I very much appreciate your kind words, and I’m glad to hear you enjoyed Right Ascension so much. Thanks for taking the time to post a comment and share your thoughts. I replied to you by email as well, and I do hope to hear any other thoughts (positive or negative) you have on my novels.

– DD

I was given a Kobo for Christmas and as a result have started getting into the ebook world. The main reason I wanted an eReader was so that I could find authors I’m not likely to find in the shops – I like to think of it as finding ‘indie authors’…

I stumbled across your book ‘Right Ascension’ and saw that it had a good cover and a good summary and decided to download it. I just wanted to say that it was one of the best Sci Fi books I have read in a while. I’m currently in my final year of uni and am doing my dissertation on a Sci Fi theme as well and will definately be trying to find a way to add it in.

I know this comment might not be relevant to your actual post but I just wanted to comment, there’s so much I would love to share with you about the book and give any feedback (positive and negative if you want it). I probably, knowing me, will forget to check this blog but please email me to let me know you got this message as I’m so desperate to encourage you as an author! You have kept me up many nights this week just reading and my girlfriend even feels ignored – please don’t stop writing.

Looking forward to starting ‘Declination’ tomorrow.

Hope to hear from you.

Edward Graham-Hyde.
Preston, UK

Certainly, when retailers take about 50% of the retail price of print books, it’s hard to get the prices down (for that reason, I quickly stopped trying to sell my print books in bookstores or do book signings — there just wasn’t any money left after the bookstore cut). Of course, having large retail stores and employees is expensive.

But, I don’t hear much complaint about print book prices — what I hear a lot of is outrage over comparatively high e-book prices. That frustration is understandable when the retailer cut is much less in the e-book world and the printing, storage, return, and distribution cost of e-books is near zero.

Thanks for a great blog The distributor/retailer cut is the greatest percentage in all models except the ebook according to the graph above. Perhaps publishers aren’t solely to blame for high book prices when surely they would put more into the project (structural/copy/proof editing, design, good production etc) than distributors/retailers?

I think the hardware differences are close enough that the two important deciding factors are (a) price (the Kindle Fire is $50 less), and (b) whether you prefer buying e-books or other items from Amazon or B&N.

I wrote a post comparing the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet here:

E-Reader/Tablet Hybrids: Kindle Fire vs. B&N Nook Tablet

E-Ink vs. LCD: What’s The Difference?

I also agree with you on LCD being the “wrong direction” for e-readers, which is why I call these “tablets” (even if Amazon, B&N, and Apple try to market them as e-readers). You might like what I said about the original Nook Color, and how I was disappointed in the move away from e-Ink:

Nook: Color Me Disappointed

Ultimately, that’s what makes any e-book reader something special. I’m sad to see the new color ones without at least the hybrid LED/e-ink display. It’s just going down the wrong road, in my opinion.

Nice e-discussion, though. I like your site. And you’re obviously doing something right with regard to SEO, because when I Googled… well… now I can’t remember exactly what I Googled, but it had both the Nook and the Fire in the search terms…

…and your site was right at the top. That’s what brought me here. Good work! [grin]

____________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Napa, California USA
gregg at greggdeselms dot com