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!

3 Responses

  1. Lindea says:

    I’m really fearing this “E-book”-trend and I really hope they don’t take over. The only good thing about them is saving threes, but if books disappears a lot of readers will to, as it’s not the same at all reading a book off a computer screen.
    Children’s book don’t does well as e-books as it’s easier to get attention from children with a book rather than an electrical device.

  2. Thanks, Lindea. That’s what I think too. Interesting to hear you say that paper books will appeal to children more than electronic. It’ll be interesting to see how well this e-book sells. I suspect it’ll sell well to fans who are older, but not the younger fans.

  3. anonymous says:

    PAPER…

What do you think?