The plunge in book prices, lowering of barriers to entry aided by new technologies and plentiful credit, proliferation of publishers, and cutthroat competition among booksellers was such that price regulation (cartel) had to be introduced. Net publisher prices, trade discounts, and list prices are all anti-competitive practices of 19th century Europe. Still, this lamentable period also gave rise to trade associations, publishers organizations, literary agents, author contracts, royalties agreements, mass marketing, and standardized copyrights.

The Internet is often perceived to be nothing more than a glorified - though digitized - mail order catalogue. But e-books are different. Legislators and courts have yet to establish if e-books are books at all. Existing contracts between authors and publishers may not cover electronic rendition of texts. E-books also offer serious price competition to more traditional forms of publishing and are, thus, likely to provoke a realignment of entire industry.

Rights may have to be re-assigned, revenues re-distributed, contractual relationships reconsidered. Hitherto, e-books amounted to little more that re-formatted renditions of print editions. But authors are increasingly publishing their books primarily or exclusively as e-books thus undermining both hardcovers and paperbacks.

Luddite printers and publishers resisted - often violently - every phase in evolution of trade: stereotyping, iron press, application of steam power, mechanical typecasting and typesetting, new methods of reproducing illustrations, cloth bindings, machine-made paper, ready-bound books, paperbacks, book clubs, and book tokens.

Without exception, they eventually relented and embraced new technologies to considerable commercial advantage. Similarly, publishers were initially hesitant and reluctant to adopt Internet, POD, and e-publishing. It is not surprising that they came around.

Printed books in 17th and 18th centuries were derided by their contemporaries as inferior to their laboriously hand-made antecedents and to incunabula. These complaints are reminiscent of current criticisms of new media (Internet, e-books): shoddy workmanship, shabby appearance, and rampant piracy.

The first decades following invention of printing press, were, as Encyclopedia Britannica puts it "a restless, highly competitive free for all ... (with) enormous vitality and variety (often leading to) careless work". There were egregious acts of piracy - for instance, illicit copying of Aldine Latin "pocket books", or all-pervasive book-bootlegging in England in 17th century, a direct outcome of over-regulation and coercive copyright monopolies.

Shakespeare's work was repeatedly replicated by infringers of emerging intellectual property rights. Later, American colonies became world's centre of industrialized and systematic book piracy. Confronted with abundant and cheap pirated foreign books, local authors resorted to freelancing in magazines and lecture tours in a vain effort to make ends meet.

Pirates and unlicensed - and, therefore, subversive - publishers were prosecuted under a variety of monopoly and libel laws and, later, under national security and obscenity laws. Both royal and "democratic" governments acted ruthlessly to preserve their control of publishing.

Three years ago I was giving my first E-book keynote speech before Arizona Book Publishing Association, when one of esteemed publisher members asked me a very pointed question.

"What happens if someone steals your file and sells it or gives it away all over Internet?"

Until I was asked that question I thought I was Sutter striking gold in California.

"How do you keep people from stealing your work?"

Beads of perspiration formed on my face and hands. I had cottonmouth. This is a bad dream. Why didn't I think of this before?

My mind immediately regressed to conversations with other professional speakers relating horrifying incidents where they discovered their "signature story" was being retold.

I thought about many times I heard professional speakers telling Dr. Charles Jarvis's special Little Bird story without giving credit to Dr. Jarvis

I wondered how much easier it would be to take Little Bird story as a file formatted in a common program like Microsoft Word for windows and then spread it to many thousands or even millions of people through e-mail.

Do you think that can happen? I think so.

Over last 3 years many companies have become involved in creating encryption techniques that protect your e-book files from theft.

However, none of encryption techniques are fail-safe. In fact many times when you download an encrypted book, files are so huge and difficult to open that you end up canceling your order.

I was recently giving a teleseminar and an attendee asked a most common question.

The question was, "how to I keep someone from stealing my -e-book?

I decided to answer attendee's question with a question.

Why do you care if they steal your e-book?

She replied" Because I will lose money."

That is when light bulb went off in my brain. Companies that are spending all that money and putting in all that effort to encrypt e-books are throwing their money away. They are protecting people from opening e-books which really isn't' major concern.

The problem is protecting authors from potential loss of fame and fortune.

Telling Dr. Jarvis's Little Bird Story without his citation isn't' problem. The problem is in potential loss of Dr. Jarvis's fame and fortune due to telling his story.

The loss of your e-book files represents a potential loss of your fame and fortune.

You lose no inventory if someone steals a digital file. Once you complete an e-book and post it on-line you automatically have 6 Billion copies in print. You have enough inventory for every man, woman and child on earth.

If one person reads your e-book and does not pay for it you may have one fan. If 100,000 people read it for free you may have a 100,000 fans.

A question I have is can you earn more money and have more fame with one fan or with 100,000 fans?

Over last few weeks I have successfully completed best e-book encryption system ever devised and it is yours absolutely free.

This Encryption system will allow virtually anyone to open and read your e-books, and yet this system will protect your fame and fortune.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---The Perkins E-book Fame and Fortune Encryption System---Version 4.1 PEFAFES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Components of Perkins E-book fame and fortune encryption system: PEFAFES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. You need an e-book. An e-book can be 5 page or 500 pages long. You are expert in your field. You get to call shots on e-book size. You will advertise how to purchase additional copies of your e-book as well as how to purchase Infoproduct mentioned later.

2. You need a tasty article. This article will be related to your e-book. The purpose of article is to entice reader to purchase your e-book. (Component #1)

The web address where article readers may find and purchase your e-book will be included.

3. You need an Infoproduct. An Infoproduct is an expansion of article or extra information you forgot to include in your e-book. If your Infoproduct is exactly same content as your article you may want to add special examples or additional Internet resources where web visitors may receive more information. Include many of free resources on your own website. You will advertise your e-book price and your infoproduct price in infoproduct text.

Here is your free copy of revolutionary PEFAFES system.

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Example of Encryption System

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For this example assume you are a public speaker who talks on topic of "How to Win At Gambling"

You have a website titled " Vegas-Gambling.com"

The title of your e-book is: 101 Winning Poker Strategies" Price $9.95

Create an article that you will post to major websites on Internet. You will offer your article free to webmasters in return for a link to description page of your book located on your website or a website that fulfills your e-book orders.

Title this article "3 Ways to Win at Poker."

Let's say your e-book title is: "101 Winning Poker Strategies" Price 9.95