Books have been around for a long time, but times, they are a-changing, and it now appears that e-books, in various forms, are here to stay. A couple of years ago, I didn’t know anyone who read books online; today, I have Kindle software on my PC and on my iPhone, and just about everytime I’m in the theatre I see someone in the audience reading from a Kindle or Nook before the show begins.
NYTE prides itself on helping professionals and audience members in our community make great use of new technology–and that’s why we’ve recently published our first e-book. It’s currently available on Kindle only:
Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium – the e-book.
But we’re planning to publish to other formats/readers in the near future, and to expand our selection of titles, too.
So why should you be thinking about e-books?
Reason #1 — so easy to get, so easy to use. You never have to leave the house, don’t have to put on your shoes, don’t have to wait til daylight to shop. You can buy it at 3:05 a.m. and by 3:07 a.m. it will be ready to read on your iPhone, iTouch, iPad, BlackBerry and PC. Got a Kindle? It will be there, too,of course.
And it’s easy on the eyes. I make the font a little bigger and I don’t have to fumble for my glasses to read it. Click to shut it down and when you come back to it, it’s exactly on the right page. Don’t have to dog-ear the pages or worry that the bookmark will fall out.
Want to skip around? Just go to the Table of Contents and click on the play you want to read. There you are in a nano second. And you can get a free sample downloaded to see if you really like it. Give it a try.
Reason #2 — You can read it anywhere. Download it to all your devices–your iPhone, BlackBerry, etc. Read it on the subway, read it at lunch, read it on your way to an audition. It is the most convenient way, I am finding, to read whether it be for pleasure or for a more serious purpose. The book you want is always in your pocket or on your laptop and that is worth a lot. And having it on your PC where you can go to it when you just want to take a few minutes off from working on another assignment is fun.
Reason #3 — This anthology seems to be a first. We’ve checked around and we don’t seem to be able to find any other anthologies of contemporary plays. This excites us as we still believe this is a group of playwrights that is decidedly underserved where publishing is concerned. Contemporary work should be easy to find.
One caveat with the Kindle store — unless you know the name of the e-book or can follow a link, you will have a difficult time finding this. Unfortunately in the navigation bar there is no heading for “drama” or “plays” so send out this link to your friends — no obligation to purchase, but this way they can get to look at what we feel is a great e-book. And it’s only $10.
My theatre company aMios has been posting all of our plays on our blog. I thought of all of the online options and this seems to be the best choice for access as we can put anything from a 5 minute play to a 30 minute play up on the site with no overhead. We have shows posted by Tom Rowan, Steven Cole Hughes, John Behlmann (39 Steps) and several more. Check it out. We also have a show at the Access Theatre that any of your readers would enjoy.