Readers Choice

Have you noticed the increase in the variety of fiction that is available to readers now?

The advent of the e-book has brought readers dozens of new publishers with hundreds of new writers. In addition, authors can now easily publish independently, giving readers even more variety in the books available for them to read.

Electronic publishing has been a good thing for just about everybody. In fact, the only folks who might be hurt by it are the publishing companies who choose to cling to publishing only print editions when readers are clamoring for more electronic books.

As a writer who was first published in hardcover more than ten years ago when e-books were in their infancy, I am terribly excited about the e-book explosion of the past two years.

We writers no longer have to stick to New York publishers' guidelines if we want to publish our books. We can, instead, write our book the way we want to write it.

Many smaller publishers who specialize in e-books and print on demand seek unusually written stories, different from what big publishing houses deem publishable.

And, of course, there is independent publishing which allows writers to write what they want the way they want and even publish it as they want.

Readers always do the choosing.

They vote for which books and which authors they want to read.

Now more than ever, there is true democracy in the publishing business because no narrow group of publishers is determining what is available for readers to read.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds of small publishers, and thousands of writers are making tens of thousands of books available to readers which they never would have had the chance to read a decade ago, or even five years ago.

And isn't this exciting!

As a reader, I love the variety of books available to me. As a writer, I love the freedom of having a wide-open field as to the kind of books I can publish.

Viva e-books! Long may they live.

Fran

Fran Shaff
Fran's Webpage