This shelf at home is beginning to look a lot more interesting, now that my second novel has been printed and exists in a physical sense as well as in the virtual new world of digital publishing. Without a doubt, even though we at Evergreen Umbrella are huge proponents of the brave new world of self-publishing and digital media, there is nothing quite like the feel of a crisp new book in one's hands!
It's exactly the same with recorded music. No matter how easy it becomes to just download music (that has been paid for!) onto an electronic device, nothing truly beats having the actual CD in your hands. It's the same reason why even people who could record anything they wanted onto cassettes still went out and bought prerecorded cassettes: they wanted the item as a piece for their collection.
Times have changed and we must move with them, even if for some things we have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. There is just never going to be the same effect when someone opens up a smart TV or other device and says, "look at my DVD collection", or "here's my CD library" and you see an electronic menu on a screen to choose from. Nothing can compare with bookshelves lined floor to ceiling with books of all shapes, sizes and colors, or shelves filled with more than a thousand CD cases.
I am the first to admit that reading a book on a device will probably never truly replace the experience of reading a story printed on paper with a cool cover package. There is something very romantic about an actual book and how it can not only transport us off into another world for various periods, or in the best cases actually change our lives. An electronic reader just can't have the same tactile experience and warmth of a real book.
But this is the digital age, and there are huge benefits that come with it in terms of keeping costs down and allowing all of us to write our own stories without having to face the silence from the gatekeepers (i.e. the dreaded literary agent) to whose attention (or lack thereof!) we used to send our manuscripts. One can now read new authors for as low as 99 cents (or in some cases, totally free) per "book" and new authors can now get their work out there and available in the marketplace without basically spending a penny. Furthermore, they don't wait around impatiently anymore for responses to queries that never come, or come with the usual generic aloof rejections.
Of course, marketing then becomes the true "rate-limiting step" for unknown authors moving forward. But that's just another hat that needs to be put on once a book is finished and is released, and people need to get busy on various social media sites and their own websites and blogs. No, it's not easy, but neither is it brain surgery! In fact, the very people who refused to listen to skeptical family/friends (You are going to write a book?! Will that last as long as your claim that you were going to renovate the basement?!) or even the little negative voice in their own heads, are the very people to roll their sleeves up and get on with it!
Many of us are individuals who have succeeded in other professional areas of our lives and careers, yet still felt driven enough to face the dreaded blank page and transform a set of ideas racing around our head into a (hopefully) coherent story on paper. It's far from an easy process, which is why so many start out full of enthusiasm yet end up putting it back down quite soon after beginning, just like a guitar. Those who push through and accept that days of amazing progress often come alongside days of almost hopelessness are the ones who have it in them to be a writer, irrespective of what the publishing world says about them.
One of the key challenges about being a self-published author has got much less to do with writing of the book itself, and more the writing on various social media to actually promote the book. But in some ways, who better to understand the placement of your work and how you want it presented to the world than yourself?! As people who ran the marathon of writing a novel, we are not the type to walk away from a subsequent challenge, and as we have to do it all and be a jack-of-all-trades, well, we just do it!
It takes time, yes, especially if you are not familiar with social media use for business/marketing, but a grossly intellectual affair it isn't! Compared to writing a novel, social media is like going outside, kicking a ball around and chatting with some people. So get to your computer, set up a Facebook business page, get onto Twitter, create your own stunning website and hell, go all the way, and set up your very own blog! A major reason we want to write a book is because we have a voice and we want that voice to be heard - so given that it's assumed that you've got something of interest to say, well, say it! Speak up! Speak out! Share it!
Personally speaking, I am delighted to see both A QUIET RESIGNATION and THE MOLECULES on my brickwork shelf, and it's particularly enjoyable because so many probably thought I was dreaming, and it would never happen. But it did, and now that these two books are published the focus switches to what will become book #3, while remembering that I found a way to be an active scientist and writer simultaneously twice before, so now I just have to do it all again!
People have been asking already, so I will let slip what is the working title of book #3 - for now it's "IN SEARCH OF SOME SOUL". Ironically, I have a feeling that I am going to have to dig pretty deep to excavate this one out of me, and I hope that my soul remains intact afterwards! ;) - Kevin Mc
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