It's been coming a long time and publishers of every sort are grappling with it now. The digital age is upon us--it's overtaken us, engulfed us, swamped us. In short, it's a force to be reckoned with, and one that publishers clearly hadn't reckoned sufficiently on. And magazines as well as newspapers must deal with it, by putting their content online. As this article notes, magazines are way behind newspapers in this regard--but they're finding themselves having to catch up fast. Which means writers have to be prepared to provide content appropriate for online consumption.
But it's not only freelance journalists that must make this adjustment--the e-book, it seems, may finally (perhaps?) be coming into its own. Or so they say. I'm still taking a wait-and-see attitude, even though I know that e-book sales have risen over the past year, while print book sales have dropped. I still wonder what kind of e-books are selling? Do they tend to be non-fiction titles or has e-book fiction also become more popular? (The article does mention an "eReader from Fictionwise," which could suggest that the uptick in e-book purchasing includes fiction.)
In any event, it would be wise for us to pay attention to the "Top 10 Digital Media Trends" blogger Michelle Rafter has identified (via) and consider her advice on how to respond to same.
Meanwhile, fiction publishers aren't just feeling the heat from the digital arena, but must contend with the surge in self-publishing. Apparently (conventional wisdom from some quarters, notwithstanding), not all self-published authors are complete losers, because quite a few of them are being scooped up by traditional publishers after the fact. While this article focuses on children's books, it's also been true for adult fiction authors like Brunonia Barry,whose book THE LACE READER was initially self-published and got picked up by a publisher for $2 million, as well as non-fiction titles like CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL, which started life as a self-published work, got picked up by a publisher and . . . well, the rest is history.
And, on the subject of how self-publishing shouldn't be considered the heinous option some people would have you believe (although, take note--success in self-publishing requires exercising good judgment in deciding which self-publishing outfit to use, having a capable, objective editor give your manuscript a good going-over before you commit it to print, making a lot of strategic marketing decisions and plain old hard work when it comes to the marketing itself), one has to follow up the point that self-published books tend to be of a poor quality with the retort: If traditional publishers provide such great quality assurance, then why do so many of their books suck?
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