The Kindle version of my book, Murder in Ocean Hall, is now available in the UK, through Amazon.co.uk.
So now Kindle users in London can download my book while drinking a cuppa.
What did I have to do to get my book in the UK? Nothing – Amazon took care of it for its Digital Text Platform (DTP) authors. And DTP is free. It was easy to use – you just upload the text of your book and the cover.
With e-publishing there’s no waiting on printing presses or slow-moving publishers. An author can distribute his work with just the click of a mouse. And readers can get their favorite author’s work immediately, rather than waiting on a publisher’s schedule.
Why does this matter? My mom is a huge Kate Atkinson fan (Behind the Scenes at the Museum). She reads everything this English author writes. Atkinson has a new book (Started Early, Took My Dog) coming out. It’s available in the UK on August 19. But it won’t be here in the US until March 21, 2011!
Does it take six months to translate Britishisms into Americanese? Does it take that long to design a cover? To get it into American bookstores? I imagine that the publisher needs the time to do a marketing campaign and so on.
But why delay the US Kindle version of Atkinson’s new book until March 21, 2011?
Readers are an impatient lot and want their books now. With e-publishing, there’s really no reason for such an indefensible delay.