Or, to put it another way, e-books won't get you into the exclusive club that is the publishing industry. Well, as you pointed out:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Crazy? Sure. But no one ever said publishing was sane.
|
Maybe we'd all like to do something sane. And maybe the insane won't be running the asylum forever.
The world is changing, and despite the publishing industry's efforts to the contrary, the book world will change too. E-books are a viable alternative to traditional publishing. They have their own challenges, to be sure, but they are worth the effort, because they allow the author to establish whether he has any worth in the market, as opposed to a publisher that unilaterally refuses to even read his work because he is not already famous or published.
E-books also allow the author to take total control of their books' production, right down to cover art, promotion, and pricing. The author retains exclusive rights to his work. The author (assuming he does all of his own editing and proofing) gets every dime of the book's cost. The author can evaluate his market directly, and take steps to adjust either his content or his marketing efforts to target those markets.
Check out the romance genre, and you'll see that e-books are ably taking advantage of that market, worldwide, using the above advantages, and are doing nicely, thank you. As generations grow up who are not afraid of reading on smartphones and computers, e-books will become more widespread, and people will keep collections of books on their computer the same way they now store their music.
E-books may not be a part of the publishing industry, but the publishing industry isn't everything. It only takes time.