The Dedicated Reader is Alive and Well

It should now be obvious to anyone who reads books on a regular basis that digitized versions of books will dominate the marketplace for dedicated readers far sooner than anyone had predicted.

Having made the entry into digital publishing of my own works of fiction ten years ago, I have never lost faith in the idea that content was king no matter how it was delivered. Admittedly, the early days were a rocky road indeed. Many visionaries who believed in this technology in those early days have fallen by the wayside.

Thankfully, for those authors of fiction like myself, our day has finally arrived. Digital publishing on e-reading devices and print-on-demand technology will finally give the author his or her freedom from the traditional publishing industry's monopoly on content and distribution.

The introduction of the iPad and other tablets with their vast array of offerings of TV shows, movies and games, as well as books, will, in my opinion, not be the first choice of the dedicated reader, although the Apps offered make dedicated reading fare from Amazon, the Sony reader, Nook and Kobo available on such devices. Still, I believe that the truly committed reader will opt for the dedicated reading device itself while using the tablets for other entertainment forms.

There are, nevertheless, challenges ahead for both the author and the reader, especially in the realm of fiction. The well regulated and tight-fisted control of the traditional publisher as the gatekeeper of books and talent served the public well for centuries. They kept their inventories in check through out-of-print methodology which cleared unsold books from their warehouses and limited their sales efforts strictly to those books that were instantly promotable and could be marketed swiftly and be off the shelves of bookstores to make way for other books coming off their presses.

Books that didn't move quickly were withdrawn and eventually declared out-of-print based strictly on their sales potential, handicapped by a deliberately held back lack of advertising and promotion. Authors who were caught in the cut, saw their careers aborted and their hopes and dreams demolished while their work moldered on book shelves awaiting withdrawal from libraries or left to rot on home bookshelves and eventually discarded.

Many frustrated authors took to publishing their books via what was dubbed vanity publishing, once a by-word for schlock based on ego mania. The process was generally considered, perhaps unfairly, as a kind of last resort for the frustrated and self-delusional. This by no means discounts what might have been fine material published by talented authors through this process.

That day is over. Self-publishing has become respectable and allows an author to take control of his or her own destiny, especially those authors who have once published through the traditional system.  A self-published author can easily join his traditionally published fellow authors on every digital venue. The stigma of an author going that route is quickly disappearing.

Granted that many self-published books are, arguably, hardly worth one's reading time, there are, nevertheless, many of considerable worth, written by talented authors who have, for one reason or another, been shut out of the shrinking traditional publishing offerings.

The dedicated reader will have to choose carefully. Indeed, the e-readers like Kindle, Nook, iPad and Kobo and others still to come allow potential readers to browse, read excerpts or chapters before making their purchasing decisions. Beware of reviews which represent clashing opinions by readers who can preserve their anonymity and often are suspect as plants. Dedicated readers hungry for new material should carefully assess the various works presented and make up their own minds.

In general, book reviews and special sections in the print press featuring celebrated critics are shrinking rapidly, unable to be supported by advertising. Reviewing sites are springing up on the Internet but the fractured nature of cyberspace inhibits mass influence. Author and title identification will have an increasingly tough time rising above the competitive chatter.

With fewer and fewer books going out of print and self-publishing authors accelerating to the point that they have actually surpassed in volume books by traditional publishers, both the dedicated reader  and author will be challenged to wade through the huge offerings in an effort to find  the perfect fit between reader and author.

This new paradigm could lead to a reader's finding a favorite author and buying into a body of work instead of merely reading a single offering. The way in which the cyber bookstores present an author's work and the lower price points could change the single book purchase and entice the reader to buy multi volumes of an author's output.

Such an outcome is pure speculation at this point. The crystal ball gets pretty clouded when it comes to technology, although it is a no-brainer that in an astonishing short time most books will available to the dedicated reader in cyberspace and the big brick and mortar bookstores will eventually implode.

Authors, like myself, who take control of their own marketing in cyberspace will be challenged to find ways to attract a reader's attention in a world in which millions of books will be easily available.

Other like-minded authors will certainly be devising strategies to solve this dilemma. The harvesting of dedicated fiction readers that are on the same wavelength as the author, who are attracted to his or her stories and who gain pleasure and insight from his or her works will require an understanding of the marketing challenges posed by the ever-changing technological environment and the creation of a message that resonates with those who could be enticed to enter the parallel world of the imagination created by the writer.

That and an abundant serving of luck might keep the fiction writer's authorial name alive in a spinning merry-go-round of fame and fortune where most participants are more likely to fall off than stay on.