When we started publishing anthologies of “The Spanking Writers”, we took a decision not to make them available as e-books. (For various reasons, chief of which being: “Who on earth would want one?”) Several people have since surprised us by asking about an e-book edition, and – because we don’t like disappointing anybody – we’re now thinking of making one available.
I’m not sure I quite understand the need, and I’d love it if you gave me your views on spanking e-books. A Kindle version I can understand: if you have an e-reader, you’ll want books to go on it. But if you don’t have a Kindle, is having an e-book option likely to excite you?
If you prefer e-books, is this because of privacy considerations? Shelf-space issues? Some other reason?
Would you buy a Spanking Writers anthology as a non-Kindle e-book?
EDITED TO ADD: Enough people like the idea of downloadable ebooks, that I went ahead an enabled the ebook feature for Spanking Writers 2. You can get it here.
As I commented on your July 6th post, my main reason for wanting e-books is just because I absolutely can’t have my kinks disclosed to any member of my vanilla family who would happen to peruse my bookshelves.
That’s the only reason, but I do think it’s an important one.
Thank you for telling me Kindle books can be read on a desktop, I didn’t know that!
It really is an important reason, and I’m sort of kicking myself for not having thought of that. *takes notes*
I have a Sony e-reader (so can’t read Kindle formats anyway. epub is the preferred format, but I can easily convert from pdf.) I’m now doing all my recreational reading in e-book format. I’m no longer buying ANY books as dead trees, except for reference/non-fiction/work-related things. I don’t want to have to buy any more bookshelves!
At the moment e-readers are just too expensive for someone as clumsy as me to keep replacing. But once e-readers have come down in price (as most technology usually does), I will be getting one (or six a year, based on how many times I am likely to drop them) and will be using it for both kinky and vanilla literature. In conclusion, an e-book version of your book would not interest me now but I can see myself being interested in this format in the future.
Prefectdt
I will second what Ordalie said. Some people do need a very high level of discretion/privacy. For a time I had a charming friend who was an airline pilot. Taking kinky print material through security was a problem, as such he had to have everything on his laptop.
Ms. Betty
Sadly, I will never get to own a print spanking book or a version for an e-reader. I’m too paranoid about nosy relatives or inadvertent boyfriends who might stumble across them. Electronic formats are nice because they can be tucked away in layers of harddrive files.
I do have one kinky e-book: “How to Get the Spanking You Want” from Variant Books. It’s a PDF. I have a number of non-kinky e-books that I keep on my Palm organizer for those moments when I’m caught without anything to read. (This is particularly handy for travel.) I don’t think I’d open a kinky e-book in an airport, however…. I can foresee other times when it might be handy, though. For example, let’s say you’re at the club and you can’t remember how to do that one knot you want and you just happen to have your laptop with you. Problem solved!
I would love a non-kindle version of your books. (ePub preferred so it works on phones, tablets and e-readers.)
I have a family and have to keep this material ‘hidden’ and ebooks are a lot easier to store. I have a Kindle, but I share the family account with my mom and sisters (so they see what I browse for and get copies of what I buy).
And tree-books just take up space. I have tossed out pounds of my collections prior to two moves to avoid the cost of moving (or embarrassment if someone opens the box).
Please support ePub.
Doug, I’d love to support ePub, but we’re limited in what we can publish by what our distributors will sell. Lulu and Amazon are only supporting PDF and Kindle right now AFAIK. I’ll investigate ePUB options though, maybe there’s something that can be done about it.