going on hiatus, companies like Amazon are taking small steps through the cracks into what I call the ‘future of written word-related media’.
E-publications are more cost-effective than print. So get with the program now, before it’s too late. I’ll miss hardcovers and paperbacks like every other reader or writer from my generation. But if we don’t assimilate now, we may be missing out on a mighty fine resurgence. Only in a different format.
What do you think of the Kindle 2, or eBooks and eReaders in general?
Come, take a KINDLE poll with me…
Cheers,
Lawrence R. Dagstine
Lawrence Dagstine: Author 
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