[Wōdnes-dæg] Ebooks: Easing Working as a Writer

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
Not New, But Great
Publishing's Next Stage and Mainstream Acknowledgement
Closing

{A simple and intriguing image, from a simply intriguing blog: These Are My Days....}

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Introduction

On the front page of the Globe and Mail Arts section of Wednesday 27 June 2012, is an article about a 14,000 word ebook and what it means for journalism, as well as for writers more generally.

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The Article Summed Up

The article delves into the story behind Paula Todd's ebook about Karla Homolka, Finding Karla. Todd discovered that Homolka has been living in Guadeloupe with three young children, and wanted to get the story out more quickly than the standard months-long magazine publishing schedule permits.

So, she published her story as an ebook with Amazon. It's been in the top 10 list of Kindle Singles since its release on Thursday. Combine that ranking with the price tag of $3, and Todd must be seeing some tidy returns on her three-week, NaNoWriMo-like efforts

Simon Houpt, the article's writer, then goes on to explain and illustrate that this means that writers can take back some of the power - and the profits - that they formerly had to relinquish to publishers. Specifically, he notes that ebooks have helped writers to fight for the electronic rights to their works.

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Not New, But Great

This is great news.

Not because it's anything especially new, but because this information's being printed in a high profile newspaper suggests that indie authors can expect to get a little bit more cred in the publishing industry. This is definitely a good thing, since those who take the ebook route are generally painted with a very broad brush previously dipped in a wide, deep pot of scorn by more than a few in the mainstream publishing industry.

Though there are some who might validly argue that along with the market for ebooks, a market for ebook editors needs to be established.

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Publishing's Next Stage and Mainstream Acknowledgement

One article is not going to change that entirely, but the acknowledgement of indie authors' successes does suggest that traditional media and those representing it are starting to take ebooks seriously.

Does this mean that indie authors might not be able to add that adjective to their title soon? Likely not.

The printing press made it possible to create multiple copies of a book relatively quickly and cheaply. This meant that more people could put their ideas and stories to paper - hence the propagation of pamphlets and broadsheets and books from the 16th century onwards. But using a press is a process that requires time, special training, and specialized equipment.

E-publishing requires nothing so hard to get and efficiently operate as a printing press. It just requires a computer capable of word processing and connecting to the internet. More and more people are able to say that they have this equipment, and so there are more and more e-books being published on a daily basis.

So many are these e-authors, in fact, that the ebook industry might just be impossible to regulate in the same way as the traditional sort of publishing is with its queries and editors and budget considerations.

So, the "indie" label isn't going anywhere. But just as the case has been with indie musicians going mainstream, the growing recognition of ebooks as a serious alternative source for longer pieces of writing means that it may just get easier for indie authors to go mainstream.

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Closing

Check back here on Friday for a hunt for the good in Wrath of the Titans, and tomorrow for another edition of Annotated Links.

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