Slippery slopes

It may not look slippery but we walked cautiously up this bridle track by the house on Christmas Day.  Another kind of slippery slope faces me as an epublisher.  How can I maintain high standards while keeping fees, costs and prices low?  I need submissions of quality as well as a large quantity of submissions.  I've written about the copy-editing dilemma on my notepad on the site.  Have a look.

Is competition good or bad?

In the Middle East, so I've heard, shoe shops gather like flocks of starlings. You get a whole street of shops only selling shoes. The storekeepers work on the principle that competition pays. Someone wanting shoes makes for that street; one shop, which might not have got that custom if its location was elsewhere, will benefit.

So what's the case in the virtual world? Does the same principle apply?

I'm thinking about this today because yesterday, while trawling about on a Google Alert, I came across the news that a site that sounds very like mine is about to be launched. I immediately wailed aloud, so to speak, on my ePublisher's notepad on site. The pre-launch page of the competitor's site gave an excellent impression. It is clearly backed by highly professional and well-funded people. A Goliath to my David.

But now, this morning, I have come to the conclusion that I must have a shoeshop-street attitude. The more epublishing ebookstores there are for original work not previously published, we will all benefit. There is a (virtual) question mark at the end of this paragraph.

In any case, I shall think of WritersReadersDirect as the small and select epublishing ebookstore site where I can keep up the standard of the work I publish and maintain a personal touch with writers and readers.

I may be whistling in the dark ......

Seniors appreciate eReaders

I came across a blog today which talked of research carried out by the Kansas City Star Tribune. Apparently, the Kindle is an 'astounding success with seniors ... (because of its) ..portability, accessibility, affordability, readability and availability'.
I like this! It augurs well for publishers of original ebooks. I think Americans (as always) are further ahead in adopting new ways of reading than we are in the UK. Since setting up my digital publishing business, lots of people, not just those designated seniors, have told me firmly that they would never read a novel on screen. Yet if only they were to give it a go, they would discover what a pleasant - and different - experience it is to reading a print book. Both print and digital have their place.

World Books day?

On the Culture Show last night there was a piece about something called World Books Day which will happen in the spring. I listened with puzzlement. What on earth has been dreamt up here? Who by? Twenty five extremely well known books and authors are going to get huge promotion. What's the point of that? If it's the print publishers' wheeze to get new readers, why are they funding an enterprise that doesn't extend the range of available reading material? Let's get new readers by offering entirely new fiction - that is, all the quality fiction that traditional publishers say they cannot afford to take on. Brand new ebooks are the answer!

eBook typos

eBooks can be criticised for the prevalence of typos, and often are. Poorly edited work spoils my enjoyment as a reader. In fact, it can make me throw aside a book in disgust and anger. However, as an ebook publisher it's a different matter. To produce very reasonably priced ebooks from original work fast, I cannot spend time toothcombing each submission. The onus must be on the writer to submit polished work. This is something of a dilemma for me. I want to keep up standards but I also need to generate activity on WritersReadersDirect.