I love Christmas, and I always have. It’s a happy time of year, no matter what your religious beliefs are. I love the bright holiday lights, the comforting sameness of the music, the smiles on everyone’s faces, the smells (pine needles, hot chocolate), and the tastes (fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, roast turkey, pumpkin pies).
The other thing that makes this holiday special is that it’s the time when I published my first ebook. I published “The Christmas Gift” in 2009, a year when the experts said ebooks were just a passing fad, and that people would never pay to read something on a screen. “Ebooks are meant to be free,” I remember one expert said. “Authors can use them as giveaways to promote their print books, but no author is going to make money by selling ebooks.”
How things have changed, in only five years! Ebooks now account for over $5 billion in revenues in the U.S. alone. When I wrote my little book about a doll named Constance in Depression era America, I had no idea what types of ebooks I’d be publishing five years hence, let alone that “The Christmas Gift” would still be on the market. There are many traditionally published books that came out in 2009 and have long since disappeared from the shelves, but “The Christmas Gift” is still out there in cyberspace, ready to be downloaded. Each year I get a spike in sales around Christmas, and I am happy that my story continues to live on. I don’t really know how to categorize it -- “a children’s story for all ages”, is the best I can come up with. But it gladdens my heart at this time of year to realize that this little ebook is still around to spread its message.
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