Yesterday, Amazon introduced its new line up of Kindles.
They range from the introductory Kindle
at $79.00, which I suspect will be
in numerous Christmas stockings in a few months time, thru to the Kindle Touch
at $99.00, the Kindle Touch 3G
at $149.00 and the new Kindle Fire,
their tablet model
at $199.00 .
What does the launch of the new Kindle line-up mean for family historians?
What once was a specialty item has now gone mainstream. The
price point has made e-readers incredibly affordable. In a short time, every
family will have an e-reader and before long there will be multiple e-readers
in every family. Christmas will be exploding with e-readers in stockings across
North America.
With the Kindle becoming mainstream, the ebook industry is
about to explode, because those new Kindle owners will be looking for books to
download on their new devices.
This provides great opportunity for family history writers,
whether you are a new writer breaking in or a writer with a backlist that you
haven’t taken digital yet there is no time like the present to get the job done.
There will be more demand than ever for well written how to genealogy based
ebooks, along with solid family history stories.
Let’s take myself as an example. I am avid reader and an
owner of a Kindle. I am the market. I have had a Kindle for 1 year now, and I
will never go back. First, let’s look at the sheer convenience of carrying
around your entire library, the amount of money I have saved in the cost of
books. I have downloaded some 50 books this past year. I can say without a doubt, in the old days, when I bought
books in a bookstore that probably would have resembled more like a dozen books
in a year. The cost of the books limited the amount of I read, now I have no
limits, well other then time, and that bodes well for writers.
For family history writers, this is pure opportunity
knocking on your door. Write those books and get them out there, whether they
are how to genealogy research, your family history, or your family history
turned fiction, I read it all. The last great read on
my kindle was the family history narrative Oh, Beautiful by John Paul Godges.
If you’re not a family history writer, but a researcher
and reader of family history, this means there will be more digital books for
you to choose, at great prices and convenience.
I’m sure I am not the
exception. I think e-readers are really going to have an impact how much people
read. I can see the day in the not to
distance future when the e-reader will be free and if you would like a lovely
collector’s edition print book it will cost you $99.00.
This is not a bad
thing. Books and reading will still be valued more than ever, ebooks for their
ability to reach wide markets cheaply and print books for adding value back to the
printed word and making them collector’s items, a win-win for the reader and
the author. Not to mention the opportunity to self-publish without the middle man.
I know some of you
still love the look, feel and smell of a book and that’s ok, but consider those
as your collector books, turn to your
Kindle for all the rest, you can’t help but be a part of this revolution. It’s
happening, and there is no turning back.