Self-Published Young Adult Authors: First a little background info! Prior to the advent of the E-Book era if a writer wanted to publish a book he or she had to either personally foot the rather expensive bill to have a small number of copies of the book printed and then be responsible for distributing those copies – that is the writer was personally responsible for selling the books; or, the writer had to convince a publisher that his or her book deserved to be published and would sell and then the publisher, once convinced, would be responsible for the manufacture and selling of the book.
The pre-E-Book era publishing process was to say the least a time consuming and challenging one and a process that not every author could manage to partake of – if you couldn’t get a publisher to agree to sell your book and you couldn’t afford to self publish the book than you simply wouldn’t get your book published no matter how well written that book might be. Today all of that is changing, because the E-Book format and the Internet when combined translate to writers being able to very inexpensively publish their work in the E-Book format and then easily sell their E-Book through online E-Booksellers like Amazon. This new process has several benefits! It is relatively inexpensive, meaning that almost anyone can afford to self publish their book as an E-Book and once published the E-Books is available for sale online so the E-Book may be seen and purchased by millions of people across the globe. So in essence the author’s work is accessible to more people than ever before. And several authors like Amanda Hocking and the non-philosopher author John Locke have made millions of dollars by self-publishing their E-Books. Sometimes the E-Books are so popular and sell so well that after they’ve been self-published as E-Books they are picked up by a large publisher to be sold as printed books. This was the case with Amanda Hocking and is currently the case with the British author E.L. James whose “Fifty Shades” trilogy of books is so popular that all three titles are in the top five of the New York Times Bestsellers list!
With that background in mind, there is a new group of self-published authors emerging – young adult self-published authors. And by “young adult” I don’t mean authors who write books for young adults, although most of the E-Books in question are intended for that audience, I mean E-Books actually written and self published by young adults! Granted, usually the young adults need a little help from their parents in coming up with money to self publish their works; however, the cost can be relatively minimal even less than $500. And this growing group of creative authors includes a number of young writers profiled in a recent New York Times article, titled “Young Writer’s Dazzle Publisher (Mom & Dad).” Those writers include: twelve year old Ajla Dizdarevic who has published two books of poetry, 14-year-old Ben Heckman who has published two books about a fictional rock band named “Black Velvet;” high school student Elizabeth Hinges whose first novel “The Last Dove” has recently been published by Xlibris, middle school student Camille Mancuso whose first book, titled “Through the Eyes of Eak,” has been recently been published and 15-year-old Mac Bowers whose first book “Running Scared” was also just published. You can search for all of those young authors on Amazon and find their books for sale. And that just goes to show one of the major benefits to being able to self publish E-Books — that anyone can write a book and get it published today and if people like the work, and say so via word of online mouth, than that E-Book can sell well thus getting the authors works out into the hands of E-Readers across the globe.
The New York Times article that chronicles the young adult authors mentioned can be found at the following link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/us/young-writers-find-a-devoted-publisher-thanks-mom-and-dad.html
And Amazon’s Self Publishing Page can be found at this link:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin
Google VA Glasses: I’ve mentioned the Google Augmented Reality Glasses in this blog before. And they are cool! This is upcoming cutting edge technology that will change how we live. And Google has very helpfully come out with a video that shows you how these eye-glasses will work! The glasses can overlay information about locality you are currently in and receive messages, both audio and video, from other people connected to the Internet. So if you’re lost you could ask for a map, if you’re running late you can send a hand free message to a co-worker letting them know you’ll be late, if you’d like to take a hands free picture of something you see you can and you can even show other people you contact what you are looking at – like a beautiful sunset. So you might say I’m just a little enthusiastic about the possibilities these glasses will provide!
Here’s the link which offers the video and an accompanying CNET article, titled “Google: Yep, we’re testing augmented-reality glasses:”
PEW Research Center E-Book Report: And on the E-Book front there is a new PEW Research Center report on the growing popularity of reading of E-Books. PEW is reputable research organization if you’re not familiar with it, and the report is interesting for a number of reasons but my favorite reason is one that I personally aware of! And that is the fact that if you own an E-Reader or E-Reading device like a smart phone, iPad or Motorola Xoom you tend to read more books simply because you can access and download a new E-Book in a matter of seconds. So if you just read a great New York Times book review or heard a glowing NPR review of a new book you can be reading that book within seconds via an E-Reading device like a Kindle, Nook or iPad! And that is not to mention the great gift of being able to make every E-Book a large print book! No more squinting at the text on the page to read it! Make that font size 18 please! I love that aspect of E-Reading!
Here’s a link to the PEW report titled “The Rise of E-Reading”:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2236/ebook-reading-print-books-tablets-ereaders
Have a great weekend everyone!
Linda R.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 
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