[Steven Lake]

Hey fellow writers, I'm curious of something. I've been looking at the market in general, and have noticed the increased amount of sales involving audiobooks and ebooks. Ebooks of course tend to only be sold online (at least that I've found), but audiobooks continue to be sold on CDrom. However, there's also an interesting trend I'm seeing away from the cdrom as well to an all digital environment.

That creates a bit of an issue with physical sales of your books. Say for example that someone walks into a local Barnes and Nobels, or you meet them at a book signing, there's getting to be an increasing number of these people who won't buy the paper copy of your book, or even the cd version of your audiobook. They want to be able to take their audiobooks or their ebooks in a physical media format that they can either plug into their mp3 player, or their ebook reader and take the books on the go.

Two of the reasons for this have been A) having a physical copy that can go anywhere with them and be stored on a shelf is preferred (digital only copies are apparently too easy to lose), and B) it allows for digital sales in a more traditional brick and mortar store such as B&N. It also makes things convenient when you're selling your product at a book signing or show, as those who want the digital copy instead of the paper one, can still get it signed, and still get the digital copy they want, and the physical media to ensure it remains safe for a long time to come.

So, with that said, what are your feelings on something like this? I'm actually right now exploring this idea with Sandisk, looking at the possibility of using either their SlotMusic, or MicroSD format for this.