Kindle, Kindle, Kindle. That’s all I hear about anymore. It started off with all of my reading friends raving about loving their Kindles. That was last year. It seemed every time I saw a Facebook post it was about how much someone was loving their Kindle.
This year every time I turn around I see people promoting a book they’ve written and are distributing on Kindle. Many of the same reading friends are also writers so they’ve been amongst that set. But so have many of my blogging buddies.
And they all keep touting the same thing: They’re fed up with regular publishers. Why go with them when Kindle (and Nook) make it easy to publish yourself and offer a royalty rate that can’t be beat?
They pose convincing arguments. I have yet to look into publishing via either Kindle or Nook, but my interest is piqued.
I have to wonder, though, if everyone starts publishing on their own this way, who’s going to be submitting to the small, independent epubs that have sprung up in the last 10 years? (And have also shut down. Many of the ones I started out following are no more. But taht didn’t matter. New ones cropped up every year to replace the crops that folded.)
But why would anyone bother with that route now?
Also, what happens to the quality? Even though people hate the submission and acceptance process, and, granted, many good books probably do get passed over, there’s a whole lot of them that never should see publication. Or that might be okay, but need editing.
Again, since I haven’t looked into it all more, perhaps there is an editing process. From what I gathered, it didn’t sound like it though.
So what happens to editors? Even though they can be pains, they’re necessary and helpful pains. They mean well. Plus, they make books stronger.
All I know is the times they are a changing. There could be a big revolt on this decade’s horizon for the publishing industry as a whole. Both for the small time independent pubs as well as the big daddies.
I’ll be curious to see how it all shakes down. If it even does. Ebooks were supposed to revolutionize and transform the industry last decade. Didn’t quite happen. But maybe technology has caught up to make that viable threat now? Kindle sure has a loyal following, if that’s any indication of anything…
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Tags: epublishing, Kindle, Nook