Where Has All the Ink Gone?

By Stephanie Duncan, Marketing Assistant at Moody Publishers

Welcome back to the new Moody Fiction Blog! Today we are continuing in the third day of our launch contest from Jan. 5-9th, and will be giving away 10 free copies of The Missionary by William Carmichael and David Lambert! Read on for details...

Every morning, I become an anthropologist for about 30 minutes for my commute on the public “EL” train in Chicago.  There are few other social circumstances that offer me anything as interesting as watching complete strangers cram themselves in close quarters with other complete strangers in a box speeding along at 55 miles per hour.  It’s always entertaining to see the many ways with which people occupy themselves in this social context.  There was a time before I was engaged that I would always catch myself noticing the rocks on women’s hands as they hold the pole, and now I play another game: I like to see what people are reading.  And my recent favorite sighting is the Kindle, Amazon’s new digital reading device.

Kindle is a lightweight, portable device that makes books available for reading on a handheld screen.  This product has wireless that enables users to purchase books which are delivered in less than 60 seconds and can store thousands of documents.  Kindle users praise this invention for the convenience of being able to put their library in their pocket and instant access to manuscripts.  Needless to say, when I saw my first Kindle on the EL, I was curious.

But as I looked into this new technology, I began to feel conflicted.  What about the printed page? What about underlining your favorite part of your novel? What about the satisfaction of watching your bookmark migrate from one side of the binding to the other or hearing the hushed sound of a page being turned?

When I purchased a magazine once at a writing conference, I asked the editor if her magazine was also available online, following the trend of many publishers in this web-savvy age.   The look on her face told me immediately I might as well have asked her if she wanted to go out of business.  “Oh no,” she said, “We believe in the sacrament of print.”

Well.  She put her finger on it.  Call me an elitist, but I also value the sacrament of print.  There’s something enchanting about holding a book in my hands and knowing another world is hiding just under the cover. 

But I’m not closing any doors.  Technology definitely has advantages in this age, and we are just seeing the beginning of it. So I would like to hear from you:

How do you feel about electronic reading devices versus reading from the printed page? Do you think the reading format of a story also changes the dynamic of the story? 

To enter to win a copy of The Missionary, all you have to do is leave your comment below (along with your email--important for us to contact you if you are a winner!) answering the question above or responding to this post, and you will be entered into the contest.  Winners will be selected at random and will be notified the day after their comment is posted. Good luck!

David Eller is an American missionary in Venezuela, married to missionary nurse Christie. Together they rescue homeless children in Caracas. But for David, that isn’t enough. The supply of homeless children is endless because of massive poverty and the oppressive policies of the Venezuelan government, led by the Hugo Chavez– like Armando Guzman. 

In a moment of anger, David publicly rails against the government, unaware that someone dangerous might be listening—a revolutionary looking for recruits. David falls into an unimaginable nightmare of espionage, ending in a desperate, life-or-death gamble to flee the country with his wife and son, with all the resources of a corrupt dictatorship at their heels. 

Watch the Trailer...