dragging me kicking and screaming into the digital age

this happened to me with my camera. i loved my Canon. i loved going to the store to pick up my pictures that i'd had developed. i loved putting them in scrapbooks. i didn't want a digital camera because i knew it would change things.

now i have a digital camera and i see my pictures instantly and they're stored on discs and i don't put them in scrapbooks anymore because it's easier to look at them on the computer. i think i miss touching the actual pictures, but it does save space and paper. i don't have to buy film. i can use it to take quick videos.

this also happened to me with the iPod. i loved listening to cds and didn't see any need for the iPod. now i sort my songs and put them in lists and can find any song i want, plus i don't have to buy a whole cd for just one song. it even irks me now when you have to buy a whole digital "album" to get one song. i don't miss cds.

i recall it happened when facebook first came around. i'd already resigned myself to communicating with people via e-mail, though i still prefer phone calls, but even now i find that emails are quicker and more efficient. i resisted facebook because i felt it was even less personal than e-mail, but for some of my friends, it's the only way i can communicate with them and i've found so many lost friends, and have connected with new people, and i actually enjoy it now. sigh.

i also avoided texting (my husband texted all the time and it drove me crazy.) to me, it's even more impersonal than e-mail or facebook. and then i got a new cell phone and i text to the people who will only respond to my texts. ok, i also text my doctor husband when he can't be disturbed because he's in with a patient. i've succumbed and i feel weird about it.

i hope this doesn't happen to me with books. there's still something about holding an actual book and curling up on the bed with it and feeling the pages as i turn them. it's comforting. it's cozy. it's not the same as working with my computer.

that doesn't mean i don't read e-books on my laptop. sometimes that's my only choice when i'm bored and can't find a book at the library, or don't have the time to get there. i download from my local digital library. i just hope i don't succumb to Kindle. i think that would be a bad step for me.

all that to say... if the trends i'm reading about (in the articles below) are true, i may have to go that way. and i certainly can't avoid putting my novels in digital form because i don't like losing printed books. just like facebook and e-mail, there are certain people who really enjoy reading a book on an e-reader, and i'm missing those people if i don't put Eldala in the digital world.

which is why i'm going to be using Smashwords in the very near future to get it on as many e-readers as possible. in light of that, i'm helping promote Smashwords by posting this intro video.

i just hope i'm not contributing to the end of the book as we know it (see the video on my sidebar). i'd hate to lose actual books.

Introduction to Smashwords - Ebook Publishing and Distribution Made Easy

View more presentations from Smashwords, Inc..

WSJ: Google Set to Launch E-Book Venture

Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books

WSJ: The Entire History of the Book

Randy Ingermanson (The Snowflake guy) and the Future of Publishing

Smashwords Puts Authors and Publishers in Control of Pricing