You make some good points. Like you, I was reluctant to have anything I wrote published as an ebook for much the same reasons you have. But after Geoffrey Gatza published my long poem Carrier of the Seed as an ebook, and I found out what the downloads were after a few months (over 8,000, I think), I revised my opinion about ebook publication. For me, gaining lots of readers is preferable to holding a beautifully printed book in my hands, that doesn’t sell well, and therefore remains largely unread—unless your Heaney or Ashbery etc.

Yes, it is a shame that, as you say, reviewers and prize committees pay no attention to ebooks. But that will probably change as ebooks become more of the norm. Besides, what does it matter if your book or ebook wins a prize or not? Prizes only help to increase book sales, and ebooks don’t need that, as they get lots of readers anyway.




Ricky Ray wrote:

As a lover of both books and ebooks, thought I'd offer my opinion, though it's complex and contradictory. As a consumer, I find myself more and more drawn to e-format, and by that I mean epub, mobi and azw3 (kindle), not PDF, which tends not to render well on some mainstream readers. PDF is fine for reading on the computer or tablets, but I personally don't do much collection reading there, and groan or toss the book aside when I'm constrained to PDF. I still buy physical collections new and old all the time, but in most cases, I'd rather carry it along with 5,000 poetry collections on my e-reader than carry a single book. Except when I'm on vacation, which is another story. So in my daily reading I've relegated physical books to toilet duty.

As a poet, however, if I were to have a collection accepted and published in e-format alone, a part of me would feel as if I hadn't published a book at all. I know it's untrue and nonsensical, but the feeling persists nonetheless, partially due, perhaps, to the fact that I don't think most reviewers, prize committees, etc., let alone family members, will spend time with an e-only book. On the other hand, I would hate to have the book confined to physical format and would like it published both physically and electronically, which I could then share with my network according to their reading preferences. Whether the ebook is distributed freely or sold is another matter, but I'm a pirate when it comes to file "worth" and sharing, so I'll just nod to my download finger on that.

And then, as an editor of a journal, I'm avowedly non-print, mostly because journals tend to sit unread and get shuffled along to the recycle bin or trash, and I don't want that ecological weight on my conscience. 

Ricky