Lately, I’ve been reading up on a variety of blogs about the ‘yellow brick road’ of epublishing. Please check out J.A. Konrath’sblog if you want any information on how ebooks are revolutionizing the book industry. He’s actually the author who convinced me to go the epublishing route with my books. At first it was hard to wrap my head around this unchartered territory. No agents. No traditional publishers. No distributors. Just me sending my products (books) directly to you (the reader) via your favourite online bookstore (Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, etc.). That’s it. A couple of clicks of a button and you have a new book downloaded to your ereader in a matter of seconds. No muss, no fuss, no getting out of bed. It sounded scary. Scary and wonderful.
The other day I saw a bumper sticker that said, ‘Don’t make me release my flying monkeys’. I laughed. Those flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz scared the poop out of me when I was a kid. They were the Wicked Witch of the West’s evil henchman. In a way, those flying monkeys represent those (people/establishments) who seek to control you. And like J.A. Konrath points out so boldly in his blog, this is what Legacy Publishers (Big Six Publishing Houses) are trying to do to established and new authors – control them and control their rights. He (Konrath) explains that little by little the brick and mortar bookstores will downsize (not completely vanish) until a balance has been restored. And if you think Konrath’s wrong, ask yourself where the closest CD music store is. And where have all the Blockbusters gone? For years, publishing houses have called the shots, and now authors get to play the publishing game and receive what is rightfully theirs – a decent royalty cheque for their hard work. Woo hoo!It’s a great time to be a writer. It’s even a greater time to be a reader. Now, will somebody get this flying monkey off my back?
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