Internationally best-selling novelist, William J. Lambert III, who has written over one-hundred books, in the complete gamut of existing genres, comments (http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/feb/article334.html) on a few of his William Maltese and Willa Lambert books released in electronic (and Audio) formats.

I found doing it, while staring at a computer screen, too downright trying, exhausting, eye-straining, and uncomfortable, especially compared to my curling up with the tactile pleasures of a bound book, seated before a warm fireplace, complete with crackling logs, comforter across my knees, an ice-bucket of cool white wine (and appropriate wine glass) within easy reach.

Mr Lambert, I assume you were reading your e-books on a PC's computer screen. My advice: buy a PalmOne T5 or a Dell Axim X50v of which either one makes a perfect addition to a warm fireplace and cool white wine. I am sure many readers of Mobileread agree with me that reading e-books can also be a comfortable experience IF you do it right! ;)

I agree... you can curl up to a good ebook on a PDA, but I hate reading long text on a computer screen.

It's like movies... I find it's wonderful to watch on my PDA, on my TV, or on a movie screen. But not a fun experience on a computer screen. I'll even watch on my PDA at my desk right next to a computer monitor! One exception... it's pretty cool to watch streamed movies on my laptop in a hotel room with broadband.

And as we've said many times before, it's actually less eye strain to read ebooks indoors on a good PDA screen (even a typical 240x320 PPC screen) than a paper book. But outdoors, sure, we need more epaper screens to come out for that to be more practical. Or a PDA screen that looks like some of the pretty amazing LCD and plasma TV screens I see at the local electronics store!

My advice, Mr. Lambert, is to buy a Zodiac2 and enjoy the splendor of eBooks in landscape form with all of the customizeable buttons of iSilo with the white wine and fireplace. No extra light needed to bother your sleeping parter, as a bonus.

And, it conforms to BobR's widescreen movie experience, so it's added value all the way around.
POL9A

I'm a devotee of ebook reading, but I can never read anything lengthy on the computer screen. Anything more than a page gets dumped to iSilo for later persual on the PDA.

And as we've said many times before, it's actually less eye strain to read ebooks indoors on a good PDA screen (even a typical 240x320 PPC screen) than a paper book. But this doesn't feel like the case for me, since I tend to read with the text on the smaller side (though not the smallest) and many people think that it's too small for them to see. Maybe I'm just used to it. Can't wait to have a larger screen than my T|E...

One thing you almost have to do to read ebooks comfortably is to read in fairly bright indoor light or turn the screen brightness down. Full brightness in a not-so-fully lit room is not easy on the eyes. But turn that brightness down to 25% or so, and it's quite enjoyable. :)

One thing you almost have to do to read ebooks comfortably is to read in fairly bright indoor light or turn the screen brightness down. Full brightness in a not-so-fully lit room is not easy on the eyes. But turn that brightness down to 25% or so, and it's quite enjoyable. :)
Or, if your e-book reader supports it (e.g. eReader, latest beta of iSilo), use light text color against a dark background -- a great eye relief!

William Lambert was so nice to write me an e-mail regarding his essay from this thread and to allow me to reprint it here:

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 09:31:23 -0800
From: William Lambert
To: Alexander Turcic
Subject: RE: Your essay on e-books
Alexander:

Thanks for your appreciated feedback on my recent essay, regarding
readership of eBooks, posted on useless-knowledge.com.

The responses I've received, yours included, assure me that there are,
indeed, eBOOK readers out there; my survey sample, unfortunately, having
been just too random to have encountered them. (I've heard from quite a few
eBOOK aficionados, for instance, with impaired eyesight who find the format
genuinely advantageous).

As an author, sometimes entirely isolated within a world that consists of
very little more than imagination and computer, it's very easy to lose
perspective (which is apparently what happened to me in this case).

The next time (if ever) I question the validity of my publishers wanting "to
take" one of my books "into" the eBOOK format, I'll only need refer to the
informative feedback letters (which includes yours) that I've received on
the subject.

My thanks for having taken the time and made the effort to get back to me -
and to post your response on your mobileread.com forum page. Your interest
is appreciated.

William

What a kind and eloquent response from Mr Lambert. It's inspired me to search for one of his books to read...

What a kind and eloquent response from Mr Lambert. It's inspired me to search for one of his books to read...

Bob,

I only hope if and when you select one of my two available eBOOKS to read that you chose my sci-fi BOND-SHATTERING. My circuSex is aimed entirely toward the "erotic" market, and I suspect its contents would have the average reader's socks drop. In fact, BOND-SHATTERING has it's "hot-hot" bits to, so......

I'm probably late with this forewarning, but I wouldn't want ANY reader to think that he was downloading something similar to Roddenberry's "Star Trek" or Disney's "Dumbo" when picking up what's presently available of my stuff.

I might recommend that you wait until I hopefully add my more mainstream writing to the EBook market (i.e. THE BRENTRIDGE GOLD, DOG ON A SURFBOARD, even my Stud Draqual Mystery series).

Always hate to discourage potentially new readers, BUT the last thing I want is you paying out good money to end up with something that's going to have you likely thinking I'm not quite the "nice" guy you may have thought I was.

It's the thought that counts, anyway. So, thanks for your kind response.

Thanks for the heads up William! Fortunately, I Googled for info first :)
You're right, my tastes are not along those lines, but I still appreciate your previous note. You have a real knack with words.

I hope you'll browse MobileRead a bit, and visit us every now and again.

Best wishes!

Bob,

I only hope if and when you select one of my two available eBOOKS to read that you chose my sci-fi BOND-SHATTERING. My circuSex is aimed entirely toward the "erotic" market, and I suspect its contents would have the average reader's socks drop. In fact, BOND-SHATTERING has it's "hot-hot" bits to, so......

I'm probably late with this forewarning, but I wouldn't want ANY reader to think that he was downloading something similar to Roddenberry's "Star Trek" or Disney's "Dumbo" when picking up what's presently available of my stuff.

I might recommend that you wait until I hopefully add my more mainstream writing to the EBook market (i.e. THE BRENTRIDGE GOLD, DOG ON A SURFBOARD, even my Stud Draqual Mystery series).

Always hate to discourage potentially new readers, BUT the last thing I want is you paying out good money to end up with something that's going to have you likely thinking I'm not quite the "nice" guy you may have thought I was.

It's the thought that counts, anyway. So, thanks for your kind response.

Could you provide a URL to a place that sells the ebooks you mentioned? I tried Fictionwise and Diesel books, to no avail.

Craig.

I've read books since I was a little tyke. In fact, I've read more books of the old fashioned, old school set than I have the electronic versions. (I've clumped all non-paper formatted books such as e-books and audio books for the purpose of simplicity). I must say, that I took a bit of a hiatus from books. However, the audible versions and the Palm formatted books have rejuvenated a reading bug within me over the past 4 years since I first bought my Palm. Ever since that time, I've delved into the alternative, paperless book world and have had more opportunities to experiment with a greater number of styles, authors and genres. My reasons for this are myriad and were built upon a foundation of necessity combined with my love for books.

You see, as my schedule became more and more busy, I've had little time to curl up in front of a book and kick back. My time to "kick back with a book" evolved to reading at night in bed. This alternative sure beats using an annoying lamp that might keep up my wife whenever I read bedside. My lack of free time allowed me to experiment with audio books whenever I do yard work and water the plants or take my 120 mile, 2 hour a day, 6 days a week commute to work. What better way to kill time and feed your brain?

Would I rather curl up in front of a fireplace, dressed in a satin robe and warm slippers over some hot cocoa and puppy dog at my feet? You bet! However, the reality of my schedule dictates that I branch out and discover other methods to feed the rather voracious appetite of my inner "book beast". The varied electronic formats have more than satisfied my hunger for entertaining and informative books.

Could you provide a URL to a place that sells the ebooks you mentioned? I tried Fictionwise and Diesel books, to no avail.

Craig.

Craig:

Sorry, I'm so late in getting back to you as regards the eBooks presently "out" under my William Maltese pseudo, and how you can find the URLS that sell them. Not only have I been a tad "out of touch", lately, having taken a short (and, of course, well-deserved) break from "things", but I tried to check in here a couple of times and, for whatever the reason, the system seemed to think I was an "alien" and refused to let me in.

Anyway, I'm on-site, at least for the moment, and in response to your query (hopefully, better late than never): You can find the eBook version of my circuSex (as well as my print books) on most any "amazon" site: amazon.com; amazon.co.uk; amazon.de ... et al. Think it's, also, available for download at bn.com, too. And, of course, you can head off to the publisher's site at http://www.iuniverse.com and get it downloaded from there.

As for BOND-SHATTERING, I think the cheapest download spot is presently directly from the publisher nighwares LLC at: http://www.nighwares.com. I am, by the way, presently in negotiations with nighwares for them to provide eBooks for at least an additional three of my present print-only books.

If you're interested, too, you might like to head on off to my maltese web-site: -- http://www.williammaltese.com --. Unforunately, I've been so busy of late, it's not actually up to date (none of the eBooks yet included), but there's some bio info that you might find of interest.

And, if you want to contact me directly, feel free to drop me an e-mail at -- williamjlambert3@yahoo.com; especially, since I seem to have periodic problems accessing mobileread.

Sorry again for waiting so long to get back to you. I'll try to do better next time.

My best,
William Lambert
(AKA William Maltese)

Hey guys:

Back in 2005, I put forward a query as regards to whether or not anyone really reads e-books, since I, personally, didn't seem to have the knack for scrolling tiny screens.

I was particularly interested, of course, because as a writer, I was always having publishers ask me whether or not I wanted my next "to go" e-book, as well as hard-print, and usually -- at the time -- I said, "Why bother? No one really reads them, do they?" As a result, at the time, I think I only had one e-book available, and it was xxx-rated.

Well, don't you know, when I made known my opinion that ebooks weren't really being read by most anyone, I certainly got my comeuppance (very politely, here), both from people with sight problems and others, like those "on the road", who insisted that e-books were the next best thing to white bread.

So, next time one of my publisher asked if I wanted to go ahead and have my book released as an e-book, as well as in print version, I said, "Why not? I understand there are lots of people out there who read them."

As a result, via fictionwise.com and diesel-ebooks.com, I now have available a total of seven of my books available in e-book format. Granted a couple of them are still xxx, BUT there's also, the sci-fi GERUN, THE HERETIC, the sweet romance (that wouldn't even offend my mother) HEART ON FIRE, a male adventure BLOOD-RED RESOLUTION, and a mystey THE FAG IS NOT FOR BURNING.

Who would have guessed that in just a couple of years I'd have out this many, with more to come? Not I? Certainly, thanks to everyone here who kindly input information when I requested it.

William Maltese
http://www.williammaltese
http://www.myspace.com/williammaltese

Great to hear from an author who "gets" eBooks, William. I wish you every success with your sales of them! We're now, of course, in a far better position when it comes to reading eBooks than we were when the thread started, with the latest "eInk" readers which pretty much replicate the experience of reading a paper book, and none of the "eye strain" that comes from reading from a small PDA.

I agree. with HarryT. Welcome aboard William. It's nice to be able to see things from the author's side of things. Especially an author who understand ebooks and how important they are/will become. For people with dificulty ready the small print in an ordinary paperback, it's great. Just up the font size and read away.


The Sony Reader makes it very nice to read ebooks on the go. I took my reader to NYC this weekend and it made it nice to have a pile of books with me without having to lug around a pile of books.

Who would have guessed that in just a couple of years I'd have out this many, with more to come? Not I? Certainly, thanks to everyone here who kindly input information when I requested it.YUou're welcome, and nice to see you here.

I looked at your web sites, and it led to some trips back through memory lane. I remember Greenleaf Classics, for instance.

I also chuckled at "One Handed Reads" as a as a category for a book line. An old friend used to do copy editing for the Penthouse Letters publications. Typesetters are trained to hook the eyes in parallel with the fingers and take the brain out of the loop. They don't actually read what they are setting. He could tell when the topic of a particular letter hooked into a typesetter's fantasy and they actually started reading the copy, as the galleys suddenly became riddled with typographical errors. I just said "That's what happens when you try to typeset one-handed". Nice to see it applied to the final works as well.

Who is publishing you these days? The market for print erotica seems to have been killed off by the internet, and most of what I know of is small press stuff. A friend was an editor at a major publisher, and was talking to her boss about the void. "Well, yes", he said. "There's a market there that isn't being served." Someone else commented "You mean there's a market that isn't being serviced." to general laughter.

But it's still a true observation. The last outfit I recall doing it was Masquerade Press (who reprinted some of John Norman's Gor series, to my amusement). The folks I know of now are basically small presses.

William Maltese
______
Dennis

Great to hear from an author who "gets" eBooks, William. I wish you every success with your sales of them! We're now, of course, in a far better position when it comes to reading eBooks than we were when the thread started, with the latest "eInk" readers which pretty much replicate the experience of reading a paper book, and none of the "eye strain" that comes from reading from a small PDA.'

Harry:

Thanks for your check-in. I was afraid that this chain of interest may have been so long lapsed that it wasn't active any more, but I thought I'd give it the old college try anyway. Luckily, it seems to have worked.

As for "getting" e- books, I do have to admit that it took me some time to get with it. Once again, mainly because of the response I ended up from this locale when I started bichin' and moanin' about how tiny the print was and how I couldn't imagine I, or anyone else, wading through the minuscule print when you could have a tactile book in hand. Replies here saw me take action to remedy my e-book production, so that when the ebook industry improved its electronic products I suddenly had the books there to take advantage.

Now, of course, all of my books for Borgo Press (a subsidiary, of sorts, of the giant amazon.com family), will be coming out in e-book (they asked; I said, yes, please).

So, once again, thanks for checking in.

an author
trying his damnedest to "get it"
William

YUou're welcome, and nice to see you here.

I looked at your web sites, and it led to some trips back through memory lane. I remember Greenleaf Classics, for instance.

I also chuckled at "One Handed Reads" as a as a category for a book line. An old friend used to do copy editing for the Penthouse Letters publications. Typesetters are trained to hook the eyes in parallel with the fingers and take the brain out of the loop. They don't actually read what they are setting. He could tell when the topic of a particular letter hooked into a typesetter's fantasy and they actually started reading the copy, as the galleys suddenly became riddled with typographical errors. I just said "That's what happens when you try to typeset one-handed". Nice to see it applied to the final works as well.

Who is publishing you these days? The market for print erotica seems to have been killed off by the internet, and most of what I know of is small press stuff. A friend was an editor at a major publisher, and was talking to her boss about the void. "Well, yes", he said. "There's a market there that isn't being served." Someone else commented "You mean there's a market that isn't being serviced." to general laughter.

But it's still a true observation. The last outfit I recall doing it was Masquerade Press (who reprinted some of John Norman's Gor series, to my amusement). The folks I know of now are basically small presses.


______
Dennis

Dennis!

Sorry if this turns out to be a duplicate of something just "sent", in that I'm not sure it was really "sent" at all. The long message I just typed out seems to have disappeared into CyberSpace (something that's always happening to me). Anyway, if this turns out to be a duplicate, my apologies. Rather you receive two than miss out entirely in thanking you for the check-in.

Ahhhhhhh, the Greenleaf Classic days. It's hard for me to imagine that I actually put out one or two of those a month for close to five years. I've certainly slowed down a pace to be sure.

As for the one-hand read section (my having acquired and received the registered trademark for "one-hand read(R)" , by the way), I'm glad that I've been able to make my little contribution to that particular genre.

As to what I've been up to, in the world of male erotica, I've actually been pumping (no pun intended), them out quite regularly over the years. I did several of them, under various pseudos for Brit publisher Millivres/Prowler (which has since folded its erotica hard-print lines). Then, I moved on to GREEN CANDY PRESS (for whom I did THAI DIED and SLOVAKIAN BOY, both still available at books stores everywhere). I've since moved on to MRL Press with DIARY OF A HUSTLER, GOLDSANDS, LOVE HURTS (yes, that is I as cover boy in gas mask and all bound up in "whatever"), and a new book ARDENNIAN BOY about the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine (which is due out within the next couple of months). None of which, unfortunately, are noted on my regular web-site, because I've been derelict in keeping the site up-to-date (something I hope to rectify soon, with inclusion even of my ebook offerings). My more recent stuff (male erotica and othewise) seems to be better represented at my http://www.myspace.com/williammaltse site.

Surprisingly enough, the male erotica area of publishing has recently seen an influx of women writers and readers (Go figure!) and is found nowadays under the genre term m/m fiction. And, eventually, up the line, I've just been informed, MLR Press will be doing theirs in ebook format; I've been asked and approved of their issuing mine for them in the ebook format, when the big moment occurs.

And, of course, while my publisher Borgo Press (kind of a subsidiary of amazon.com's publishing wing), has been publishing a lot of my original mainstream fiction, there have been crossover books in that area (many of them ebooks), including THE FAG IS NOT FOR BURNING, THE GOMORRHA CONJURATIONS, and ANAL COUSINS: CASE STUDIES IN VARIANT SEXUAL PRACTICES, with characters who are outright gay or wondrously bisexual.

Likewise, within the very next few weeks, Borgo is scheduled to re-release a lot of my m/m work (in print format and in ebook format) the books I did originally for Millivres/Prowler, including A SLIP TO DIE FOR, SUMMER SWEAT, CALIFORNIA CREAMIN', YOUNG CRUISERS, SLAVES)...

So, the male/male erotica is still "out there", even today, if you know where to look for it, even if not mass-distributed by the one-time giants like Greenleaf Classic used to be.

Anyway, seems I'm turning this into a novel, and I merely wanted to check in and say thanks for your check-in.

In summation -- thanks!

William

I agree. with HarryT. Welcome aboard William. It's nice to be able to see things from the author's side of things. Especially an author who understand ebooks and how important they are/will become. For people with dificulty ready the small print in an ordinary paperback, it's great. Just up the font size and read away.


The Sony Reader makes it very nice to read ebooks on the go. I took my reader to NYC this weekend and it made it nice to have a pile of books with me without having to lug around a pile of books.

JS

Thanks for the check-in. For some reason, I seem to be having trouble getting my replies posted, so I shall make this one brief. (Just tried two longer ones which have either disappeared into the CyperSpace void or just may appear later.

Did want to thank you in for the check-in, though. It's people like you who provided me with the impetus to pay more attention to ebooks in the days when I really was prepared to shuffle ebooks aside as something merely fly-by-night.

William

YUou're welcome, and nice to see you here.

I looked at your web sites, and it led to some trips back through memory lane. I remember Greenleaf Classics, for instance.

I also chuckled at "One Handed Reads" as a as a category for a book line. An old friend used to do copy editing for the Penthouse Letters publications. Typesetters are trained to hook the eyes in parallel with the fingers and take the brain out of the loop. They don't actually read what they are setting. He could tell when the topic of a particular letter hooked into a typesetter's fantasy and they actually started reading the copy, as the galleys suddenly became riddled with typographical errors. I just said "That's what happens when you try to typeset one-handed". Nice to see it applied to the final works as well.

Who is publishing you these days? The market for print erotica seems to have been killed off by the internet, and most of what I know of is small press stuff. A friend was an editor at a major publisher, and was talking to her boss about the void. "Well, yes", he said. "There's a market there that isn't being served." Someone else commented "You mean there's a market that isn't being serviced." to general laughter.

But it's still a true observation. The last outfit I recall doing it was Masquerade Press (who reprinted some of John Norman's Gor series, to my amusement). The folks I know of now are basically small presses.


______
Dennis

Dennis:

Actually, somewhere, there's a longer reply to your letter, both of which seem to have disappeared into thin air. I'll keep track, over the next few days, to see if one (or both) turn up, and if they don't, I'll head on back and recomment again on those Greenleaf Classic days.

In the interim, I'll keep this short and say "Thanks for the check-in".

William

Your other comments are safely there earlier in the thread, William.

I don't think that your "genre" of fiction would appeal to me personally, but it takes all sorts, as the old saying goes, and I wish you the best of luck with them :grin:.

Dennis!

Sorry if this turns out to be a duplicate of something just "sent", in that I'm not sure it was really "sent" at all. The long message I just typed out seems to have disappeared into CyberSpace (something that's always happening to me). Anyway, if this turns out to be a duplicate, my apologies. Rather you receive two than miss out entirely in thanking you for the check-in.It actually got here, but may have taken a detour along the way.

Ahhhhhhh, the Greenleaf Classic days. It's hard for me to imagine that I actually put out one or two of those a month for close to five years. I've certainly slowed down a pace to be sure. All sorts of folks did it. Horror bestseller Dean Koontz wrote porno for a bit, back in teh early days of his career. His wife did the first draft during the week. He did the submission draft over the weekend. Off it went, and the $650 per title helped pay the bills while he worked on serious stuff.

He gave a talk at a local SF group I was involved in, and I couldn't help it: I presented him with a couple of the pornos to sign at dinner afterward.

"Out of all the stuff I done, you want me to sign this?"

"Dean, if you were willing to but your name on the cover, you should be willing to sign it on the inside."

His wife just wanted to know how I figured out a couple of their pseudonyms. Not hard: there were characteristic phrases, and when the first chapter of one pseudonymous effort mentions a Hannes Bok painting, and is dedicated to another pseudonym...

He signed, but I lost them years ago in a move. I can only imagine what they'd fetch on eBay.

As for the one-hand read section (my having acquired and received the registered trademark for "one-hand read(R)" , by the way), I'm glad that I've been able to make my little contribution to that particular genre.It's fitting.

As to what I've been up to, in the world of male erotica, I've actually been pumping (no pun intended), them out quite regularly over the years.
<...>
Thanks for the update.

Surprisingly enough, the male erotica area of publishing has recently seen an influx of women writers and readers (Go figure!) and is found nowadays under the genre term m/m fiction. And, eventually, up the line, I've just been informed, MLR Press will be doing theirs in ebook format; I've been asked and approved of their issuing mine for them in the ebook format, when the big moment occurs.Not surprising at all to me. I'm an SF fan, and SF fans produce a lot of fan fiction, often set in the fictional universes they read. One prominent sub-genre is "slash" fiction, with gay couplings between protagonists. The arch typical stuff is probably stories featuring a relationship between Star Trek's Captain Kirk and Mister Spock, but anything is fair game. I've seen a recent effort where a grown up Harry Potter struggles to deal with the realization he has the hots for Draco Malfoy, and another with a rather hilarious encounter in a gay bar men's room between Severus Snape and a Nazgul.

So, the male/male erotica is still "out there", even today, if you know where to look for it, even if not mass-distributed by the one-time giants like Greenleaf Classic used to be.I assumed so. I was never particularly interested in male erotica, so I rather lost track of who was out there in the field.

But no surprise in what you've mentioned. It appears that print erotica has simply changed its name and shifted to a different audience. There was always some surprisingly explicit stuff being published in the Romance genre. A Romance buyer for a major book chain I met said "We call that "smut" in the trade." I see a lot of pretty explicit BDSM stuff aimed at the female market. They just don't call it porn.

Anyway, seems I'm turning this into a novel, and I merely wanted to check in and say thanks for your check-in.
You're quite welcome. Stop back again.
______
Dennis