Viva La Revolution!

[Lily]

More Established Authors are Self-Publishing eBooks

"Bob Dylan said it best: “the times they are a-changin’.” Publishing is in the midst of a revolutionary paradigm shift. According to a recent article in Publishers Weekly, e-book sales increased 159.8% in the first quarter of 2011, selling $233.1 million worth of product. Even just a few years ago, if I were to speculate that digital books would be outselling print books in 2011, most people in the business would have called me crazy. Heck, I would have called me crazy!

But that’s just the tip of this iceberg – more and more established authors are self-publishing their own work digitally. In a recent – and by now famous – interview, thriller novelist Barry Eisler (The Lost Coast, Inside Out) revealed that he turned down a $500,000, two-book deal from St. Martin’s imprint of Minotaur to self-publish e-books. Here’s an excerpt of the interview:"


blueinkreview.com/blog/2011/08/viva-la-revolution-more-established-authors-are-self-publishing-ebooks/

[johnee]

paradigm-shifting news, lol, if i may sound a bit pompusssss....

years ago i was telling people that "books" were a relatively new development (especially the idea of sticking fictional stuff between book jackets) and we shouldn't necessarily expect them to be important forever. don't get me wrong, i like to read, haha. But ...

this thread strengthens what i thought for myself. as an adjunct, i also think that the idea of the "novel" will become outdated, prolly sooner than we expect. what is happening in certain sectors of the art form i *still* like to call, simply, MOVIES shows me that we are learning new ways to communicate, and entertain -- and to take it all as seriously as we think we value "literature."

but, ummm, i'll still write poems, and try to write short fiction. and

to get myself a kindle, maybe, lol.

john

[ttttr]

I don't think the internet is really going to do to printing what it did to the music industry. A song is so much more comfortably consumed by clicking on a link than an entire novel...

And for example, there are already tons of tons of dull, inane blogs to sift through (and a few gems amidst). I do think many people who like to read realize that going to a bookshop where an agent and a publisher have already sifted through the useless stuff for you can enhance your reading pleasure in no time...