Greetings Jenn,

Since no one else will take you up on your "challange", I guess I will.

When I first created HRC I never gave a second thought to ebooks, in fact, I didn't even now about them.  It wasn't until 2004 that I accidently came across the website of Jaide Fox.  I become very intrigued by her excerpts, and when I found out they were ebooks, I was very surprised and all of sudden realized that there might be something else here.  I asked to review a couple of her books, she pointed me towards New Concepts Publishing, and the rest, as they say, is history.  The next author I found through ebooks, was Anya Bast.  I'd have to say both authors are very talented.

And during this time the ebook market has progressed by leaps and bounds.  As you say, epubs are seeming to pop up everyday.  And a lot of them are providing quality books.  Personally, I think its great, because a lot of writers who may not write according to the NY Pub "rules" are being given a chance.  Or even those who haven't perfected their skills yet, are being encouraged through e-publishing.  And better still, all the time I'm seeing e-pub authors being picked up by NY Publishers.  It just happened at Samhain Publishing.  Lora Leigh had published a book with them, it was so popular, a NY Pub asked for the sequals.  So Samhain released the book so all three books in the series could be published by the NY Pub.  Though I did notice that a week later, another one of her books was suddenly released with Samhain which was not on the coming soon list, which makes me think they did a swap.  By the way, you should check them out. (HRC may be reviewing for them soon. )  They have a great website, nice covers, and the owner/founder is the former C.O.O. and Publisher of Ellora's Cave.

http://www.samhainpublishing.com

Incidently, I recently added a list of e-publishers to HRC's For Romance Writers section. 

http://www.historical-romance.cjb.net/publishers.html

It's a good list to check out, not only for submitting but also for reading. 

I have to say, that I really like PDF, besides the fact its the most common format, I like the fact it's so secure, so a person's story cannot be easily stolen.  I also like that you can bookmark pages, and print out sections if you want, of course not all of us has palm pilot for reading.

I think it's very possible that ebooks are the wave of the future.  The fact that the big boys in NY have been effected by the Erotic market, which was created by e-publishers, says alot.  And also, the fact that such publishers as: Pocket Books, Avon, Bantam/Dell, etc. now either mention on their websites and/or at the front of their books that the novel is available as an ebook, says that their taking it seriously.  And why wouldn't they go that route?  It saves on trees, low over head, and easy to produce.  The only thing though is I do love books, and part of that love is holding the book in my hands, and feeling the texture.  I confess, I'm a biblophile.  I have books everywhere.

Ingela

Hey thanks for the tips on new publishers Ingela and Nita. There is so much great work out there to read that we'd never get to see if we stuck to the traditional publishers!

Glad to see we have a new author joining our board. Welcome Nita! We hope you have a great time on the HRC board with us. Feel free to post a bit about yourself and use the Authour Announcement corner to let us know what's happening with you and your books.

Jenn