14 Aug 2010 09:21:11
Today the functions of publisher become vague. The reason of this is very simple. In our days electronic books become more and more popular. And to publish then in the internet may the author.
With Apple's iPad recently joining Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader as devices for reading downloaded books, power in publishing might just be shifting in the authors' favour.
For as long as anyone has been writing books, authors' careers have rested on the judgments or whims of publishers. Would the novel that took so many months, or even years, to write be read, let alone chosen, by editors? Who could tell? Who knew what publishers were looking for?
Amazon starts new politicks now its sells almost twice as many digital books as hardbacks in the US, it's clear that publishing is changing. And if publishers can sell their books online, why can't writers? Of course they can. All people who has got the internet and computer can become a publisher.
What's more, it's free – although should any readers want to find out how the The Sandman ends before October, and hopefully quite a few will, they can download the entire book for less than the cost of a paperback. After that it will go on to Amazon.
What should you do? Thirst of all it should be going to market, using exactly the same tools that are central to the story – namely those of the computer and social online sites. In other words, a novel about manipulation through the web is being made available for readers in serial form . . . through the web.
Obviously I'm the tiniest drop in the largest ocean, but how long will it be before there are more authors like Ian McEwan, who has already done an exclusive deal with Amazon doubling his royalties for eBook versions of his back catalogue? Not long. Other writers are already inquiring about the possibilities of putting their out-of-print books on their websites.
It has often been said that, with the squeeze in publishing and the closing of so many bookshops, this is a terrible time to be an author. Well, maybe not. Perhaps the Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and other rock acts, who reputedly made their first records privately, even in their bedrooms, are showing the way forward for writers.
It won’t be simple to be noticed in the dense forests of online information at first time; it's not exactly like having a stack of books in a high street shop window. But writers are creative people.
With Apple's iPad recently joining Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader as devices for reading downloaded books, power in publishing might just be shifting in the authors' favour.
For as long as anyone has been writing books, authors' careers have rested on the judgments or whims of publishers. Would the novel that took so many months, or even years, to write be read, let alone chosen, by editors? Who could tell? Who knew what publishers were looking for?
Amazon starts new politicks now its sells almost twice as many digital books as hardbacks in the US, it's clear that publishing is changing. And if publishers can sell their books online, why can't writers? Of course they can. All people who has got the internet and computer can become a publisher.
What's more, it's free – although should any readers want to find out how the The Sandman ends before October, and hopefully quite a few will, they can download the entire book for less than the cost of a paperback. After that it will go on to Amazon.
What should you do? Thirst of all it should be going to market, using exactly the same tools that are central to the story – namely those of the computer and social online sites. In other words, a novel about manipulation through the web is being made available for readers in serial form . . . through the web.
Obviously I'm the tiniest drop in the largest ocean, but how long will it be before there are more authors like Ian McEwan, who has already done an exclusive deal with Amazon doubling his royalties for eBook versions of his back catalogue? Not long. Other writers are already inquiring about the possibilities of putting their out-of-print books on their websites.
It has often been said that, with the squeeze in publishing and the closing of so many bookshops, this is a terrible time to be an author. Well, maybe not. Perhaps the Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and other rock acts, who reputedly made their first records privately, even in their bedrooms, are showing the way forward for writers.
It won’t be simple to be noticed in the dense forests of online information at first time; it's not exactly like having a stack of books in a high street shop window. But writers are creative people.
