In Praise of the E-Book Revolution

Back in the days before toys like the Kindle, Kobo and iPhones descended upon us, if you wanted a book, you toddled along to the bookshop, browsed the shelves and picked up a volume…

Or not.

It’s argued that the old publishing houses were the guardians and gatekeepers of quality. There’s some merit in that argument. To make it through the doors of the large publishing houses your tale had to be near perfect. Even then, you had a field of hurdles and hoops to negotiate. Having said that, I’ve read some crap which came through those channels, and some of it was bestselling crap.

Speaking as a reader, not a writer, the self-publishing/e-book tsunami of the last few years has enabled me to read books that I might want to read, rather than those a publisher tells me I should be reading.

Admittedly, there’s a huge amount of dross which is self-published. I’m probably responsible for some of it. But there is also a lot of quality fiction on the SP platforms, from writers I would never have heard of had it not been for the likes of Amazon, Apple, Kobo and Smashwords.

Take, for example, Trevor Belshaw. Trevor is an excellent writer who turns out imaginative scripts for both adults and children. Judge for yourself on his latest blog serial, Out of Control, part four of which went up earlier this week.  For all his efforts, Trevor’s foot almost got trapped in the door when the publishing houses slammed it shut.

There are problems with self-publishing. It’s so easy it tends to convince anyone and his wife that they have a potential bestseller in them. I’ve been at it thirty years and even I’m not that arrogant. It also tends to leave the writer as a jack of all trades, and I’m not simply talking about the perennial problem of selling books. I’m thinking more of writer, proofreader, editor, formatter, cover designer… and sales director.

An entire industry has grown out of this revolution. Armies of individuals and small companies dedicated to helping the self-publisher with editing, proofing, beta-reading and so on. Some are shysters, determined only to relieve you of your money and do little in return, but hey, that happens with any innovation. Caveat emptor.

There’s another angle to this business, an advantage which benefits both readers and writers. The rise of the small, independent press. My publisher, Crooked Cat, is such a company. Established in 2011, the first titles went out in 2012 and I’m happy to say that one of my Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries was amongst those first releases.

Notwithstanding the doomsayers, many small presses, like Crooked Cat, are still around, still providing a quality threshold for the reader at attractive prices, and providing a platform for writers, relieving them of many of the tasks the self-publisher has to shoulder.

Some of those companies are here and gone in the blink of an eye. My first publisher was one such. Mentioning no names, he was around in the early days of the web, and signed up two of my social comedies. The week after I signed the second contract, he went bust.

I take the optimistic view. If it had not been for the advent of the e-book, he would never have been there in the first place, and I would still be knocking on the doors of the big houses, keeping my foot well out of the way.