Shakespeare Said It Best
Friends, writers, authors – We’re going to have to be techno-geeks if we want anyone under forty to ever read our stuff.
I know this isn’t news to a lot of you, but I was with a group of writers the other night and was surprised to learn how many of them, all of them frequently-published authors, have yet to put their work out as ebooks.
How many didn’t know how to create a pdf document, let alone Html. How many of them think that success is achieved by getting their work onto a bookshelf in a big-box bookstore.
How few of them blog, or even have well-developed personal websites. How few of them have many “friends” in the new meaning of the word. How few of them tweet, or ever will.
I felt a mix of sadness and panic.
If we want to call ourselves writers in the not-so-new millennium, we have to get with the program:
The new tools of the trade are electronic, wireless, digital.
Writing a manuscript includes knowing how to format, archive, version.
Marketing is now personal, creative, roll-your-own.
We make our own decisions – we have full responsibility.
We make the mistakes – we get the rewards.
(And even if you have or get a mainstream publisher, all of the above still applies.)
O brave new world that has such writers in it!
A death knell is pealing across the web. We can’t avoid hearing it, even with both hands covering our ears. It’s saying traditional publishing is over.
