Back to Work

I spend the weekend getting the word out about my publishing deal and now it is back to work for me.  What surprised me about that experience is that a lot of people expressed interest in my book.  Okay they are all friends and family but that didn't happen when I self-published.  This leads me to a few conclusions:

• Self-publishing is smack.  Why?  Because anyone can self-publish.  For avid readers, self-publishing is great because they have more content to wade through and much of it is free or very low cost.  But most of us aren't avid readers.  We don't want to wade through anything badly written and let's face it the quality of self-published material is all over the place.  The one check against this is the publisher.  We rely on them to pick good material to place under a label.  So the fact that I've got a publishing deal signals that my work is good enough to read.
• People want physical books to read.  I know that this flies in the face of the industry and current trends but the fact is many people still don't have e-book readers and they won't be getting one.  Why?  Because books -- physical books -- don't require batteries.  Because books don't require instruction manuals.  Because a Kindle does not smell like a new unopened book and never will.  Of course, the interest in my book and the requirement for physical copies of it are mostly because my friends want my to sign it.  They hope that one day I will be famous and the signing of my first book will be valuable.  I can't speak to that.  Only the future knows what is coming.  But I do think that emphasis to go electronic has been pushed more than it should.  Physical books still have a place and we shouldn't be trying to change that.

That's it for me.  I've got work to do, more now than ever.  After all, Book 1 makes a promise to the reader.  Now I have to deliver on it by completing the other books in the series.  Not that I'm complaining.  I've been waiting my whole life for exactly this moment.