The Revolution has Already Started...I Just Didn't Know!

[a_r_williams]

Yesterday, I went to The Shatzkin Files  to post a comment on the post from the day before. I was surprised to find a new blog post since he had just updated. The post concerned J.A. Konrath and the self-publishing deal he had signed with Amazon Encore Imprint concerning his new book "Shaken". You can read more about it at Publisher's Weekly.

I know

Comments

[peadarog]

Things are certainly changing, but as I said before, new GateKeepers will rise to replace the old, but they will still be GateKeepers.

Any fledgling musician can busk for money in the street and that has always been the case.

[a_r_williams]

Ah, my friend. There will be Gatekeepers, but will there be gates?

[peadarog]

People will beg for gates, believe me. There's just too much shit for any sane person to wade through is a dozen lifetimes.

Imagine 5,000,000 identical boxes in a giant warehouse. One of them contains the best book you could ever read. See if you can find it. You get to open as many boxes as you like, but every time you guess wrong, you get a punch in the face and somebody steals a dollar from your wallet.

How long before you decide it's more fun to watch TV?

[a_r_williams]

Imagine 5 billion websites. How do you find the ones you need?

SEO. Google. Yahoo.

There will be methods for people to find what is good. There already are.

Who do you follow on Twitter? Who have you connected to on Facebook? What blogs do you read? Do you notice how Amazon can influence your purchase (these readers also purchased...)?

Oh, and if all there is to eat is shit--some of it will start to taste good ;)

[peadarog]

Personal recs are, of course, the way to go and I don't doubt that systems like twitter and facebook (heavily influenced by those companies and the advertising they show) will help in spreading the word about books no matter what their origin. Some quality will flourish, but the more likely you make it that people will read shit (by the elimination of gate-keepers), the less people will want to read.

However, as I said, there *will* be gate-keepers. There will be famous reviewers (like Oprah) with their own followers who will filter out much of the poor content by reccing stuff they enjoy.

But then the competition becomes one of attracting the attention of the new GWs instead of the old ones (agents, publishers).

Like Oprah, the new GWs may not be professionals dedicated to finding good books. There may be ways of getting their attention other than by being a good writer.

But who knows what the future will bring? So far, it's still the Wild West out there and anything, good, bad or indifferent could happen.

[a_r_williams]

"But then the competition becomes one of attracting the attention of the new GWs instead of the old ones (agents, publishers).

Like Oprah, the new GWs may not be professionals dedicated to finding good books. There may be ways of getting their attention other than by being a good writer."

Yeah, that's true. I have ideas percolating in my head right now. So, I still need to do more research about what is possible and not possible. How much makes sense.

I may try an experiment. I'm sure I'll try some type of experiment to get more data than thoughts/ideas about how all this works.

Re: AR Williams presents...

[a_r_williams]

I do have one story online at the moment, Blossoms Weep, Spiders Fall, I'm not sure if you've read it though.

Another one will be coming out this month at Three Crow Press.

[peadarog]

Well, good luck in any case! It's a tough road.

[a_r_williams]

Thanks :)