Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Sometimes I Worry

Sometimes I worry that self-publishing is going to overrun the publishing industry.  There will be so many self-published new books that readers will never be able to find the best ones.

Sometimes I worry that Barnes & Noble will go out of business, leaving Amazon the last man standing.

Sometimes I worry that people no longer care about reading. That video games and movies and the Internet are robbing us of our greatest form of entertainment.

Sometimes I worry that ebooks are pushing the overall value of books down so low that people are more willing to pay for a cup off coffee that took little effort and no imagination to make than for a book.

Sometimes I worry that Amazon is monetizing books to such a degree that self-publishing is becoming less about writing great books than it is about writing as many books as you can so that you can make as much money as possible.

Sometimes I worry that I've achieved my dream of publishing right at the beginning of the industry's collapse.

Sometimes I worry.

And then I pick up a book like Eleanor & Park or The Marbury Lens or Marco Impossible or any of the hundred books I've bought in the last year alone, and I don't worry so much anymore.

There will always be an audience for great books, and great books will always find an audience.  

3 comments:

  1. I'm reading Railsea, by China Mieville right now, and I know exactly what you mean. It's one of those that gives you hope.

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  2. China Mieville is a lot like Neil Gaiman for me...I really appreciate his work, his writing, his imagination, and his flair. And I also understand the immense contribution both writers have made to writing. Sadly, I've just never really connected with either of their books. Of Mieville's I've read Perdido Street Station and Railsea. Neither did it for me. Mieville and Gaiman are both authors I desperately want to love but just can't.

    Except for Neil Gaiman's episode of Doctor Who. That was brilliant on so many levels.

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  3. Really interesting. Railsea is my first Mieville and I love it. Very inventive stuff.

    My first Gaiman was Neverwhere, which I loved, but then I was rather lukewarm about Anansi Boys and American Gods. The Graveyard Book was excellent though.

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