When e-readers like Amazon\u2019s Kindle<\/em> and Barnes & Noble\u2019s Nook<\/em> hit the market, I have to admit to being less than thrilled. An avid reader, I couldn\u2019t imagine reading without the feel of crisp pages at my fingertips, the smell of binding, dusty library shelves, the excitement of acquiring a favorite first edition, and the ever-expanding surface space this lifelong passion inhabited in my home. And then I found the enormous free online libraries that appealed to both the technogeek and the bibliophile in me.<\/p>\n Being a frugal person out of necessity and principle, I started running out of excuses not to get an e-reader around the time gas prices jumped–and so did the cost of just about everything else. I stopped avoiding the advertisements on Amazon.com and decided to take a look. Two things really appealed to me from the onset: the number of e-books available online and the environmental impact, or lack thereof.<\/p>\n When I was growing up environmentalism consisted largely of planting trees (ostensibly to replace all the trees we were cutting down for paper products), avoiding aerosol products (gotta love big 80\u2019s hair), and not littering. Save the Rainforest<\/em> wasn\u2019t just a slogan, it was the driving force behind environmentalism in my childhood years. It\u2019s so deeply ingrained that I still cannot refuse a donation to a Save the Rainforest<\/em> charity. While books aren\u2019t the only threat to rainforests, the e-reader allows me to feel like I\u2019m contributing in yet another way to a greener planet.<\/p>\n As recently as January of this year, I was visiting a book store and\/or the local library several times per month. I still like to encourage a love of reading with my own children so I haven\u2019t given up the library entirely. But having an e-reader has certainly allowed me to cut back on costly car trips. Needless to say, less traveling is easier on the pocketbook and the environment.<\/p>\n When my husband bestowed upon me a Kindle to call my own, I discovered a laundry list of benefits. Here are a few:<\/p>\n That said, I was a little conflicted reading an article<\/a> about the impact of e-books on the publishing industry. It would seem publishers are not happy with being rendered virtually useless by e-readers. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m a huge fan of publishers, but I am a fan of jobs in a struggling economy.<\/p>\n I also think publishers can serve an important purpose; namely as a kind of filter for the vast array of literature on the market. No one likes to spend money on a poorly written book with more plot holes than pot holes on a rural back road. Some publishers have a better reputation for filtering than others, which can be of real benefit to authors. Still, reading is mostly a matter of personal taste and there\u2019s just no accounting for it<\/a> sometimes.<\/p>\n As a would-be writer, I find avoiding several \u201cmiddlemen\u201d in the publishing world immensely attractive. An author could [in theory] self-publish straight to electronic format, set their own price, and be wildly successful. They would never \u201csell out\u201d because e-books are limitless. After everyone gets a piece of the action, I could make .35 cents per .99 cent e-book and still rake in over a quarter of a million dollars by selling a million copies. Think it hasn\u2019t been done? Meet John Locke<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a get-rich-quick scheme by any means. An author may still want to invest in a good editor and Uncle Sam will be around for his cut. There are also personal taste and market trends to contend with. However, self-publishing in electronic format has the potential to provide savvy authors with more creative and financial reign over their work.<\/p>\n After all is said and done, I am enjoying my e-reader much more than I originally thought I would and the perceived cost-benefit ratio helps alleviate the not-so-considerable guilt at having abandoned dead tree reading so easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When e-readers like Amazon\u2019s Kindle and Barnes & Noble\u2019s Nook hit the market, I have to admit to being less than thrilled. An avid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":8975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,451,784],"tags":[1024,1229],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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