I have problems
telling the forest from the trees. I’m always amazed when others can see things
clearly. Also, in things like predictions, I tend to question myself, my bias. Am I predicting this thing because I'm secretly scared it will happen? Or because I hope it will? And then I get confused.
Needless to say, I am a mess when
it comes to predictions.
So, instead of predictions, I’m going to locate for you
centers of my personal wonderances regarding publishing trends. On any given day, you can find me on one side of these issues or the other. So, pick your own answers to the following prediction questions:
Will publishers somehow fight back against self publishing
and gain the upper hand in some way?
Organizations, when organized, tend to overcome individuals,
even bands of individuals. Sometimes I have this thought that publishers will
develop some marketing muscle and magic and be stronger again, like it’s
a pendulum. Their royalties aren't so good, but they do give exposure of a sort. Will they whip out something more in the coming year? Other times I think, no way, it’s not a pendulum, it’s a sea
change. Then, I go to back to pendulum. Well, I think it's good to have books in both baskets, at any rate. Go ahead and choose your fave answer to this.
Will changes in the publishing industry make me feel like an
asshole for buying a kindle?
It was an agonizing decision! I have been reading on an
ancient Sony reader and everything had to be epub, and I had to trickily side
load it. And I bought lots of books I couldn’t read! So I got a kindle. I wanted what others had! And to read free books everyone talked about. And so many are only offered on Kindle, dammit. Then, I
said, I’ll buy mobi files from other stores not Amazon for it. To subvert the
monopoly effect, but I haven’t done it yet because Amazon is so convenient. I
like the idea of competition. And Amazon hasn’t done anything I hate yet…except
for back in 2009 or 2010 when they delisted all books about gay characters;
sometimes I feel like everyone has forgotten about that. And I do hate the
exclusivity they try to foster. So I guess I feel like an asshole for buying a
kindle and not spreading my book purchases around more. I guess that's a yes if I don't shape up with my purchase habits.
Is UF on its way out?
I really wonder about this. Obviously my first and largest
body of work was urban fantasy, but somewhere along the way, after writing and
reading it incessantly, I got tired of it. Which was somewhat inconvenient because I had an exciting series I was super psyched about in the hopper and suddenly other projects were more exciting. New genres! Bending genres! I do that, though, I go through
phases. As a reader, I was so heavy into historicals for like a year, and I’m tiring of
those, too. But I know I'll go back to them. So, is UF going out? Are Regency historicals going out? Or are they going out in my mind? Is it just me, or am I
connected to the zeitgeist? It's just as possible that I will catch fire with UF again next month and it will be so in again for me. Maybe I just needed a break, to get some balance into my artistic life after overindulging and there's no zeitgeist about it. Or maybe not. How does anybody know anything EVER???
Please choose the answers you prefer to the above prediction matter, and let me know!
