Just Showing Up


The holiday season is upon us and in between shopping for a tree and picking out presents, I am readying a manuscript for publishing on Amazon Kindle. As Mike Jastrzebzski has written on this blog, the Amazon platform gives authors access to readers who use Kindle, iPads, iPhones, Droids, and other electronic readers. Like Mike, I am ready to jump into the game.


Woody Allen famously said that 80 percent of success is showing up. For writers, the math is even more dramatic – 100 percent of being an author is being published. With that said, Kindle's platform is…. well, self-publishing. Yes, self-publishing. You know, the electronic version of running your manuscript through a photocopier and calling it a book. The editorial threshold being set by the world's most uninformed decision-maker, the author himself/herself.


Yet, Mike's own example reveals the opportunity. With more than a thousand copies sold since August, Mike's book, The Storm Killer, continues to attract new readers at an ongoing clip. When I checked last night, Mike was one notch above Randy Wayne White (one of my favorite mystery writers) on the Hard Boiled Thriller list for Kindle sales. As Mike will tell you, he's equally as tickled by the high number of five-star reviews that have showed up on Amazon registered by readers who picked up the book via word-of-mouth – mostly electronic word of mouth.


I have no idea how my own story will be received. Hopefully, I've unfolded a tale in which my protagonist, Steve Decatur, takes readers on the water in the tradition of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee or Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt. But my ability to pull this off won't be decided by me, by an agent, or an editor. It will be determined by the market.


While I have no idea how things will turn out with my Kindle sales, I am confident about the following assertions:


1) e-readers will continue to win-over readers who have long-loved hard covers and paperbacks;


2) the use of Smart phones as e-readers will rise dramatically as the advantages of ubiquity and mobility overcome the limitations of the small screen;


3) the very form of books will change as readers such as iPads allow the insertion of audio/video applications as part of the story telling;


4) content will remain king (content that is strong and valued, that is);


5) the open platform of e-readers will give new authors access to audiences, but the editorial role will be no less important in marketplace that will be flooded with content.


None of this suggests the end of the written book. FM never eliminated AM, as many said it would. MTV didn't kill the radio. The broadcast networks charge-ahead regardless of cable TV, and broadband cable won't be undone by the internet. Given this past, we shouldn't expect the end of the publishing industry, just the publishing industry as we know it.


So then, if you want to check out A Single Deadly Truth when it comes out later this month you will be part of a new wave in publishing, and maybe, just maybe, you'll enjoy an escapist ride as Steve Decatur finds adventure on the waters of Buzzards Bay, Rhode Island Sound, and Cape Cod.


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Published on December 07, 2010 22:01
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