Children’s book only as e-book

I’ve read that children’s books aren’t succeeding in an electronic format the way adult books are, but Random House Children’s Books is looking to put a fire under it.

Random House is releasing the new novel by Michael Scott only as an e-book. The Death of Joan of Arc: A Lost Story From the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, the newest addition to Scott’s The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel book series, is available now as an e-book priced at 99 cents.

It’s a good plan for Random House, as the e-book is part of an already established series and fans will be looking for the next installment.

Joan of Arc, however, is a short story that’s an addition to the series, and not the next novel in the six-part series, which is The Warlock coming out next year.

There are lots of benefits for publishers to encourage readers to go to e-books, such as much lower costs.

I don’t own a Kindle or another e-book reader, but I do see the benefits to them — less killing trees, for example. For me, though, I still love the feel of a book in my hands, the texture and smell of the paper, being able to see how far in the pages my bookmark sits and the feeling of anticipation as it gets closer and closer to the end.

Kids are a newer generation, though, and if going electric makes books more attractive to them, I’m all for it.

As long as we can still have some paper books for those traditionalists like me.

What do you think? E-book or paper?

Write On!