I Won!

I as re-elected President of the Electronically Published Internet Connection -- EPIC -- a group of writers, publishers and other publishing professionals who are dedicated to bringing the public ebooks -- books that can be read on electronic devices. Like PDAs, Gameboys, dedicated handheld readers and other computers... there are good reasons for this.

Almost all books eventually end up in landfills. When you consider the size of a paperback novel, multiply that by 20,000 copies of that book, which is the number most publishers consider the break-even point. But in order to have that many sales, they generally have to print twice that many books. What happens to the extras? They are stripped of their front cover, which it returned to the publisher for a refund, and the rest of the book heads to a landfill. It is illegal to sell a paperback book that does not have its front cover.

So -- think of the trees that were cut down and processed (the processing is very acidic) not just for the books that are sold but the ones that are destined for disposal.

Electronic books exist in computers, to be emailed to you and downloaded into your reading device. If you love it and want to read it over and over again, you can save it. If one reading was enough, you can delete it.

You can modify (electronically) a GameBoy to contain 800 books. Ever think of taking 800 books on vacation with you?