Ruby Soames's Blog - Posts Tagged "publishing"
Just a Kindle in the wind...
This year I’ve been visiting a lot of bookshops to organise readings/signings for my novel and I’ve found each as fearful and defeated as the next in their efforts to ward off extinction. They are fast becoming as quaint as loose-leaf tea leaves in china pots, but it wasn't until I was standing in Union Square, San Francisco, looking up at the big, empty, boarded-up building that used to be Borders, that I realised we were way past the turning point of how publishing was, to what reading is now.
The demise of books is no reflection on whether people are reading or not. Everywhere I look, heads are down in iPads, Nooks, Kindles – (some gadgets I don't even know the names of and won’t bother learning as it’s all changing so fast). E-readers converted those who already read books and sucked in others who took up reading as an excuse to get the latest toy. Reading, as I knew it, is definitely out, but reading, as it will be, is definitely the new thing.
Never someone to be left behind, I was even on a waiting list for one of the first Kindles in Europe. And this trip was my first without lugging around a case full of books; I could download whatever took my fancy in under 3 seconds, devour it late into the night without having my husband scowling at me, and! nor did I need to take my reading glasses - the print just gets bigger and bigger as I get older and older!
Did I enjoy the books as much as ever? I skim read more, my boredom threshold has sunk to a pretty intolerant low and I missed passing books on. No paperbacks greased with coconut oil, no phone numbers of new friends scribbled on the back, no receipts from restaurants marking pages, all the signs of great beach reads. I always used to take along one ‘Classic’ novel every summer but that’s been replaced with a Mystery/Thriller, the type I would have passed up before. Bookstores are gone, taking with them, patience, time and a certain amount of emotional commitment to the novel. How we read has definitely and irrevocably changed, but I wonder how much of what we read?
The demise of books is no reflection on whether people are reading or not. Everywhere I look, heads are down in iPads, Nooks, Kindles – (some gadgets I don't even know the names of and won’t bother learning as it’s all changing so fast). E-readers converted those who already read books and sucked in others who took up reading as an excuse to get the latest toy. Reading, as I knew it, is definitely out, but reading, as it will be, is definitely the new thing.
Never someone to be left behind, I was even on a waiting list for one of the first Kindles in Europe. And this trip was my first without lugging around a case full of books; I could download whatever took my fancy in under 3 seconds, devour it late into the night without having my husband scowling at me, and! nor did I need to take my reading glasses - the print just gets bigger and bigger as I get older and older!
Did I enjoy the books as much as ever? I skim read more, my boredom threshold has sunk to a pretty intolerant low and I missed passing books on. No paperbacks greased with coconut oil, no phone numbers of new friends scribbled on the back, no receipts from restaurants marking pages, all the signs of great beach reads. I always used to take along one ‘Classic’ novel every summer but that’s been replaced with a Mystery/Thriller, the type I would have passed up before. Bookstores are gone, taking with them, patience, time and a certain amount of emotional commitment to the novel. How we read has definitely and irrevocably changed, but I wonder how much of what we read?
The difference between publishing a novel in 2011 and Today
I'm surprised by how many people have asked me if 'Mothers, Fathers & Lovers' is coming out as a paperback - from what one reads in the press, you'd think you print-readers had gone out with carrier pigeons, 45" records and men who stand up in a room when a lady walks in - but no - and sadly, there's not much I can do about that.
When my publishers, Hookline Books, published 'Seven Days to Tell You' in 2011, the e-book version seemed like an experimental, supplementary, add on...but three years later, the e-book was outselling the paperback by 500-1. This is why my new book is coming out first as e-book and maybe, if sales do really well, it will be released in the printed form.
And this is the way most publishers have already gone or are going. I haven't even caught up with the change myself - not to touch the results of years of writing or being able to line it up on my shelf, not to be able to send the book to those who've been so kind to help me on the way...nothing to sign! Pressing a button...that wasn't the dream.
As a reader, I welcome the break from the 15th century ways of communicating - I converted to e-books a long time ago and every time I pack for a holiday I'm grateful for it - but as a writer - I'm grieving too.
Mothers, Fathers & Lovers
Seven Days to Tell You
Ruby Soames
When my publishers, Hookline Books, published 'Seven Days to Tell You' in 2011, the e-book version seemed like an experimental, supplementary, add on...but three years later, the e-book was outselling the paperback by 500-1. This is why my new book is coming out first as e-book and maybe, if sales do really well, it will be released in the printed form.
And this is the way most publishers have already gone or are going. I haven't even caught up with the change myself - not to touch the results of years of writing or being able to line it up on my shelf, not to be able to send the book to those who've been so kind to help me on the way...nothing to sign! Pressing a button...that wasn't the dream.
As a reader, I welcome the break from the 15th century ways of communicating - I converted to e-books a long time ago and every time I pack for a holiday I'm grateful for it - but as a writer - I'm grieving too.
Mothers, Fathers & Lovers
Seven Days to Tell You
Ruby Soames
