The Writing Life

I picked up the new issue of Book Business magazine from the post office this afternoon. They focused on e-books. They profiled 30 e-book readers currently on the market (or soon to be) throughout the world. There will be something for everyone. Prices range from $199 to $1000.

It will take a while for me to digest this issue!

And then I ran into this from The New Yorker - http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/10/19/091019sh_shouts_weiner

The world is getting curiouser and curiouser. And it's giving me a headache.

JudyB

I have very mixed feelings about ebook readers.  On the one hand it makes books way more portable and cost-effective and as a reader I really like that.  On the other hand, there is a reason I love reading (besides the stories) and that reason is heavily involved with the physical sensation of handling books.  I like the smell and feel of pages and the heft of the book in my hand and the sensation of progress as I turn the pages.  You can’t get any of that from a reader.  Plus it is hard to read on a screen and so far I haven’t seen anything to tell me that it has become easier.  I can’t read long passages on a computer screen, it hurts.  I know LOTS of people with the same problem.

I am not published, but I have heard enough about publishing from my other writing friends to know that self-publishing and internet marketing (a la the new Yorker article) is the way things are headed.  And it definitely looks like if you DO get picked up by a published you will have to do most if not all of your promoting yourself.  Makes you kind of wonder what the point is of getting a publisher in the first place.

I hear you Judy. It seems like all "Funds for Writers" is about anymore is about how important it is to have a blog, a website, a Facebook profile, a Twitter account. The general opinion seems to be that without a huge online presence, all writers are going to fall flat on their faces. Self-promotion is important, at least when you have something, like a published book to promote, but must we tweet about it?

My significant other's mother is really big into the local tourism industry and she recently set up a Facebook account because, "it's really important for marketing." I'm sorry. I was on Facebook as a college student (before they even let high schoolers on the network let alone the whole wide world) and I loved it. It was a great, fun distraction from class. I go on Facebook to catch up with friends and poke around in friends' photo albums and it makes me cringe whenever I run into business's Facebook profiles. I do not go on there to be marketed to.

I have heard from people who love their e-book readers and I can definitely see where they'd be nice to have, especially when traveling. But I'm so not ready to give up on "real" books just yet.

I know part of the headache I'm getting from this transformation in the writer market comes from the human tendency to resist change. But more than that, what it all boils down to for me is an exasperated disbelief that this is suddenly being presented as "the only way."

And it definitely looks like if you DO get picked up by a published you will have to do most if not all of your promoting yourself.  Makes you kind of wonder what the point is of getting a publisher in the first place.

This is a big misconception.  Start reading agent blogs to learn more about the industry.

Self-published author: Not only promotes the book, has to get it into the bookstore (usually locally), get it reviewed, submit it to contests--basically, they do EVERYTHING.  And what aren't they doing?  Writing the next book because they're busy trying to sell it everywhere.

Commercially published author: Promotes the book, probably within a month or so timeframe of its release.  Then they get back to writing.

The publisher puts out a catalog with the current releases and gives it to booksellers and gets the book into the bookstore nationwide.  They send it to reviewers for reviews.  They'll submit it to any contests. 

The biggest promotion here is getting that book out to the bookstores.  People can't buy a book if they don't know it exists.  Most bookstores--particularly the large chains--won't stock self-published books in the stores.

I am not published, but I have heard enough about publishing from my other writing friends to know that self-publishing and internet marketing (a la the new Yorker article) is the way things are headed. 

Very unlikely.  I don't like articles the newspapers publish on self-publishing because all the ones I've seen have misrepresented self-publishing as being the "new wave"--then pitching it to novelists while quoting success stories from niche non-fiction (guys who are giving workshops and selling their books at the workshops).  Self-publishing's market is not to readers, but to the writers, because the writer is the one who will be buying most of the books.

Because the only requirement is to pay money, there's absolutely no quality control to the writing.  While a few may be gems, most of the novels are just plain unreadable.  I used to be on a message board where the POD posted links to their sample chapters.  I couldn't get past the first page with any of them because they were so badly written (it just wasn't interesting reading about a man staring up at a ceiling fan for a page and repeating four times "he liked it like that.").

Commercial publishing's market is readers.  They want many readers to buy the book, so they're always looking for something that might sell.  They turn a lot of stuff away because it's just plain awful.  

Internet marketing?  I think it will be in support of books, but not be as big a thing as everyone is claiming.  If you're looking for a book for research on a specific topic, yeah, it can be a big help in finding it.  But if you're just looking for a good novel to read, that's more likely to be an impulse buy.  The Internet requires you know what you're looking for.  But in a bookstore or library, all you need to do is walk around and you'll get drawn to a book.  Thomas Nelson does have an interesting feature though--when you buy a copy of one of their books, you can also download the eVersion.

I do agree with you-it does seem like non-fiction is headed very strongly in to the internet forum (with e-books and mini e-books and e-courses, etc) where as fiction is likely to still be hardcopy for a long time.  And one of the biggest reasons is that the quality of what you can get on the internet is not that good.  The New Yorker article was about a nonfiction process-which was an obviously over-the-top parody of what the process has become.  I have heard though that the fiction process is starting to rely more and more on the writers marketing themselves.

One of the biggest problems for fiction writers that I have heard recently is the way the big chains (Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc) buy their books.  I'm not totally sure how it works but because of how their computer system orders books it is drumming out the mid-list writers.  Amazon has changed that somewhat-but once again, all you need for amazon is an ISBN and you can sell through them-leads to crap writing again.  But I can see it being like music-$1 downloads onto your ebook reader and you don't feel like you've really lost anything if the product is crap.