The four winners of the awards -- for best fiction and nonfiction original e-books, and best fiction and nonfiction e-book conversions -- will each receive $10,000, and the best overall original e-book (fiction or nonfiction) will receive a grand prize of $100,000. Perhaps more important to an industry that has been laboring in obscurity, the winners will also gain the attention of publishing's major players during its most prestigious international conference, a gathering where the rights to books, often by authors of world renown, are sold.

But on Oct. 2, when the Microsoft-sponsored International eBook Award Foundation (IeBAF) announced its 12 finalists, those hopes were dashed. Almost all of the books on the shortlist were by acclaimed print authors from big publishing houses: bestselling writers such as Colleen McCullough and Stephen Ambrose and lauded newcomers such as Myla Goldberg. The nominee list set off a wave of fury and corporate conspiracy rumors among the e-literati. They see the awards both as another example of big-time New York publishing arrogantly claiming to have the last word on what constitute good books and as a scheme by Microsoft to make sure that whatever e-book revolution may lie in the future will be owned by the world's largest software company. For e-publishing doyenne M.J. Rose, the announcement set off a 24-hour phone marathon that resulted in her establishing the first Independent e-Book Awards to reward the vanguard of the digital word.

The controversy over the IeBAF awards and the birth of its grass-roots alternative (which Rose hopes will become the "Sundance of e-books") highlight some pressing issues for e-publishing -- issues that have so far gotten lost in either idealism about the freedom it may give authors and independent publishers or eagerness on the part of the established book industry to stake its claim in a new medium. Will e-books offer a way for writers who've been snubbed by the big houses to find success marketing their books directly to readers? Or will e-publishing simply present the same books and authors currently found in bookstores, only in a different, less tangible form? Will mainstream publishers' newfound interest in the e-publishing scene bring a higher standard of literary quality and professionalism to a community that until now was amateur in the best and worst senses of the word? Is a small bastion of independence being stamped out, or are e-book readers finally going to get content they find truly enticing?

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"