The hand-held computers are about the size and weight of a paperback, can store about 10 books at a time and allow readers to search, highlight and add margin notes. The book is available in about four days and costs several dollars more than the online version. Despite the increases in the online market, traditional publishers are hardly hurting for sales or suffering from a lack of submissions. According to the Association of American Publishers, U.S. book sales increased 6.4 percent between 1997 and 1998. And it isn't all rosy on the Internet.
Online publishers rely more on authors to do their own marketing.
Davis worries that until online publishing becomes mainstream, his novel won't be taken as seriously as if it was sitting on a bookstore shelf. And most online books won't be snatched up by a literary agent or publisher with a dearth of good manuscripts. There are hundreds of them in my desk so online publishing isn't starving us for material. Sarah Anchors is a journalism major at University of Maryland, College Park. She is currently serving an internship at The Hartford Courant's Washington bureau.