Be Afraid...be very afraid

By Darren E Laws

Halloween is almost here, the Frankfurt Book Fair has just finished and six months after the end of the London Book Fair it is sad to report not much progress has been made by the publishing world and its eagerness (or lack of) to embrace the digital future of publishing.  Paul Coelho makes some very interesting observations that the industry is still struggling with the Internet.

Coelho says there is "a lack of understanding of the web on the part of the industry", which could mean they end up travelling the same path as the film and music industries.

"Instead of seeing in this new media an opportunity to invent new ways of promotion, publishers concentrated on creating micro sites, which are totally outdated, and a few of them complained about the 'misfortunes' of the other cultural industries, perceiving the web as the 'enemy'," he said.

Coelho's answer is to give his books away in electronic form on his blog site The Pirate Coelho.  He says openly that for the industry to survive content must be shared freely.  This is a similar challenge faced by the music and film industries both of which are investigating forms of digital rights management.

Coelho is experiencing a growth in sales even though he is giving his electronic content away.  The music industry has also survived despite the messengers of doom that foresaw the end of the industry.  The majority of young people who get their music now from the net instead of a record shop balance paying for downloads with using peer to peer (P2P) torrent sites.  Though the majority of free P2P torrent sites share illegal content young people do not consider the actions they take to be breaking the law.  In fact many bands are now joining the actions of Coelho and either giving away their content on controlled sites or allowing it to happen because 'word of mouth' from these downloads actually lead to increased legal sales.

Tackling how to produce a working model that maximises web exposure while generating income is obviously important to all artists.  Without income, artists will be severely hampered.  MJ Rose today launched her novel The Reincarnationist as a time limited free download because she knows the value of word of mouth and of giving potential customers something of value to help generate a sale.  I tend to agree with this approach and it is a subject I have been trying to come to terms with as well. 

From the perspective of an independent publisher who appreciates every sale, the decision is do we follow the trend and give away eBook versions of titles and if we do will this hamper printed copy sales.  Personally I do not think sales of physical paperback or hard back copies will be affected.  With that in mind we have decided to give away eBook versions of my next novel 'Dark Country' direct from our web sites - www.cnpublishing.co.uk and www.thefictionstore.co.uk on its publication day for a limited period to monitor the impact on sales. 

Is giving away digital content an act of madness, altruism or simply recognition that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.  Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Coldplay among many other bands have given away content and seen exponential growth in actual sales.  Nobody believes for a moment that because they gave their content away it was of a lower quality or worse still, worthless. 

Free can be a good thing, it scares the establishment. Quite apt for this time of year.

'How to get a lot of money out of desperate authors...

while making a very nice living as failed author!'


How many 'How to write a successful novel' or 'How to become a published author’ novels have you seen advertised both on the net and in bookstores from authors you have never ever heard. Surely if someone was to be an expert on the subject they should have a modicum of success. Often when you delve a little deeper into the background of the authors of these 'successful' authors who put their names to the 'How to' brigade of books you find that their only publishing success has been the publication of the 'How to' book in the first place. Is this not a little misleading? One thing is for sure though that there is a lot of desperate writers out there who gobble up these books and their words of wisdom without stopping to check the credentials of the author or indeed have no measure or yardstick to digest what they have to say.

A quick search through Amazon shows that this is a growth market with little or no signs of it being impacted by the current credit malaise sweeping through the world. It would appear that there are a lot of would-be writers keen to know the secrets to quick success and the riches it brings. If this was the case and the authors of these books were making their wealth through their own creative writing ability rather than suckering people wishing to lean the trick of the trade then surely we would be reading a lot more 'How to' books from famous authors and not unknowns capitalising on the dreams of the desperate. Furthermore, these authors by the very nature of practicing what they preach would be successful.

So the next time you're tempted to buy a shortcut to success, at least stop and look at the resume of the author.

P.S. This is NOT an extract taken from my latest book. How to become an incredibly successful author in only 10 days or you money back…