Ebook sales are way up. The numbers don't lie. I hear writers happily talking about their sales and the good money that is coming in. My question is, how long will it last?

Remember when DVD was new? Sales were on fire. Indie distributors were selling discs like hotcakes. Things were good and it was a boom time.

Now DVD sales are in the toilet. It saddens me. I was talking to my friends from Synapse Films recently, and they said that times were hard. They said that they were one of the first independent DVD sellers of horror and exploitation. And they might end up being the last. They're hanging on, continuing to bring out excellent quality DVDs. To the bitter end. I hope things pick up.

Ebook sales are high, but there's no way to determine how many of them are actually being read. The Kindle and the Nook are still relatively new. People, American consumers in particular, love new things. They become fads.

But people are also fickle and trends die down.

Those that know me are well aware that I do not care for Ebooks. I like real, hardcopy books to read. This isn't about that argument. I genuinely do not wish to see sales plummet. I like just about all of the writers in the genre that I know, and I want to see them be successful. I don't want to see Ebooks take over the entire market and have books and bookstores become obsolete. My wish is to see a world where both thrive hand-in-hand.

I watch people. I see people with Kindles and Nooks in public. Just yesterday I was waiting for my Chinese food, and a woman at the next table was messing with her Kindle. Being my usual nosy self, I watched her. She wasn't reading anything on it. She was clicking around, checking out all the stuff she had on it. Playing with it.

It's a little like people who come to bookstores to drink coffee and act sophisticated. Many of them, most of them possibly, are not real readers. Is the same true for individuals carrying their Ereader of choice around, trying to look cool and literary? Or the people that conspicuously take their laptops to coffeehouses to "work on their novel"?

When the novelty of owning a portable library wears off, will sales die down?

I'm not talking about the folks that come here. I know that Horror Drive-In is a gathering place of readers, writers, publishers, and artists that truly love words and writing. But what of the others out there? Will they grow bored with their latest gadget and start looking for something else to play with?

Time will tell.

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