What do you know about e-books?

This week the Blood-Red Pencil is launching a series of posts about e-books. What do you know about this emerging segment of the publishing market? Take this quiz to see if you're up to speed!

True or False?

1. Kobo, Ectaco, Nook, and Aluratek are all names of Native American tribes.

2. E-books still haven’t quite caught on.

3. E-books will replace print books.

4. E-books are cheaper to produce.

5. E-books are mostly bought by young techies.

6. All digital readers can read all e-books.

7. Authors make less money from e-books.

8. Digital reading technology will evolve and render currently owned e-books unreadable.

9. E-publishing is only for book-length material.

10. Self-publishing, subsidy, non-subsidy, vanity, royalties, reseller: the age of e-books will simplify the publishing process and negate the need to learn all these terms.

Answers:

1. False. Okay, I was trying to throw a bone to all the rank beginners out there. (Like me, before I researched the articles linked to in this post.) Along with the Kindle, the iPad, the Sony Reader, the Neo, the Alex eReader, Pandigital Novel, COOL-ER, and a variety of smart phones, these are names of digital reading devices.
Read more.

2. False. By mid-year Amazon.com reported that sales of books for Kindle had outpaced the sale of hardcover books, and that growth was accelerating.
Read more.

In July, Amazon.com announced that Stieg Larsson, author of the internationally bestselling Millennium Trilogy, had become the first author to sell over 1 million Kindle books and is the first member of the new "Kindle Million Club." The "Kindle Million Club" recognizes authors whose entire body of work has sold over 1 million copies in the Kindle Store.

Read more.

On Oct. 27 James Patterson became the second:
Read more.

J.A. Konrath and other bestselling authors are leaving print—as well as traditional publishing—behind.

Read more.

And if all that isn't enough to convince you, The New York Times just announced that early next year it will start ranking e-book bestsellers.
Read More.

3. False, says literary agent Alex Glass of Trident Media. At the Pennwriters conference last May, Alex said that in fiction, the commercial genres have embraced e-books first. Those who love literary fiction, he added, will always want to linger over prose printed on the pages of a traditional book. Such readers consider their books as much art objects as reading material. Let’s face it—a digital reader isn’t going to stimulate anyone with its beauty while sitting alone on an empty bookshelf. The crux of the debate is captured in this short Wall Street Journal video.

4. You’d think that would be true. And it will be, one day. It already is true for publishers that have switched exclusively to e-books. The problem is that traditional publishers haven’t yet completely embraced a digital way of doing business. An e-book is typically just one more way of marketing a print book whose costs the publisher has already incurred. Did you know that of the $27.95 retail price for a hardcover, only $2.83 goes for paper, glue and ink? And that there are costs associated with digitizing back titles?
Read a breakdown of book costs here and enjoy a more irreverent look here.

5. False. The largest group of Kindle users is in its fifties, followed closely by those in their forties and sixties.
Read more.

6. False. Want an e-book format that works on any reader? The epub format comes closest at present. But for the time being you may be stuck reading books that work for only one device (or a smart phone that has an app for that device).
Read more.

7. True and False. Since the answer is complex and in flux, consider yourself correct no matter how you answered. Print royalties are typically 15% of the retail price for hardcovers, 7.5% for trade paperbacks, and 10% for mass market paperbacks. At 25% (ebook through an agency) to 85% (self-publishing through Smashwords), authors of e-Books keep more of a lower price. Suffice to say it has never been more important to read your contract carefully.
Read more.

8. False. Lybrary.com assures us that current technology has already proven itself to be remarkably enduring, and that we will pass on our e-books to our grandchildren, who in turn will pass them on to theirs.
Read more.

9. False. One of the joys of e-publishing is that you no longer will have to fit your idea into the traditional model of less than 10,000 words or more than 50,000. We already know that online journals and magazines have been publishing short articles and fiction for some time. In October Amazon announced lower-priced "Kindle Singles" that are twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book.

Read more about Kindle Singles.

Read more about the possible benefits of self-publishing short fiction.

10. False. E-publishing creates even more options, not fewer. For the frugal self-publisher there will still be plenty of folks willing to step up and take a piece of your profit pie. For a concise explanation of terms, read more.

Looking for royalty-paying, non-subsidy e-publishers? Here’s a list to launch your search.

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So tell us—how did you score?

If you were on the fence about e-books, perhaps you now realize that if you hope to be published, traditionally or on your own, an e-book might be in your future. Stay tuned to the Blood-Red Pencil for upcoming e-publishing tales and information from our contributing editors.

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Kathryn Craft is a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, an independent manuscript evaluation and line editing service. Formerly a dance critic and arts journalist for 19 years, she now writes literary women's fiction and memoir.