IT’S AN AMAZING time to be working with words; there is SO MUCH going on, SO MUCH happening, SO MANY changes in the marketplace. There is a downside. Independent book shops are still closing. Budgets are being cut wherever you look. Book launches are no longer the grand affairs they once were. Interestingly, whilst e-books continue to storm ahead and print books are heavily in decline, people are reading more because of the availability and cheaper option of e-formats.
The consumer is benefitting all round.
And when we look at what the publishing industry and the media are trying to do to encourage children to read and to write more, it’s nothing but good news. Nationally, TV programme, Daybreak, has just launched its GET BRITAIN READING Campaign, entry to BBC Radio 2’s 500 words competition for children has just closed last week and, more locally, the Rotary Club of Four Marks and Medstead has just announced the winners of its poetry and prose competition for primary age kids for which there was an astonishing 107 entries. It’s great news indeed!
What’s equally interesting is the fact that a quarter of all fiction e-books are now written by self-published authors. Is this because technology has made it easier to self-publish? Is it because there are so many people who, whether they have a family story to tell, whether they have unearthed something terribly exciting, or whether so many people enjoy escaping (for that’s what it is, is it not?) into a world of their own? A happy world? A world where their imaginations can run free?
it may be easy to self-publish. At madaboutnailbooks we are also going down that route – carefully and with much thought. There can be pitfalls with formatting; one still needs to use a specialist. And what about the price? How does one set it? And once it’s up and running, how do self-published authors intend to market their work in what is quickly becoming a saturated market? How do they intend to make their work stand out from all the rest? And what is it about a purchaser of e-book material that makes him/her buy an e-book? Price alone can’t be a factor, so what else, apart from the obvious, genre, could it be?
It’s a challenge for sure, an exciting one indeed. For those of us who have truly found our vocation in the word, in whatever format, we’ve got to make sure we manage to write the kind of books that people want, in a format they can afford.
Now that IS a great subject, a format people can afford …. for another time.
From someone who still loves to hold a printed book in her hands, I wish you all happy reading and writing!
Sarah