As another Publishing
House crumbles with the filing for bankruptcy by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Co. of Boston, when the publisher filed for bankruptcy in court in
Manhattan taking more than twenty affiliates down with them as they go. Slowly but surely the gates of the old Empire
are falling.
In the wake of this terrible news in the world of
traditional publishing the Indie Authors are rising. In the numbers of authors getting their books
published, to the number of books the authors are publishing, to the dollars
they are squeezing out of the coffers which were once held so tightly by the
established traditional publishing companies.
The report I read about the newest collapse in Traditional
Publishing blames the global financial crisis over the past several years. It couldn’t be that the sales of paperbacks
and hard cover books are falling so dramatically from the increase in e-books
sales since its emergence around 2008.
It couldn’t be because the old system of business that existed and
worked for well over a hundred years is broken down and doesn’t work any longer. It couldn’t be because publishing companies
don’t know how to compete in the new digital age which moves as fast as
lightening.
The authors are still writing but they aren’t barred from
the play ground any longer! People are
reading more today than ever before.
This day in age is a reader’s heaven as new authors dying to be
discovered are giving their books away just so somebody will try them. The new slush pile is scattered across the
web and the Agents which determine which books will make it and which will not
is the reading public. There is a
plethora of stuff to read only a click away!
The difference is you will not see the true winners or
losers for some time until the dust settles as Indie Authors slowly build their
digital bookshelves with the books they have written. The sales slowly climb as they are discovered
and the word is spread from reader to reader about the best of the books that
are out there to be explored. The
Independent Authors are increasing in sales and exposure and plodding along.
I love traditional books and hope they are a continued part
of my future and that of my children’s but if the Traditional Publishers don’t
step into the arena with the Hulk that is known as Amazon they will only be in
more trouble. As much as I love books,
and have since become an author of my own books, I had to self publish in order
to BE Published! I know there are tons
of people who haven’t hoped on the band wagon of self-publishing, whether
through self-doubt or high hopes of the mystical query letter sparking a fire
to some agents pants so that they in turn can sell it to a publisher. The old system is broken! It doesn’t work any longer. When everybody who has a book to sell figures
this out, it’s over!
I may have to dig up the post I did last year where I
explained a viable option for publishers to jump into the deep end and get into
publishing in really big digital way.
Even if I did it would only be read by those who visit my blog and fall
on the deaf ears and blind eyes of those who still work for big publishing
companies. Because what do I know? I am just a budding Indie Author with two
little books, and almost ready to release my third. I know my sales are through the roof compared
to a 2002 study of traditional books published that year and the numbers of
books actually sold in comparison to those published.
It reminds me of that story of a child who faced a Giant
with three little stones and a sling shot.
What was that story again? It was
part of a really big Book I read once.
It was a number one best seller also.
Oh yeah, The Bible!
If you work for a large publishing house and are just a wee
bit curious as to my ideas to save Big Publishing, e-mail me at StorytellerTDW@yahoo.com. Put Curious in the subject box.
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