John Grisham Ends Ebook Holdout

Posted on March 18, 2010

John Grisham has ended his long holdout on releasing ebook versions of his bestselling novels. Reuters reports that Grisham's publisher Random House announced that all 23 of Grishams' books are now available as electronic books from major retailers including Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble.com and Amazon.com.

The former lawyer, whose best sellers include "The Firm" and "A Time To Kill", had previously held off selling his books electronically, expressing concern that e-books would wipe out traditional book stores and make it harder for new writers to succeed.
But beginning Tuesday, all Grisham's fiction and non-fiction books will be available through e-book retailers, publisher Random House said.

Grisham has been critical of the ebook format. He said last year on the Today show, "If a new book is now worth about $9 then we have seriously devalued that book." John Grisham also told Matt Lauer, "If half of us are going to be doing it, then you're going to wipe out tons of bookstores and publishers and we're going to buy it all online. I'm probably going to be all right - but the aspiring writers are going to have a very hard time getting published."

John Grisham did not give a statement now that all of his books are being sold as ebooks.