At least once or twice a week someone asks me, “So why do eBooks cost so much?” This is a fair question. After all, digital publishing eliminates the costs of physical manufacturing and distribution. What expenses do publishers have left?

As it turns out, plenty.

Andy Stanley is one of my very favorite authors and speakers. I listen to his monthly leadership podcast and read everything he writes. Last week, we released his newest book, The Grace of God.

In case you don’t know, Andy Stanley is the founder of North Point Ministries (NPM), one of the fastest growing and most influential Christian organizations in America. Each Sunday, over 20,000 adults attend services at one of NPM’s three campuses in the Atlanta area: North Point Community Church, Browns Bridge Community Church, and Buckhead Church.

Publishers are increasingly using “book trailers” to raise awareness for their books. We are certainly using them here at Thomas Nelson. For some projects, they are very, very effective.

Yesterday, we held our Quarterly Team Meeting at Thomas Nelson. This is a meeting with all our Nashville-based employees. In the meeting, we report on our most recent quarterly performance, recognize our top performing divisions, preview a few of our “coming attractions,” and then hear from one of our authors. (Yesterday, we heard live from Emerson Eggerichs, author of Love and Respect.)

It used to be that great marketing was the difference that made a good book a bestseller. As a publisher, all you had to do was demand sufficient shelf space in the bookstore, get your author on some big-time media shows, and then spam the target audience with advertising messages until they succumbed and bought the book.

In the old world, if the book succeeded, it was because it was an obviously brilliant book. If it failed, it was because the publisher didn’t spend enough on marketing.

Almost a month ago, I video-taped the unboxing of my new Amazon Kindle 3 and posted it here on my blog. I shared my initial impressions. However, after using it for almost a month, I wanted to share my thoughts here in a little more depth.

I should start by saying a few words about the iPad. I have pretty much set it aside. Why? Two reasons.

I once heard a person say in a disdainful tone, “I don’t read ‘self-help’ books.” With this seemingly innocuous verdict, he slammed the door on a multitude of voices eager to push him to God’s best for his life. He severely limited his exposure to wise counselors and leaders available to him. And he drew a curtain across a world of extraordinary and supernatural influence.

I wanted to argue the point, but the task was too daunting for a moment in passing. The sad truth, though, is that many people share this man’s opinion: They don’t need to read books written by people whose sole focus is to edify, encourage and motivate them. In effect, what these people are suggesting is that they don’t need mentors.

Over the past few months, I have been doing a lot of thinking about reading—particularly about reading books. This was brought to my attention again last week when I interviewed Dr. Ben Carson for a series of video broadcasts on the topic of leadership, which I did for the Chick-fil-A Leadercast.

Make no mistake about it: I am an Apple fan. I own several Mac laptops, iPhones, and iPods. I even bought an AppleTV—and love it. When the iPad was announced, I watched Steve Jobs’ announcement and the online Guided Tours. I ordered one the first day I could do so. I purchased the 64GB WiFi (non-3G) version.

Yesterday, I stumbled across an incredibly simple but brilliant video about the end of publishing. It was produced by the marketing staff at Dorling Kindersley, a division of Penguin Group, for a recent sales conference. It talks about why Generation Y (those born between 1977 and 1994) thinks that books are dead and boring.

Since Google introduced its Book Search program, we have been fielding questions from authors and agents. They are concerned that Google has scanned their books and the results are showing up in Google search. The primary concern is that consumers will not buy books because. Why? Two reasons: