Publishing's
Industrial Revolution
Liberates Writers
To some published authors the notion of marketing themselves over and above the support (or not) that they receive from their publishers comes hard. It doesn't seem natural. In the words of John Braine (Room At The Top) 'a writer is a person who writes'.
But the natural order of things, whereby writers locked themselves away in some rural or coastal idyll and allowed the words to flow from writer central (that special place in the brain that generates the creative juices and is in touch with the greater you), is undergoing some remarkable and far-reaching changes.
But the natural order of things, whereby writers locked themselves away in some rural or coastal idyll and allowed the words to flow from writer central (that special place in the brain that generates the creative juices and is in touch with the greater you), is undergoing some remarkable and far-reaching changes.
Will publishers continue to hold the whip hand? Don't get me wrong. There are some wonderful, committed, intelligent and sympathetic publishers and editors who are in love with books and with writers. But there are those that are less so. And publishing is going through a form of industrial revolution that may see it change forever. And author power may be about to manifest itself – the first million selling ebook authors have already arrived.
Savvy authors, whether published or indie (another new tag applied to writers borrowed from the music industry) now have to be marketers, bloggers, designers, PR consultants, and social networking gurus as well as novelists and authors, I somehow find it hard to imagine a Hemingway or a Lawrence or even a Spillane settling down to an hour or so with Twitter or MySpace or Facebook. Mind you, I could be wrong.
David, Everybody self-promotes to one extent or another. Personally, I think if POD had been here in the 60s, say, then, right now, in my opinion, there would be nothing but e-books and writers would be studying marketing as a second degree program...LOL
ReplyDeleteThey'd hire assistants to tweet for them I guess.
ReplyDeleteSheila...you're kidding, I think, but this Non-betting lady would bet that there are already many having their tweets, comments, etc., done by somebody else. I'm ready for the job, are you? LOL!
ReplyDelete