E-books - the writing on the wall

E-books - the writing on the wall

Video didn't seem to kill the radio star, nor did it seem fatal to reading or the movies, as some feared. DVDs may have put an end to video cassettes but increased revenue for the film industry and the boxed sets gave uplift to many old and not-so-old television series.

So what do we expect from e-books. Music is the analogy often suggested as an indicator. CD sales did drop, music publishing companies suffered, perhaps because they could not forsee the impact of the changes in the delivery of music to consumers afforded by handheld devices and the always on world wide web. Musicians took to the road and concerts have increased as has the revenue from live performances. Top of the Pops might come back sooner than feared.

Publishers have no excuse. There are models like the music industry that they can extrapolate from. Movie downloads are part of the future of the film industry. 

For every example of an author self-publishing an e-book at 99 pence or cents and selling 100,000 there are 100,000 examples of authors selling one or two copies.

Transmedia is seen as part of the solution. What that really means is utilising all available and appropriate platforms to draw attention to your book (or game or poetry or bot sale).

SEO and a well-designed website are also important, but if what you are offering is badly written and uninteresting it will not gain the WOM (word of mouth) momentum it needs.

To do this you need followers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter at the very least. Getting those requires work and nurturing. I estimate that web-savvy self-published writers should be spending at least 20% of their working time promoting themselves online.

If commercially published there will be festivals and readings organised by their publishers. Every genre has a society, whether the CWA for crime or the RNA for romance. Membership and a pro-active engagement with peers is desirable.

Those who fail to learn from history fail. So embracing the web and it's constituent parts is one way of making sure that more people hear about your book and not your competitors'. The web offers book writers an opportunity to become the video stars of the future.