It’s interesting to note that in the last few months, e-books have surpassed the sales of more traditional hardcover books.  A recent report also showed that on Amazon.com, nearly 30% of the top 100 e-books (in terms of units sold) were published using the Kindle Direct Publishing program, which bypasses the more “traditional” publishing houses and allows authors to collect a royalty rate as high as 70%.  (E-books can also be published directly at other high-profile sites like barnesandnoble.coms.)

Sewerville will be published in hardcover, papberback, and e-book, so those of you who prefer to actually hold a book and smell paper and ink and handwrite notes in the margins will absolutely be able to do that.   But, I bring up these e-book numbers simply to mention that the tens of millions of Kindles and ipads spread across this planet are without question making it easier for authors to control their own work, and break free from the New York publishing houses that have lorded over the industry for decades.  And we’ll see even more of that, as major, multimillion-selling writers choose not to renew their publishing contracts, and instead decide they can handle their own books themselves.  It’s already happening in the music industry.

Something to think about, that’s all.