Conflict simmers along quite nicely when large bodies of intent, replete with significant gravitational pulls themselves, can squint down their individual pathways and envision the coming collision.
Take this one, for example: struggling writer (actually, fill in this blank with any writer, struggling or not) glances up from precious work-in-progress to note several items of import...
- The economy is faltering.
- Book sells are down.
- The US trade book market faces a rough immediate future.
Panic flares in multi-hued edges; what if there are no buyers for my book? What if books are banned because they use precious resources? What if amazon.com pushes through legislation requiring all texts to be read via kindle?
Oh, wait. Writers don't think about things like that. What was I thinking? However, on the off chance that things like this do prickle along your subconscious while you're doing a find for all -ly words in your manuscript, I have a truly scintillating piece of advice.
Go forth and buy books. It's your civic duty. Actually, it's you single-handedly saving the publishing industry. After all, shouldn't we writers support the very companies we want to someday work for?
Posts
4 comments:
No, you should buy books because you like books and enjoy reading books. What you do for a living, and what you buy, are otherwise completely unrelated.
oooh, good point, Nils. You have me there. But I decided to blog about this subject after listening to author Gail Lynds (or was it Robert Dugoni?) at a keynote speech. I was impressed by her offhand comment that we, as writers, do need to support the very entities that we potentially want to publish under. Of course, we should buy books because we love to read...but I still stand by my assertion :)
The good news is that I don't know of many (any?) people who pirate books the same way movies, games, and music are. In fact, I'm fairly certain that the book industry is for the most part unscathed by the pirating the plagues the rest of the publishing industry. So, at the very least, they cannot claim that their sales are down due to scummy pirates stealing their revenues. It's one less thing to worry about.
completely unrelated? Nah. For instance, if you were a comic book writer/illustrator, I should hope you are buying some comic books not only to support the industry, but to change and evolve with the industry.
Post a Comment