Writing and Publishing in the 21st Century

I had the pleasure of chatting with a young lady yesterday at the local used book store. We're moving, and I was dropping off several boxes of books that we no longer felt we'd have room for in what we hope will be a smaller home. You see the boys have moved out and our home of 18 years is too big for us now, but I digress...

In chatting, it turns out that the young lady is also a writer - writing mostly children's stories but also freelancing at journalism. She was decrying the fact that her current novel was too long and she was sweating blood trying to cut it down to under 100,000 words.

As my readers know, I write - mostly from necessity to get the thoughts out of my head, much as my friend, Suzanne, draws to get the pictures out of her head. I vacillate between my technical/business side and my creative/writing side. Today I'm writing to get our conversation out of my head because it was an interesting one.

The young lady and I obviously share a love of books; she is proprietor of a used book store, and I have a library and house full of books. Both of us love to read from hard-cover books more than soft covers. I've been trying to limit my purchases recently to hard-cover books. Both of us are also concerned about the short attention span and almost complete lack of book reading that today's children do.

Now this may seem like a bit of a role reversal, but I suggested to her that in having to cut the novel she was working on, she should look to the web as a place to put the extra - and in fact that the web was a natural place to put a lot of the background information that the story revolves around; the world view so to speak. She, on the other hand, was adamant that she wanted the book to be a book, not a web site. She felt that only by crafting a book would she be able to help the younger generation get away from spending so much time in front of the computer - and get them back out into the open air - having fun building forts and riding their razors and bikes, etc. - being part of the solution rather than part of the cause of the problem - the problem being overweight and inactive kids.

As I pointed out, I and my kids have the advantage of having had the internet around for about 10 years longer than most, since we had connection to it as early as 1983 (well, not really the internet, but Usenet which for all intents and purposes was the same until the real Web (HTML) was invented and brought forth to the world in the early 1990's.) She too, being only a few years younger than my boys, recalled a time when there was no internet in the house - in fact no computer.

Today's kids have never known that time - and that is my point. They live on the internet and you'll have to reach them there in order to get them to even think about getting away from it long enough to read a book. Yes, the generation that read the original Harry Potter books proves you can fascinate kids with the printed word - but again, many/most of the first Potter generation knew a time when there wasn't internet everywhere. Some of today's kids follow on for that particular series because it has such a large following and now movies - but starting a new world through a new novel by a new writer is not just climbing a new mountain, it is jumping from one planet to another; it takes more than words on paper, it requires reaching the kids where they already are - the internet.

I've been having a similar conversation with my friend, David Hancock, about the publishing industry in general. He's had his Hancock House Publishing for over 20 years, doing wildlife and regional (to the Pacific North West) books to help support his conservation efforts, and recently has run up against the internet as a direct competitor as opposed to just being the vehicle for competition in the book vending side of things. We're exploring all manner of ways of bringing his new works and back-catalog into the 21st century. His new web site features articles by his authors as well as ebook versions of some of the books, with more on the way.

This is not the same as what I suggested to this young writer, but it is in a similar vein. We, as writers, simply can't ignore the internet and other electronic publishing venues such as games and videos, chats and Facebook, Twitter and other social media if we want to reach and engage our readers.

What I didn't mention to her, but that David and I have talked often about, is the concept of self-publishing, using the internet as the vehicle to find viewers and purchasers. Yes, a publisher can be very helpful to an emerging writer - especially if you jump through their hoops and sign their long-term agreements, but you may find you're tied up and unable to deal with, or profit from, today's other (than paper) publishing venues. This is the position that many musicians have found themselves in. Many of the new ones, and not a small number of the older ones, are now self-publishing via the net. They're selling any/everything and getting 100% of the income. 

Some publishers are learning, and they're helping this movement by being an enabling force and management force on a strictly fee for service or earned percentage basis with no long-term commitments. I think this is the way of the future.

So my advice to this young lady and to any/all in her position of being new writers in this wired world: Craft your works to take advantage of the media available to you - and, while trying to be a "world saver" through your principles of getting our young people to read books is a good idea, you'll have to reach them first, and that is today done by finding them where they already are, on the internet. 

Tag: publishing writing