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January 25, 2014 · 10:36 pm

Ebooks Have Not Killed the Printed Book (Yet)

Two years ago, I asked the question, will ebooks replace the printed book? Will we turn into a world of readers who stare at the glowing screen, instead of burrowing our noses in the musty pages of a hardcover? And I predicted that the good old printed book will never go extinct. Not completely. If vinyl records are still being used by music lovers, why wouldn’t printed books stick around for all of us book lovers? And it looks like, so far, the evidence bears me out.

I obviously have a vested interest in whether ebooks are read by anyone – I’ve published several short stories in this format. But, as a reader, I will never lose my fondness for actual pages. And recently Time magazine reported that printed books are not dying, despite all dire predictions. And, as a bonus to me, ebook sales are still increasing alongside. So the conclusion basically is–ebooks are a great, portable complement to printed books. People don’t feel like they have to choose only one or the other. And really, that’s great. There’s no reason this has to be an either-or situation. It just makes a good story to declare this an all-out war.

Of course, this study is just a snapshot of how things are right now. Everything and anything could change in the future. People might start exclusively buying ebooks. Or ebooks might just turn out to be a fad after all. But at the moment, it looks like both the printed book and the ebooks have staying power.

What about you–do you find you read both ebooks and printed books, or only one or the other?

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Filed under Ebooks, Randoms & My Life

Tagged as e-books, e-books vs. print, e-publishing, publish, publishing, writing

June 2, 2011 · 5:11 pm

Luck of the First-Time Novelist

Guess my Statistics course was good for something…

Conventional wisdom in the writing world says that it takes at least three published novels to establish your name in the public eye. Don’t even think about quitting your day-job until then. But then, while leisurely reading the morning newspaper, I come across the name of Shilpi Somaya Gowda, whose first novel sold 300,000 copies in the first twelve months alone. Then I wonder, what’s the secret?

Because, while conventional wisdom may be accurate for the middle of the bell-curve, you’ve always got the extremes to think about. On one hand you’ve got workhorses like Diana Wynne Jones, or Stephanie Grace Whitson, who churn out books and become well-known but not household names. On the other, you’ve got phenomena like J.K Rowling (who lived off benefits until Harry Potter hit it big-time), and potentially Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Or even Margaret Mitchell (who wrote Gone with the Wind) and J.D Salinger (who wrote Catcher in the Rye) – two authors who only published one novel in their life, and yet said novels are incredibly famous.

I haven’t read Gowda’s book (entitled “Secret Daughter,” in case you were wondering), but I’m going to say there’s probably no reason she doesn’t deserve to be successful. The thing is, there are most likely hundreds of hard-working novelists out there right now, producing brilliant books which never see the kind of success Gowda found. What makes the difference? As someone who hopes to be publish a novel someday myself, is there anything I can do to reduce my chances of slaving away in obscurity?

Why, oh why, do some novelists strike it and some don’t? If I can figure out this pattern, I can turn my first novel into a sure thing.