Writer's Report 2.0

Danielle Steel, the best-selling author, has decided to convert 71 of her novels into e-books to be downloaded digitally.

The e-books were released on Feb 24th. The titles include her latest book One Day at a Time and other popular works such as The Promise and Leap of Faith.

The cost for the digital version of the books can vary, but are still cheaper than buying a new hardcover print of any best-seller. They typical cost of a best-seller in e-book form retails for about $9.99.

Publishing houses like HarperCollins, Random House and Simon & Schuster say that sales of e-books for any device – including laptop downloads – constitute less than one per cent of total book sales.

That may be so, but the reason authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy have also taken their books digital is because there are signs of building momentum. Publishers report that sales of e-books have tripled or quadrupled in the last year.

Although regular books aren’t going anywhere any time soon, things are changing.

Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer books, said, “E-books will become the go-to-first format for an ever-expanding group of readers who are newly discovering how much they enjoy reading books on a screen.”

From Reuters:

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Best-selling author Nora Roberts won book of the year on Monday at the third annual Quill Awards, which were created to bring glamour and red carpet extravagance to the world of publishing.

“Romance rocks,” Roberts told the crowd after accepting her award, which was voted online by the public, for a romance/thriller novel “Angels Fall” published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was also among the 19 Quill Award winners, announced at a black-tie event attended by celebrities including actresses Brooke Shields and Joan Allen and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. (more…)

Nicholas Sparks, the best selling author of The Notebook and Message in a Bottle, has just published his newest novel titled “The Choice”. Like all of his novels, The Choice is set in eastern North Carolina as The Assocaited Pressreports:

In “The Choice,” Travis Parker is a fun-loving veterinarian. Gabby Holland, a physician’s assistant, moves next door, and their meeting puts Gabby at a crossroads.

The story line of “The Choice” comes from two thoughts: Sparks’ desire to return to the structure of his first book, “The Notebook,” in which characters face consequences later in life from events that happened earlier, and his time coaching track at New Bern High School the past two years.

Sparks describes a little about his writing process

“I don’t really struggle with writer’s block for extended periods,” he says while sitting at a kitchen table that bears the stains of his children’s color markers. “There are times I struggle with which way I want to take the story, and those can get aggravating. But it passes, and something comes.”

Of the 140,000 or so words he puts together in about six months of writing, Sparks culls about 80,000 for a book.

Still, writing doesn’t come that easily for him, says his literary agent, Theresa Park…

Library Journal reports Harlequin will release as many as 120 titles monthly in ebook format. The romance house has had ebook programs going for two years including “Minis,” 10,000-word short stories that can be downloaded for as little as 99¢, and has an ebook store on its homepage.