Does this sound familiar? Do you remember the VHS and Betamax format war? Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD? In each instance, only one format survived.

For reasons large and small, after lengthy deliberation I’ve decided to henceforth offer my books in Kindle (MOBI) format only, with Amazon.com as my exclusive retailer. Why, you might ask, would I deliberately forgo book sales by other retailers? There are numerous considerations.

Here’s why my books will no longer be available from Barnes & Noble:

It’s no secret that Amazon.com has the biggest market share of ebooks. They sell more ebooks than hardbound books and paperbacks combined. Until now, I’ve published my books in both Kindle and Nook versions. Amazon.com sells thirty times as many of my books as Barnes & Noble, and that doesn’t include Amazon.com’s European sales.

Brief descriptions of all my books are placed in the “back pages” of each of them. These summaries—called blurbs in the publishing industry—are a gentle, unobtrusive form of advertising. The concept is: If you like the book you’ve just read, you’ll want to learn about other books by the same author and perhaps buy some of them.

To make it easy for readers to obtain more information—and also receive a several-chapter free sample—the title of each book listed in my blurbs is a hyperlink. Click on it, and you’re taken immediately to the book’s catalog page.

Understandably, Barnes & Noble doesn’t want a hyperlink contained in a Nook book to take readers to an Amazon.com catalog page. But, it’s impractical to publish books in a different version for each retailer, unless that retailer’s volume warrants the time and expense to do so.

Just because I’ll be offering books in MOBI format only doesn’t mean that people with Nook devices cannot read them. Anyone can quickly and easily convert a MOBI format book to an EPUB format using one of many free programs available online. My program of choice is calibre, which can be downloaded at:

http://calibre-ebook.com 

It’s not necessary to convert books to the EPUB format, unless you want to read them on a Nook. People with personal computers, Macs, iPads, iPhones, smart phones, and many other devices can read MOBI format books on them by using a free, easy to use app from Amazon.com, such as Kindle for PC—which can be downloaded here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc/download 

Free apps for reading EPUB books on PCs and other devices are available from Barnes & Noble, Adobe, and others. But compared to the Kindle apps—which work flawlessly—the others are crude and cumbersome. They distort cover artwork, books are more complicated to install, and the apps have other annoying features.

Why my books will not be available from the Apple iBookstore:

Apple has a well-deserved reputation for beautifully designed electronics, such as the iPhone, iPad, and Mac computers. The company has an extremely loyal following, which has enabled them, over the years, to ignore competition and sell their products at a high premium.

But Apple also has another reputation. Whether you’re their customer or vendor, you do things their way—or not at all. As stated in the vernacular, “It’s our way … or the highway!”

When I inquired about selling my books in the Apple store I was referred to an outside distributor. The distributor’s requirements were stringent. The company sent me numerous multi-page contracts to fill out and sign. As an attorney, I recognized them as being contracts of adhesion, for they had many provisions which were unreasonable and, in my opinion, unconscionable. When I commented on the unacceptability of the contracts, the distributor said it wasn’t his company’s fault, his company was forced to follow Apple’s mandates.

So much for Apple. I concluded I don’t need them. 

Why my books will not be available at the Google ebookstore: 

Years ago I was one of the first to try Google’s search engine, having read about it in a newsmagazine when the service was brand-new. It was the best search engine then, it’s the best search engine now, and I refuse to have Yahoo or Bing on my computer—I’m that loyal.

But whenever Google strays from that area of expertise, their products and services usually fall short of expectations.

I firmly believe Google is the first instance of a corporation with a terminal case of ADHD. It’s as if Google’s programmers rush to release a flawed beta version of something, go on vacation, and never come back. The result? Just google “Discontinued Google products and services” to learn about their many failures.

Google recently made major revisions to their Gmail program’s webpage. The new version is considerably more cluttered and difficult to use than the previous one, which was terrible. In fact, I wouldn’t have Gmail on my computer at all but for the fact I need it as backup for the contact list on my Droid cell phone, which has Google’s Android operating system.

Oh, yes. There’s a minor but very annoying flaw in the way my phone displays “favorites” contacts. Though it’s possible to sort and display regular contacts by the last name, “favorites”—which take the place of a speed dial—sort by the first name and display by the last name. This makes the “favorites” feature unwieldy when it contains more than just a few entries.

I’ve reported the defect to Google, Motorola, and Verizon Wireless. It still hasn’t been fixed, despite several OTA upgrades to the Android system. Aarrgh!

 Would you believe … Google is pressing me to replace Internet Explorer with their web browser, Chrome. Fuhgeddaboudit! I’m not going to join the Church of Google, either.

I just told you all that so you’ll understand: I consider myself to be computer literate, but I wasn’t able to maneuver through the gauntlet of requirements for publishing in the Google eBook program, despite several tries. Perhaps some day Google will make it easy to publish ebooks on their website, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Why I won’t have Smashwords publish my books:

Smashwords produces and distributes ebooks in MOBI, EPUB, and a number of functionally obsolete formats. Books must be submitted to them in Microsoft Word format, which they then convert to the various ebook formats on a machine they call “The Meatgrinder.” 

When building an ebook, things don’t always come out the way you want on the first try. This is because of the reflowable text, and because one doesn’t have complete control of type sizes, fonts, and styles. To create a perfect ebook the original Microsoft Word document sometimes needs to be converted a dozen times or more, revising and fine-tuning the original each time.

I do not trust others to convert my manuscripts to a datafile when it’s my reputation that’s on the line—especially in “Wham, bam, thank you Ma’am” fashion using something dubbed a “Meatgrinder.” Each of my books is professionally prepared, from the cover to the final page. I insist of supplying books to a distributor in the final format, such as MOBI—not as a manuscript that needs to be converted by someone operating a “Meatgrinder” in the back room.

Here are some important reasons why I’ve decided to publish my books with Amazon.com exclusively:

AMAZON.COM’s KDP Select program—introduced in December 2011—allows owners of Kindle devices to borrow any book that’s enrolled in the program. I can’t think of a better way to introduce readers to my work than to give them the opportunity to read a book at no cost! Thus, I’ve enrolled all my titles into the KDP Select program. 

Publishers in the KDP Select program can also offer their books free on Amazon.com up to five days every three months. The free books are not restricted to Kindle devices, but can be viewed on a PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, smart phone, and more. 

In January 2012 I offered each of my books free for the full five days allowed, and I’m more than pleased with the response. I hope the readers enjoy them, they’ll submit customer reviews to Amazon.com, and they’ll want to read more of my books. 

There are yet other reasons why I prefer working with Amazon.com:

On occasion I need to contact someone regarding a production or policy matter. I always receive a prompt reply from an Amazon.com representative—usually within a matter of hours, seldom more than a day later. I’ve yet to receive an answer to an Email sent to Barnes & Noble. I wonder if they’re as remiss on follow-through with their customers as they are with their authors and publishers.

And then there are petty annoyances—the bane of curmudgeons like me—which I don’t encounter with Amazon.com.

Here’s an example: I keep an icon on my computer desktop that instantly accesses my Amazon.com “bookshelf,” where I can view sales reports and other information with one click of my mouse. With B&N, I also had a desktop icon. But most of the time I needed to click on REFRESH before their web page displayed on my monitor—an annoying program glitch. Then, each and every time I had to waste time entering my email address and a password to reach the same information I can obtain from Amazon.com with just one mouseclick.

It’s great working with Amazon.com—a company that does things right! I can’t wait to learn about their next revolutionary innovation in the publishing industry.

     Stewart wrote that “hard-core pornography” is hard to define, but “I know it when I see it.” That simple statement is probably the most famous quote from the annals of the Supreme Court.

     I’ve never been a justice or judge in any court, though I am admitted and qualified as an attorney and counselor of the Supreme Court of the United States. Unlike Stewart, I do not find it at all difficult to define pornography / obscenity. I, also, “know it when I see it.” To me, these are some of the elements that comprise obscenity:

War
Genocide
Bigotry
Discrimination
Hypocrisy
Imposing one’s religious beliefs or moral code on others
Domestic violence
Child abuse

     Please note that I did not include in the above list adult acts of a sexual nature. I do not find any of the myriad forms of lovemaking to be obscene. It is my firm belief that anything adults (who have the capacity to consent) choose to do behind closed doors is their business, and their business alone.

     On a similar note, Stewart’s less-familiar dissent in Ginsburg v. United States (1966) is perhaps more lucid than the statement he’d made on obscenity two years earlier. In Ginsburg he wrote “Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”

     From 1930 to 1968, blatant censorship rode rampant throughout Hollywood, due to the “guidelines” for motion pictures laid down by the Hays Office. This censorship resulted in unrealistic restrictions for films. Among them, the Motion Picture Production Code’s moral censorship guidelines required married couples to sleep in separate beds and prohibited open-mouth kisses. Homosexuality and miscegenation were not allowed to be depicted at all, nor portrayal of clergy as comic characters or villains. These are but a few examples from a long list of proscriptions and thetic demands.

     For the most part, films today are considerably more realistic than they were during the days of the Hays Office. Yet, many novels are still written as if the Hays Office guidelines apply to them—which, of course, they never did.

     John Grisham is fond of bragging that his novels are so clean even his grandmother can read them. Perhaps Polyannaish sanitation is one of the secrets of Grisham’s success—he’s certainly had his share of best-sellers—but that approach to writing isn’t for me.

     I make every effort to maintain the sexual level in my novels on a par with today’s mainstream motion pictures—that is, I want my novels to reasonably portray life. I do not hesitate, when it’s appropriate to the story, to write (for example) about adultery, oral sex, or same-gender sex. These are a part of real life, why should they not be included in fictional representations?

     On the other hand, I never fill my novels with unnecessary curse words just to shock my readers, or with gratuitous sexual episodes designed expressly to pander to lewd, lascivious, and prurient interests. If you want to read such things, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Now, when you click on a Kindle book cover illustration on one of their catalog pages, the new Amazon Reader instantly downloads so you can read free sample pages of the book right on your computer monitor!  There’s nothing to install, nothing needed other than your computer. Just CLICK TO LOOK INSIDE.

Controls on the Amazon Reader enable you to change the type size and window width, to suit your reading preferences.

Formerly, to read sample pages of a Kindle book you’d have them sent to your Kindle device, Kindle for PC, or other Kindle application.  You can still do so—at least for the moment—but it’s infinitely easier to read the sample while you’re on your computer.

If you like what you read, just click on the BUY WITH 1-CLICK button to order the entire book sent to your Kindle.

Congratulations, Amazon.com.  You’ve done it again!

To read descriptions and sample pages of my books, click on any of the following titles and you’ll be transferred to the appropriate Amazon.com catalog page.

BOOKS BY DAVID W. COWLES 

Michael Kaplan Mysteries

Tastevin

Buridan’s Ass

Novels

The Murderers

Black Pomegranate, Jewel of the Tropics

A Visit to Madame Wu’s

Cookbooks

Who ate all the Cookies?

Homemade Pastrami and To-Die-For Corned Beef

Nonfiction

No More Grimy Dishes!

Revitalize Your Computer

The Check is (Almost) in the Mail

Novellas

The Legend of Billy Jeff

All seven of John’s Donovan Creed novels have made the Amazon/Kindle Top 20 Best Seller List. Saving Rachel held the #1 spot for more than three weeks and remains one of the all-time best selling ebooks in history. Locke has had four ebooks in the Top 10 at the same time, and six in the Top 20! His Emmett Love western, Follow the Stone, has been ranked the #1 Western since the first week it was released.

Somewhere in the world, every 7 seconds, 24/7, a John Locke novel is downloaded. Locke has sold over a million books—and he’s been at it for only a couple of years.

What’s the secret of his success? The answer is simple. He gives great value! John’s ebooks are just 99¢. He’s able to sell them at this low price and still make a modest profit because they’re in digital format, designed to be read on Kindle and other ebook devices and applications.

Traditional publishing companies have to buy paper and ink, pay for design, typography and printing, bind the books, and store them in cartons. The books sit in a warehouse until they’re ordered; then they’re shipped to a distributor or book store. The expense and overhead of manufacturing, inventorying, and shipping makes a retail price of $10 and up for a paper book quite reasonable.

But the words in a printed book and the words in an ebook are the same. If you’re looking for content rather than an item to gather dust on a book shelf after it’s read, ebooks are definitely the way to go. Readers worldwide are rapidly discovering this. Now, more ebooks are being sold than hard cover and paperback books combined!

Think of it. A small cup of coffee at a fast food restaurant costs $1. You can buy a John Locke novel for less!

Locke says, jokingly—I think he’s joking; his statement contains a lot of truth—that because of his pricing, best-selling authors of paper books selling for ten times the price of a Locke novel have to prove their books are ten times better than his. He knows they’re not. Locke is a much better writer than many best-selling authors of paper books.

No, he doesn’t write literary fiction, or heavy tomes such as War and Peace or the James Michener novels, all of which make great door stops. What he does provide is 100% entertainment—several hours of fun reading with likeable (and dislikeable) characters and well-defined plots. His books are quick reads, and every one is a page-turner. That’s an incredible value in great entertainment for less than a buck!

Click below on John’s name to access his website. Read about his titles and see the short promotional video clips. Decide which books you want to read and then log in to Amazon.com to buy them with a few keystrokes.  They’ll appear on your reading device or computer screen in just moments. You’ll be glad you did!

John Locke

Instead of records spinning at 33-1/3, 45, or 78 RPM, reel-to-reel tapes, 4- or 8-track tapes, or 8mm cassettes, we now have CDs. Or, we can just download our favorite tunes from the Internet onto a hard drive or a memory card.

In 1964 we couldn’t record our favorite TV show or watch a hit movie of our choice at home. Then, in the early 1970s, along came video recorders. Those are now obsolete—prerecorded VHS tapes haven’t been produced since 2008. Today it’s DVDs and Blu-Ray disks and DVRs.

Few people still use cameras that require film. Most everyone these days has switched to digital photography. The pictures are sharper and brighter and you don’t have to wait for someone to develop and print the film—you can make first-quality photos at home on your computer’s printer, just moments after you take the pictures.

Whatever happened to 8mm and 16mm home movies? Super-8? Now, high definition movies—some with stereo sound—are made on inexpensive camcorders, digital cameras, and even cell phones.

You can’t find a picture-tube TV for sale in an electronics store—they don’t make them any more. High definition televisions feature flat LCD and LED screens. Fifty years ago TVs not only had picture tubes, they also had vacuum tubes. Most every hardware, drug, and liquor store had a vacuum tube tester. You could take your TV’s vacuum tubes in, check them out, and, if needed, buy replacements. What a royal pain that was!

Landline telephones are on the way out. Many people now have only cell phones, and make low-cost international calls over the Internet. The closest thing to a cell phone in 1964 was a Dick Tracy 2-Way Wrist Radio…and that was only fiction in a comic strip.

Incandescent light bulbs, patented by Thomas Edison in 1879, are being phased out in the worldwide—often by laws that will prohibit their sale. The bulbs are being replaced by Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs), Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), and other energy efficient alternatives.

Most everything you need to know you can find on the Internet. Information that used to take hours of research to find in a public library can now be accessed at home in just minutes, thanks to Google and the Internet. And, who sends “snail” mail anymore? Most of today’s written communications are by Email, texting, and tweeting.

We’ll always need printed books to dress up our coffee tables and fill the shelves on our bookcases. The tactile and visual qualities of printed books are appealing, but when the message is more important than the medium, digital ebooks are a far better choice.

Thanks to Amazon.com’s Kindle, a revolution in publishing is under way. One should note that the word kindle means set fire to or ignite; and, to arouse. I cannot think of a more appropriate name.

In April 2010, Amazon.com announced they were selling more Kindle digital books than paperbacks. In May, just a month later, Amazon told the world they were selling more digital books than paperbacks and hardcovers combined! That’s amazing, when you consider that Kindle books have been available for less than four years.

I was recently on a flight between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Most everyone who was reading had a digital reading device:  Kindle, sold by Amazon.com; Nook, the Barnes & Noble offering; or one of numerous other devices.

You don’t have to buy a dedicated device such as Kindle to read ebooks. Both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble provide free ebook reader applications for PCs, Macs, Android-powered smart phones, Blackberry devices, iPhones, iPads, Tablets, and Netbooks. Download the app, and they’ll give you several full-length books free.

Ebooks offer a great many advantages over printed books. The cost of an ebook is usually less than that of a paperback—sometimes considerably less. You don’t have to drive to a store or wait for delivery—the book is sent almost magically to your device or computer just moments after you order it.

If your eyes are tired or you have impaired vision, you can enlarge the type to make reading easier. Some devices even read ebooks to you!

When traveling, you don’t have to lug around a suitcase full of heavy books. Each thin, lightweight device holds a library of thousands of ebooks. More than a million titles, including almost all books on the New York Times best-seller list, are now available in ebook format. Ebooks of works in the public domain are very inexpensive; many are available free.

You can try an ebook before you buy it, by downloading a free sample of the first several chapters. If you like what you read, buy the book. If you decide the book isn’t your style, pass it up and look for a book more suited to your taste.

I write fiction in many different genres—murder mysteries, suspense, adventure, comedy, romance, children’s books, and more. Full-length books, Novellas, and short stories.

And, I write nonfiction about a wide variety of subjects—especially, how-to’s and  cookbooks.

My books are being published in digital format under the auspices of Event Horizon Press in Palm Springs, California. As each book is published, I’ll tell you all about it on this blog.

My books will be priced very inexpensively. I don’t need to make a whole lot of money from each book sale, but I’d love to have a big following of fans who enjoy reading my work. I hope you’ll give my books a try—and, please, let me know how you like them.

NEW EBOOKS AT AMAZON.COM

Please click on the titles listed below to read a description of the ebooks and download free sample pages to your Kindle device. 

The Murderers

by David W. Cowles 

Homemade Pastrami and To-Die-For Corned Beef

by David W. Cowles 

Who ate all the Cookies?

by David W. Cowles 

Brazen Intruder

by Morgan Kendall