I looked at one of these mythical iPads in the city yesterday. It was chained to a bench and surrounded by teenagers, and by the time I got my grubby mits on it it was plain that a thousand mits of equal or greater levels of grubbiness had been there before. The screen had been near-obliterated under a a hundred thousand fingerprints, and I had to resist the urge to wipe it down before I had a play.

I had to say, I didn't experience any of the "magic" I was promised by Lord Jobs. I put it back with a 'shrug' and a 'meh', still convinced it's just a big brother to my iPhone. What is interesting - though unfortunately not particularly follow-up-able - is that apparently the growth of ebook sales stalled with the release of the iPad. Now, as we all know, correlation does not equal cause, but I find it interesting that, after all the hubbub and the "One million books downloaded!!!" of Apple, the stampede of sales have actually slowed. Is it the Big Six ebook Kerfuffle? The arguable unsuitability of the iPad to ebooks? (more discussion at the York Writer link above). Sadly, we really can't say, but I find it fascinating.

At the same time, however, we have the inspirational J. A. Konrath making waves: rejecting traditional publishing of two novels in favour of his now-famous kindle store. And when I say rejecting traditional, I don't mean he just decided to self publish these ones, I mean these books had offers and deals and big money attached, and he traded that in to self publish, instead, because there's more money for him in self-publishing than the big boys can give him.

And before we all race off to Amazon's site with our half-gnawed manuscript, consider the effort Konrath's gone to establishing himself online as a name. That counts for a lot. So does, y'know, actually writing good books.

Getting yourself "established" online probably has more topics on it than ab-toning, and one becomes easily jaded by the number of people explaining how Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs work. That strikes me rather as explaining the mechanics of how paint gets on a canvas - you can know all that and still paint a "landscape" that looks more like an upside down duck on a rollerskate. It is, like everything, not what you've got, but how you're using it to create an 'online personality' for people to connect to.

But - something that is apparently increasing in popularity is the web serial - not comics, but web fiction, published for free regularly online. Something to consider: it gives people a taste of your style and your work, encourages interaction with readers, and builds connections within the online community - see the Self Publishing Review article here.

It does mean you give up a lot of (theoretically) valuable rights, and you either have to have written and polished the whole thing beforehand, or be someone who writes passable first drafts, and be prepared for immediate (and not necessarily constructive, helpful or non-malicious) cricitism, but it's an idea.