The world of reading is changing, and it is changing fast. The book market is moving at an exponential rate onto the internet with sales of E-Books rising by 188% in the first 6 months of this year – matched by a steady decline in the sales of hard-copy books*. Along with this change comes a growing phenomenon: self-publishing.
Gone is the time when writers had only the means of securing a traditional publishing contract in which literary agents and their authors will commit to printing thousands of hard-copies of books. Now, writers are presented with a new option – the option to upload their work to the web, self-edit and market, and print “on demand” only when a book is sold. For a higher price, writers can have their work edited and have their layout and graphics designed by a bespoke self-publishing company (once again, web based.)
The country’s leading Publishing companies have not only responded to this change, but have embraced it with both Harper Collins and Penguin creating websites dedicated to the production of unsolicited freelance work from upcoming writers not yet represented by a literary agent. It is important to note that 50 Shades of Grey began as fan fiction that was then picked up by an agent and sent into the sonisphere of global publishing. As well as this, self-published writers such as crime fiction writer Kerry Wilkinson, are joining a history of brave literary figures who dared to self-fund and publish their own works, including Virginia Woolf, Beatrix Potter and, more recently, John Grisham.
One writer who has joined the self-publishing market is Francesco Piscitelli whose sci-fi thriller Cryptids is already flying off Amazon’s cyber-shelves. The story centers around three down-and-out teenagers who plan to leave their dead-end lives behind when they discover that their biological parents are residing in Paris. Taking the journey by foot they are soon embroiled in to much larger, and dangerous, mystery; the reason? Oh yeah, they can each morph into animals. I asked Piscitelli what made him choose to go down the route of self-publishing and what this has meant for his writing. Piscitelli told me that “taking the direction to self-publish seemed pretty much a-given and it was a matter of convenience, really. I’m still astonished at how easy it is to self-publish a piece of work nowadays. Once upon a time going through the intricacies of publishing and editing was the hard part, and now it’s the other way around – writing it was the “hard” part (although I still enjoyed every minute of it), while the process of formatting and uploading the file to Amazon was finished within a mere 12 hours!”
For Piscitelli and many new self-published writers the sense of writing as being instant and direct is very important, he explained that “it definitely gives writers a chance to share and distribute their work quickly, efficiently and to a wider market previously impossible via paper (for example within 12 hours, I made my novel available to the UK, America, Canada, India, France, Spain, Denmark and Italy, whereas if it was on paper, shipping would take an indefinite amount of time and money).” Infact Piscitelli began by going down the traditional publishing route by sending off the first three chapters to about 10 agencies: “Getting a publishing contract is not the finish line, however. After that it would have been another 6 (or possibly more) months before my novel would have been ready to be printed, distributed and released to the public. This way, as an e-book, people can enjoy the first instalment of The Cryptids Series as soon as it was edited and ready to read, and my sales and marketing strategies are up to me.” Here Piscitelli raises an important aspect which attracts many writers to making the decision to self-publish, an ability to be totally in control of their creative work. He told me that “although straightforward, the market is extremely competitive, especially for fantasy genres. On the other hand at least I’m in total control of what happens, and that lends me some comfort.”
This signals a change towards a new reading experience, one that mirrors the experience of using the internet as writers now write in response to their readers with instant electronic feedback and imput through sites such as Twitter, Amazon reviews, and blogs. Piscitelli told me that many writers are now so reliant on the use of social media and web-based marketing strategies, it is hard to imagine a time when this was not a case (“I know of a lot of authors via Twitter who work full-time and simply do not have the free time to seal a publishing contract with an external agency.”) Thanks to the rise in self-publishing and the options that it presents to authors, readers are taking control and seizing the chance to take on the role of writer.
Article by Georgina Holland, Exeposé Online Books Editor.
To download Piscitelli’s novel visit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cryptids-Origins-Part-1-ebook/dp/B009MPXIVC
*E-book figure taken from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9550154/E-book-sales-up-188-per-cent.html
For more information on the self-publishing industry read: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/your-money/the-rise-in-self-publishing-opens-the-door-for-aspiring-writers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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