Excellent article in the Huffington Post entitled, "How Will Ebooks Change the Author Experience."
The author of this post, Jason Pinter, makes some excellent points about how e-Publishing (how do you spell that? We need and industry standard!) means certain mileposts and events that are special to an author will disappear: book signings, seeing others read your books or those of your friends (hard to do with a kindle), and so on.
I think he makes a great point about a few of these, especially the feeling you might get seeing your books on shelves, in people's hands, etc.
But I also fear what is happening with publishers in general. There's the obvious statement: I'd much rather have people reading my ebooks than not reading my books at all because I can't get a publisher to pick me up. And frankly, book signings are only partially intriguing to me. Tons of work with a small return.
Then there are the horror stories I've been reading about increasingly dishonest practices in the industry. Those are hard to verify, but they cause greater anxiety to an aspiring author who already knows that more and more of the marketing depends on me, I'm getting a smaller and smaller amount of cash from the publisher anyway, and I may get raked over the coals.
So, what do you think, folks, about what Jason has to say?
4 comments:
I'll head over and read it now.
Nancy
N. R. Williams, The Treasures of Carmelidrium
It's interesting to think about....Will I miss something that, in reality, might not have been that great to begin with? Thinking of book signings with that statement - yes, I'd love to have that fantasy fulfilled where folks are lined up out the door for me to sign my beautiful hardcover book. But if the likely reality is that not so many folks would really be lined up, would I miss the experience? I might, for missing out on the great people who DID bother to show up...interesting post.
Melissa: I'm with you on this one. I'm not sure the anxiety of book signings and their potential poor sales return would be worth if for me.
Thanks for sharing, I will bookmark and be back again
E Publishing
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