Words of Light

This week was especially challenging to me as a writer. I have several WIPs going that are interconnected and demand I spend my limited brain cells juggling the action and the plot line between them. If it works, it will be good. If it doesn’t I have three flops on my hands.

I’m also going through a difficult edit and revision that has planted more than a few doubts in my confidence. Is the struggle to get e-published worth it?

Maybe.

The other day one of my dour friends sent me several articles from the New York Times stating that “best selling” authors on Kindle are actually having to give their books away for free to attract new readers, piracy is rampant and lots of other negative stuff. My friend titled the email “a depressing trend.”

Thanks “D” that’s just what I needed to hear this week.

Ten seconds later my best friend Teri sent me several emails about the new Apple Tablet multi-media, e-reader, which will be premiered today. She focused on how exciting it was and that it and future products like it will revolutionize reading and buying habits. She also sent several articles about e-publishing in general, which were incredibly positive. I felt as if she had sent me the antidote to the first dose of poison.

Then it occurred to me that this is the wild west of publishing and e-authors are pioneers. A definitive business model for e-publishing, distribution and copyright protection has yet to emerge, but I’m certain it eventually will. The next several years will reshape the publishing industry for a generation and we get to be part of it.

Think of the first days of public publishing. Kings, warlords or high priests ordered their names and deeds carved in megalithic monuments-impressive but it’s not for everyone.

Next, cumbersome tablets were painstakingly carved in stone, clay or embossed on copper and stored in sacred places—more people are literate but it’s tedious work.

Papyrus scrolls were more convenient than clay tablets but they are incredibly fragile, yet this very fragileness seems to encourage a burst of creativity. For the first time common craftspeople start creating poetry, love letters, illustrated text, ribald jokes and even pornography. For the first time human thought is committed to writing and shared purely for entertainment.

When the Gutenberg press came along publishing became available to the masses. Pamphlets were all the rage and those humble publications eventually evolved into the King James Bible, state propaganda and newspapers all of which literally changed the world. Over night everyone wanted to be a politician and had the tools to do it.

Today the sheer volume of information and the weight of paper and the storage space it requires have brought us to the cusp of the next revolution. New publishing methods have always heralded the arrival of new content.

Today we are writing with light. We take up no physical space. Digital publishing looks incredibly fragile and finite when compared to a carved block of stone, yet it is infinitely more powerful and travels at the speed of thought. An author can now share their most personal thoughts and fantasies with the world. Our ancestors would see this as undreamed of freedom and it’s worth facing a few bumps in the road.

I think I’ll stick around and hash out my issues with e-publishing.

Of special note: Johannes Gutenberg first business failure was a “mirror to catch the light of Holy relics” When that venture didn’t pan out he was forced to pay back investors with another invention he was working on—the movable type press. In light of the digital age I’m not so sure his first idea was a failure…

XXOO Kat