Past and Present

Because we don't know what the future holds.  Deal with today in a clear-eyed way.  Tradpub will linger on, stumble forth, limping along but it's over.  Like dial telephones.  Technology has superceded them.   I actually don't know why people are so upset about this.  I'm the one who hates change.  If anyone should have been reluctant to switch to digital, I should have been the last to bail.  Instead I was in that early adopter wave.  I knew tradpub was a bad deal for writers in every way unless you happened to be one of the anointed few.

It's easier to sell a book well on Amazon than to become one of the anointed in paper.  You want to waste your valuable life trying to please people who will be there for 6 weeks or 6 months then stick a shiv in your back on their way out the door, go ahead.

Am I sorry a lot of people are going to be losing their jobs?  Not really.  I'm sorrier about truckers losing their livelihood because of high gas prices or the fishing industry shut down due to regulations or the Central Valley of California drying up because some pols want to save a snail darter or whatever.  These are people who just want to work and do the best that they can to survive.  Editors and agents in their arrogance and disdain, not so much.

I don't like the blamecasting in publishing--everyone is at fault but them.  Do we really even need to talk about it anymore?  I don't.

So lets look for ways to find our audience.  Seth Godin talks about community.  Our niche market.  How are we going to let them know we're here and we're for them and they're for us.  We need to rally around each other.  Work for each other and support each other.  Writers need readers and readers need writers.  (You don't see any of that deadwood in there aka editors, publishers and agents because they are tits on a bull.)  Find a way to reach them and create a relationship when you do.

Maybe we need to set up review sites that are targeted to specific genres.  Maybe we need to find ways to advertise.  That's easy in the romance genre but not so easy in others.  Maybe we need to make the acquaintance of writers who are writing the same kind of things we are and joining forces.

One thing is clear, it takes time and effort.  You must invest time in building a career in the new paradigm.  This isn't for sissies.  You have control.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that you have to do the same thing in tradpub except you will make less money and be treated discourteously.  Your choice.