books, digital or paperback?

For some people in the elder generation, electronics are a mystery, maybe even something akin to witchcraft and dark magic. "Computers scare me. I don't even want to turn one on," someone said to me. I even know of people who have trouble getting used to a cell phone. Technology is expanding so fast that each generation has a different view of the world and how to do things. The learning curve for baby boomers is greater than that of our children and grandchildren, who take each new electronic gadget for granted and quickly learn all of its nuances and capabilities.

For some of us, then, the idea of replacing our beloved books, richly bound pages with the smell and feel of paper and ink, with an electronic devise is nothing short of sacrilege. I may have felt that way myself when Amazon introduced its first Kindle.

But come on. If we are to live and grow and compete in the age in which we live, we must keep up. That is why Raven Publishing's books are now available as e-books. We at Raven want you to read them no matter which format you prefer.

Will you be getting an e-reader for Christmas? If you do, be sure to download your favorites. Each of the six Miranda and Starlight books are now available on your Kindle at Amazon.com and on many other e-readers or your computer. They can also be found at www.Smashwords.com, where thousands of books are available in several formats, you will find the Miranda and Starlight series and other books ready for download. Absaroka: Where the Anguish of a Soldier Meets the Land of the Crow is the most recently published book from Raven in Amazon's Kindle Store.

At a writing workshop, yesterday, we discussed the pros and cons of e-books. A digital book may never have the same intimate feel of a bound volume with pages, but wouldn't it be convenient to carry your entire library with you in a small, hand-held device for long hours spent in travel or in waiting rooms. I'll always treasure taking a book to bed with me and turning the pages eagerly as the story unfolds before I go to sleep at night. That doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy having a Nook, a Kindle or some other e-reader in my bag as I travel. Yep, I could be happy to have both.