Changing Times Impact on Authors

   I’ve recovered from changing my TV, phone, and internet provider and now that part of my life is running smoothly again, but that recent experience  reminded me of how difficult it it is to change anything.  I spent most of my professional  life in the business of effecting change in the companies I was working for, so I understand the process of creating change.  And I understand that the intellectual knowledge of the effects of change still doesn’t help one with the actual coping with change.

   Right now the whole publishing world is caught up in a changing environment.  Many people don’t recognize that.  Many are in denial, but some astute people are out there busily taking advantage of the changes.

   I didn’t want to become involved in the ebook world.  I thought it was too technical for me.  My publisher refused to get involved.  So I was just coasting along doing my best to promote my books, one sale at a time.  However, I noticed more and more potential buyers were asking if my books were on Kindle so gradually I began to think I needed to check out that market.

   One of my daughters kept pestering me about it.  She’s the one who is always trying to keep me in the 21st century.  I, in turn, started pestering my publisher, who said if I wanted to go electronic she would release my e-rights and I could do it.  So last September I grudgingly committed to doing the dastardly deed. 

   It was painful!   I worked and fussed and complained, but I finally got my first two books, TEA IS FOR TERROR, and WASHINGTON WEIRDOS on Kindle.  Following my daughter’s instructions, I priced the first in the series very low to entice readers to try it.  I only sold a few the first few months which I pointed out to my daugther only proved I was right and it was all a waste of time.  But I continued to struggle to get the other books up.

   While I was working with GAYLE’S LEGACY my 488 page cookbook I realized I needed help.   It was too much for me.  I had to hire a professional to format it for Kindle.  I was flabbergasted at how great it looked and then I realized I needed to have my mysteries all formatted too.  After all, if people were willing to spend their money on my books, even on a electronic devise, they deserved to have them looking good.  In the meanwhile, a popular blog spot picked up TEA IS FOR TERROR, and promoted it as a $2 buck mystery and the sales took off.

   For me, a minor author, with a very small publisher, this was like a miracle.  I’m now have eight books on Kindle and I am selling more than 500 books a month on Kindle.  AND EVERY MONTH I’M SELLING MORE.

   And here’s where the change in industry is coming in.  I recently published, myself, a book of my short stories, GAYLE’S TALES.  I used a person to copy edit it, and a formatter to prepare it for Kindle.  I did my own layout and cover art.  It looks great.  We’ll see if the public buys it.  Because that is the measure of success, not getting a NY publisher to take it, not getting good reviews in NY papers, not getting nominated for awards.  If the public downloads a sample, and likes it, and buys the book and reads it, I am in heaven.

   So now I’m considering taking  the first book in my new series that my current publisher won’t published because of it’s paranormal aspect, directly to Kindle.  If  it does well, I’ll arrange to have paper copies available.  I don’t think I need a publisher.  I don’t want an editor telling me to cut out scenes, or to add others.  I want to write my stories as I want to tell them.  It is not a communal effort.

  I”m only one author who has been at the mercy of publishers’ insistence that they will dictate what the public will read.  In the coming years, I believe the readers will have a stronger role in deciding which books will be sucessful.  And I for one, look forward to that challenge.