Right now my latest crime novel, All Debts, Public and Private, is only available as an e-book.

More than once this has lead to the inevitable question: “Why no paperback version?” (By far my favorite version of this question is, “So when are you going to put out a real book?”)

Here are my reasons for going digital only, at least for now:

Keeping cost low for the people. Because e-books are cheaper than printed books, it’s more likely that someone will take a chance on trying a new author like me.

Keeping cost low for me. Printing books costs money. True, printing costs are cheaper now than they’ve ever been. Still the return on investment is suspect and the thing I need is a garage filled with dozens of copies of the same book with my name on it. Yes, there is on-demand printing, but even that route has costs – in money if I farm out the work; in my time if I do it myself – associated with formatting. Right now, it makes sense to focus my time and efforts on the lowest-cost format.

E-reader owners are crazy about reading not about books. These are people who are so into reading that they’ve made an investment in a device expressly for the purpose of reading. They’re aren’t hung up on format, they’re drawn to reading stories. Anybody who owns an e-reader is a passionate reader and that passion also makes them more likely to give an author new to them a chance. (See the first point above.)

Easy come (to you). Easy go (with you). E-books are easy for me to publish and get into to readers’ hands via e-readers. E-books are also easier for readers to take with them wherever they go. Hard to ignore something that makes sense for the producer and the consumer.

They Stay So Fresh! I love that I can always update the digital version, whether it’s it’s information about my next book, contact information or fixing errors that made it through the edit process.

Even after I layout the benefits of e-books, that person usually gets around to saying some version of “I dunno, I just love the feel of a book in my hands.”

I agree. Having grown up with printed books, I too love books—the look of them, browsing for them, the feel of them in my hand.

I just happen to love the idea to people reading and enjoying my crime stories a little bit more.