After wrestling with printer, labels and envelopes for *three* hours last night, I have come to appreciate the ease of online communication so much more.

Wow, it’s so easy being a writer in this era. I don’t have to fiddle with paper and ribbon and whiteout and typewriters. I don’t even have to be a particularly good typist, thanks to the delete key. I don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on paper and ink. I can make copies of my stories in a blink of an eye–okay, maybe a few dozen blinks for a short story, and perhaps a short nap for a novel, but still!

And when I’m ready to sub–well, most agents and short fiction editors accept emails. Which are free! And don’t require hunting for the printer manual and the mailing labels I know I bought four years ago. Nor do I have to search the house for the paperclips that were last seen being made into chains and used as units of measurements by the olders.

And, and, and… I don’t have to buy books to learn the writing craft and business, not with the plethora of instructive blog posts and articles out here in  ‘NetLand. Nor do I need to travel to workshops and cons; I can meet likeminded writers and take online courses and join online crit circles all from the comfort of my living room.

Though… if I didn’t have those two paper subs to mail this morning, I’d have missed the opportunity to walk to the post office in the falling snow.

Let it snow, let it snow. It’s starting to look a lot like CHRISTMAS.

Several weeks ago, I looked at e-books from a reader’s perspective. Now I want to look at self-publishing e-books from writer’s point of view.

The reality is: more and more people are buying e-books. It’s easy to upload your book to a site like Smashwords for free. Pro authors like JA Konrath are riding the wave and doing very well, even going so far as to turn down print publication offers in order to self-publish electronically. Konrath’s enthusiasm for this Brave New World of publishing is contagious, and he has a large following and (of course) his skeptics.

The e-book option allows a writer to bring out-of-print backlists back into readers’ hands with minimum outlay of money. It allows her to continue series that are no longer commercially viable for publishing houses, and give away work for free or cheap, thus creating a fan base. It might even offer an author a way out of the Three-Book Death Spiral and keep getting books out to their readers even if no publisher will touch them.

So far, great.

E-books offer the oft-rejected hopeful a chance to bypass the gatekeepers and slow-moving machinery of publishing and get his works directly into the hands of readers.  He can upload his book as soon as he is ready. No waiting on the schedules of editors, cover artists, marketers, and all the other people involved in the release of a book at a publishing house.

And that’s where the ease of publishing in e-book format may be dangerous for writers.

Sometimes we writers are just desperate to have someone—anyone, even ihasboox from NJ–read the stories we’ve worked so hard on. We want someone who is not our spouse, BFF or cat to enjoy our book. Why not upload it to a site frequented by hundreds of potential readers?  Like, right now.

Because first impressions are important. The lure of just-add-water instant readership can blind a writer to the need to critically examine and polish his work. Often, a writer only has that one chance to snag a reader. And a reader who is put off by sloppy plotting, poor characterization, bad grammar and typos (and we’re all prone to that at some time or another) is not likely to return to the writer’s work (especially not with all the other books jostling for space on her virtual bookshelf!).

Also, readers are used to professional-level packaging. Yeah, story is what matters, but I admit to being superficial—a badly-made cover image is just begging me to reject the book. Ditto for a long-winded and ponderous blurb. As a reader, I’m looking to reject 99.9% of the books out there. There are  hundreds of titles published every in my preferred genres. I only read 60-75 books a year, and I’m willing to bet that I read more than your average American (yeah, like this article says). Kinda sobering, eh?

So, now that I’m done opining, what are your thoughts on self-publishing e-books?

Annnnd, some related posts that I couldn’t fit above:

• JA Konrath’s How To Make Money on E-Books
• Karen McQuestion and Zoe Winters, authors who’ve successfully self-published on the Kindle
• and…. why we should be on our knees, thanking the gatekeepers of publishing