BUY THE BOOKS – or The State of the Publishing Industry

The economy is in the toilet. No one denies that. Everyone’s bandying around the “-cession” words. People are tightening their budgetary belts. And what happens? It gets worse. Especially in “non-essential” areas like publishing.

Becoming an author has never been easy. Those of us who struggle in this industry do so out of love of the art, with no respect, and a healthy dose of being screwed over. But we do it because it’s our passion to provide entertainment in dark times. In hard times. In chaotic times. We’re also the first to feel the pinch of those times.

Random House declared their major restructure yesterday. Others have either pared down or frozen their acquisitions, meaning it’s going to be tougher for writers like me trying to get their first novel published by a “Big House” than it was before (which wasn’t easy). It means more authors going to struggling “Small Houses” like YardDog Press — who have EXCELLENT winter sales, just to keep providing high quality material to people who are tired of seeing the same thing in major bookstore.

And it makes people like Shanna Swendson do blog posts about how to get books into print and into bookstores and “Doom Loops”. And John Scalzi talk about it in his Whatever Column. And now me, all tell you the same thing.

BUY THE BOOKS!!!!. Buy more than one. Keep the publishing houses going — especially the small ones like YardDogPress. Take a chance on more than one author. Buy some anthologies if you don’t know if you’re like new authors. I’m in several I can recommend if you don’t have them already.

The only way to make sure your favorite author or author-friend or favorite odd publisher is going to survive the economic turmoil is to part with a few bucks now and then and buy a book! Most authors now a days have free samples on line — I do — check out the links.

Books make fanatastic and affordable Christmas/Holiday gifts.

By buying books for friends and family you do several things:

You stimulate the economy by putting money into circulation.

You provide valuable feedback to the publishing industry about what *you* want to read and what *they* should publish.

You provide for the health and well-being of an author.

You give a gift that can be enjoyed over and over again and allow the gift receiver the ability to escape from everyday chaos.

It’s all win/win. So buy some books.

Tags: Books, buying, economy, publishing