The first time I heard about e-books, I was in journalism school back in the early 1990s. I remember lively debates about whether newspapers, magazine and books would be rendered obsolete by the turn of the century, replaced by electronic versions you could hold in the palm of your hand. At the time, these predictions seemed both blasphemous and futuristic.

Last year, when I read about Kindle, Amazon.com's e-book reader, I still didn't believe wireless reading devices would catch on. Kindle sold out in hours after it was released in November, 2007, and remained out of stock for months.

Now Kindle is back, and I read in paidcontent.org that Amazon has lowered the price by $40, which is surprising, given its success when it was launched. It's now going for for $359, still more expensive than Sony's competing digital book, which sells for about $300. Apparently, as production of the Kindle reader increased, manufacturing costs decreased, in turn lowering the retail price.

Amazon.com's "Kindle" is sold out. At $399, the wireless reading device accesses 110,000 books. Best-sellers and new releases are $9.99. You can have the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal delivered to your Kindle.

As anyone who knows me can attest to, I regard most of life as an intrusion between me, my bed and my book. The thought of being able to access (wireless connectivity) in a taxi, at the airport, in a hotel room makes my heart pound and my mouth go dry with desire. But there's a problem. #1: $399 (with its free 2-day shipping, I'm still not impressed), #2: I don't buy this way.

I don't want to have the first edition of anything. I don't buy for status. After the first edition, there are likely to be kinks to work out and just as likely the price will come down. I buy books by the handful (I bought 8 yesterday) at thrift shops, yard sales, library sales.

So although my first impulse was to add Kindle to my cart, it won't be happening anytime soon. I will be keeping an eye out for someone using one and I'll be sure to ask to see what it's all about.

Kindle may turn out to be a conversation starter. The new singles mingles for the intelligensia. Keep an eye on it.

The book industry is undergoing a sea change due to digital printing and electronic distribution. With this change, some interesting new models have appeared offering new avenues for we fiction addicts to feed our monkey.

The latest I've run across is startup Anthology Builder. This company offers you the ability to compile a 350-page anthology of stories you select from its library, then prints it up and ships the finished 6" x 9" trade paperback to you, all for $14.95 plus shipping.

Authors who choose to offer their stories (reprints from paying markets only) give a very slight taste from each book. At the moment, only a few stories are in its queue, albeit some fine names such as Cat Rambo, Nancy Fulda, Jim Hines and Ted Kosmatka.

Look for Amazon to jump into this market soon. For over a year, they have had a program, Amazon Shorts, that allows authors to sell their stories one at a time for electronic download. Amazon has also perfected the one-off printing of old/lightly-demanded books, so customized anthologies of stories from its Amazon Shorts selection would be simply a matter of programming. Look for these stories to be available on Amazon's Kindle e-reader soon, too.