“The Golden Age for Writers,” an article by Stephen Marche (Esquire, November 26, 2012), says, in essence, kwitcherbitchin and don’t believe any Chicken Little naysayers warning the sky is falling. To quote ol’ F. Scott Fitzgerald, this is “the best of times.” Tom Wolfe got a cool $7 mill for his last novel. For those of us nowhere near that level, there are more options than ever including self-publishing (no longer a dirty word) and e-books. But wait, there’s more. Right now, the essay has never been more in demand. Due to the Internet—remember that means worldwide web—writers do have more competition but they also have like a zillion more options to sell their work. According to Marche’s research, publishers are making money, too. “Revenue for adult hardcover books is up 8.3 percent from 2011, and paperback sales are up 5.2 percent. Book sales for young adults and children grew by 12 percent last year. E-books accounted for 30 percent of net publisher sales in the adult fiction category in 2011, compared with 13 percent in 2010…. In addition to those happy numbers, the e-reader is creating a new market, not destroying an old one.” If one more kvetching writer tells you publishing is dead, books are dying or nobody is reading, tell them to Google the stats. Forecasts say tablets will reach 112.5 million consumers by 2016 (Forrester, March 6, 2012). I’d say that’s a lot of peops still reading what writers write.
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“Reasons to Re-Joyce” is an appealing essay written by Darin Strauss (Sunday Book Review, The New York Times, December 9, 2012). Not only did Strauss mock the hand-wringing world of whiners moaning about the death of literary fiction, he states, “The naysaying misses the fact that this has been a wildly good book year.” Oh, and by the way, you can trust Strauss has his finger on the right pulse — his most recent book, a memoir titled Half a Life, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The title of this essay is a reference to Ulysses by James Joyce. Strauss claims the novel is still relevant and a strong influence on what he calls a recent slew of “legitimate masterpieces.” Strauss also makes an excellent point that many of the doom and gloom analyses of the so-called downturn in book sales is not based on actual numbers: “It would be one thing if the naysayers were talking about a crash dive of sales figures. Sales figures carry the inarguability of math.” Instead, he argues, the public is under a barrage of nothing more than negative uniformed opinions from glass half empty talking heads. So, rejoice writers and keep writing your books. Readers are still reading.
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“A Strong Author Platform Translates into Book Sales” reports DBW (Digital Book Wire, December 6, 2012). This is an article promoting the Digital Book World Conference & Expo in New York that is taking place January 15–17, 2013. No doubt the recap will offer sound advice for and analyses of the current state of digital book sales. This conference offers trade publishers hard data on today’s and tomorrow’s book biz. The conference refers to itself as “the single largest gathering of senior-level digital publishing execs anywhere.” It promises attendees access to presidents, CEOs, editors, marketers, large and small publishers, agents, authors, booksellers, librarians and techies — in other words, everyone you need to know to manage your success in the digital publishing world. Topics will include the power of social media and how to determine your best strategy from a dizzying array of platforms including Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Pinterest and YouTube. Speakers will cover how to generate media buzz, how to use search engine optimization (SEO) to rise to higher heights in Google searches and the necessity of 365-day marketing strategies to measure the success of your efforts. So, if you are one of those writers who has been reluctant to spruce up your website or blog, and take the plunge into social media conversations on Twitter and Facebook, there is so much more you can be doing to create your own writing success. Run, don’t walk, to social media marketing.