Women Over Fifty

Today I want to salute the people who provide a never-ending supply of reading material for me:

• authors
  
• publishers
• indie book sellers

I want to salute the authors who tell their stories in hopes that I’ll read them and enjoy them.  It’s hard work to write a book.  Sure, sometimes the stories just flow from their brains to their fingers, but that first draft of a story is only the beginning.  The author must deal with plot, editorial concerns, agents, publishers, and then, with greatest pleasure, their reading public.

Some publishers are struggling; struggling because they need to change and they’ve always been successful the way they do it now.  Some publishers are on the leading edge, bringing us print on demand (POD) books and eBooks (those you can read on a eBook reader or a computer). 

Hooray for those publishers who are successful in managing this change.  We simply can’t go on publishing huge runs of books and then storing them until they are distributed and sold to the booksellers.  It’s so wasteful, not to mention what it does to the profits.  Do you realize that any book not sold goes back to the publisher?  With luck, the publisher can re-sell them, but they don’t sell many of the returned books because they’re set up to destroy them, not to repurpose them.  

Hooray for print on demand books (POD).  They may cost you a little more, but they are printed in small runs, only what the market demands.  They may print just the order requested by a book store, or they may print just one book, just because you want to read it.  That means you have so much more choice.  Smaller print runs, no storage problems, makes greater profits.  I predict the POD printers will survive.

Hooray for eBooks.  eBooks exist in cyberspace.  Once the book is converted to an eBook it can be stored indefinitely.  Buy an eBook and you can leave it on your computer to read.  Buy an eReader, like Kindle, and you can read your eBook almost like reading a paper book. Store the eBook on a CD or DVD and read it again later.  Can you imagine how many books you can put on your bookshelf in CD format?  If your eBooks are on a Kindle, you can store a huge number of books in this small hand-held device.  My computer stores several eBooks for reading when we travel.  I take my laptop anyway.  The eBooks are always there to entertain me and they’re cheaper for the most part.

Hooray for the Indie Bookstores!  Independent book stores care so much about their customers.  They are always looking for a new book to delight us.  They order fewer copies, but they rarely have to return them because they are focused on their customer base.  They know what their customers will like.  They don’t try to have a little of everything.  They try to have a lot of the books they know their customers will enjoy.

Indie booksellers also bring the authors and the readers together in book signing parties. Mysterious Galaxy, near my home has several book signings every week.  Sometimes there’s coffee and cookies.  Sometimes you can tell your favorite author how much you like their books.

When we travel I try to visit independent booksellers and see what they’ve got.  I’m not a regular customer of theirs and so there are surprises waiting for me.  I love surprises.

I’m being a little rough on the big publishers and the big box-store booksellers.  I don’t mean to be.  It’s just that I think their business model is a bit out dated.  For them, change is like an elephant trying to turn around in a narrow hallway.  It isn’t easy.  Some will make it and some will not.  A lot depends on what they do today.

Marilynne

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