Daily Archives: August 16, 2012

e-maginings: Changing Times

As some of you know, I still work part-time at Fullerton Public Library as a substitute librarian. My job is to sit at the Information/Reference Desk, now casually labeled the “Ask Here” desk, and answer patrons questions.

The other morning, a patron came in looking for books by an author I’d never heard of. We didn’t have any of her books in print or as downloadable books, but the woman told me she had read the first book in a paranormal romance series read it and was hot to read the next. She’d gotten the first book as a Kindle freebie, so I went to Amazon and discovered that the books were indie published. Apparently, the author in question, H.P. Mallory, had been such a success with her two indie series, she now has a contract with Bantam for more books in the series.

This all reminded me of Stephanie Laurens’s Keynote Speech at the recent RWA conference. She talked about how the publishing industry has changed and is in the process of changing. The writing process is the same; the reading process is the same; but the distribution system has been upended. Authors now have more options than ever before, including going directly to the reader. If you missed the speech, it’s at Laurens’s website.

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says, “May you live in interesting times.” which is sometimes taken more of a curse than a blessing. Whatever you may think of the changes in the publishing industry, you can’t deny that we are living in interesting times.

Linda Mac

Linda McLaughlin 
aka Lyndi Lamont
Twitter: @LyndiLamont