Marketing Monday

There's some turmoil going on in the publishing industry. Top people at both Random House and Harper Collins are being replaced and that leaves a number of people feeling uneasy. Many of those people happen to be authors.

Book sales go up, book sales go down. Trends change. One genre is hot, another grows cold. It's like riding the waves of a turbulent sea. Publishing is not for the faint of heart, or the weak of stomach.

I'm staying positive in all this. It's my nature to be optimistic, and I can see the bright side of just about anything. I feel that whenever publishing tightens its belt and acquisitions become more discriminating, I expect better books to read. Competition is a good thing. And it keeps authors on their toes.

Good books sell… most of the time. A good book, anyway, has a better chance of getting picked up by a publisher than a bad book ever will. With the exception of celebrity books, but that's another topic for another day. I often hear writers lament over the difficulties presented in this industry, and there's a reason for concern, however I don't condone whining about having worked hard and not seeing results. It just means they have to work harder. It means putting away that manuscript they've been pounding on for the past five years in its twentieth rewrite and starting something new.

Writers read the how-to books, attend the workshops and conferences, enter dozens of contests, write their fingers to the bone, and the results of their labors are tenuous at best. It's something we all need to accept and work with it. If writing a good book were easy, as they say, then everybody would be doing it.

A real writer doesn't choose to write; the writing chooses them. It's a talent and a gift that deserves to be expressed. In spite of the problems publishing is having now, and that its always had, books will still be published. People are still reading. Chances of getting published may be slimmer, but they're not nonexistent. I'm in this for the long haul. How about you?