I think it might be time to talk about ebooks. Yes, I know, overkill recently, much? But I’ve been in epublishing for 10 years now, and yes, it has been going that long. Longer, actually.

Recently, folks in the industry have been going nuts about ebooks. As if they’re a brand new thing, as if they invented them, for Heaven’s sake. In my legitimate job, one I haven’t done for years, I was a new market analyst, and they always, always follow the same pattern. What differs is the timing and the detail.

A market starts, and barriers to entry are low. That’s things like quality and consistency of product, so that the early products are often of poor quality and have limited distribution. And no, that’s not always. But the early entrants aren’t the companies who win through. Eventually someone comes along who sees that a quality product that is more easily available will sell more. So the NBI and Triskelions give way to the Ellora’s Cave and the Samhains, the Peaudouces to the Pampers (I did work intensively at the beginning of the disposable nappy market. Sorry and all that, but that’s the other new market I have close knowledge about). Then the big boys, the market leaders, whoever they are, get interested. There are always big boys. Because they have more of an understanding of the market, they have more staying power. And because they only provide the market with acceptable quality, they don’t over-specify, they’re more economically viable. They squeeze margins, and they make their regular suppliers take the new product by rewarding them with preferential rates on the existing ones. They have the money for the massive marketing budgets that new products and markets generally require, both directly in advertising and indirectly in news copy, magazine and TV items and the like. More importantly than initial sales, people come back for more. Depressingly these days it’s getting to be the same conglomerates – the Colgate Palmolives, the Penguins, and suchlike. They bland the product out, but they also provide consistency, a steady level of quality, and most importantly, the distribution the product needs to get the highest possible audience. Out of every 50 people who look at a product, who are exposed to it (ie who are told it exists) eventually buy. Along with this are the specialists, known to the trade as the niche markets. Sometimes these can become significant. Also the new market entrants can, if they play it canny, become part of the big game, either by partnering with a big name, or by becoming a predator and buying up the faltering marginal companies, the not-quite-there ones.

Look at any market you like and they follow those guidelines. I know, isn’t it depressing to be so predictable? But we are.

So what does it mean to me, as an author?

Very little. I got into the ebook market for very personal reasons, reasons that are so far from general that I don’t know anyone else who has followed the same pattern. I’m British, but I write American, apparently, and poor health drove me to give up working outside the home. Now I’m reasonably healthy again, the market I used to work in has moved on. But I couldn’t stay at home and do domestic stuff, so I moved from being a SAHM to a WAHM. Ebooks meant I was on a level playing field with my stable-mates. I’ve moved from NBI and the other smaller publishers to Ellora’s Cave, Samhain and Loose-Id, so I have a chance. They’re the most savvy epublishers around right now, and proud they picked me (I was always the last at school in sports lessons when they were picking teams! That kind of trauma lasts a long time, y’all). I’ve proved I’m good enough to get that far, and if the publishers keep their nerve and their identity, I have a chance of surviving. I’m already reconciled to seeing the big companies reinvent the wheel and push ebooks into a new, commercial market, one that will replace the loss of print sales. They’ll still be big boys. When smoking became socially unacceptable, the big tobacco companies changed their names and morphed into entertainment companies, with interests in casinos, holiday resorts and suchlike.

It’s been the making of Amazon. A few years ago, Amazon was making a loss on the book side and accounting for 4% of the market. With their aggressive promotion and bold introduction of the Kindle, they’ve claimed a big portion of the distribution market and increased their presence. How long they can hold on to that remains to be seen, but their key so far has been innovation and opportunity. They had an unparalleled distribution network, and apart from a few glitches, they’ve used it well.

But for me, a working author, it doesn’t mean a huge amount. I can do nothing to change how things go. I can just wave and feebly mention that I’m still here and as the market grows, my voice becomes feebler. All I can do is keep writing the stories I love and hope that someone else loves them, too. When I sit down at my computer every day to write, I don’t think “I’m writing an ebook” or “I’m writing a print book.” I just write books and hope that someone will like them. I keep writing and hope someone, somewhere gets as much pleasure out of reading them as I do writing them. Despite working in marketing for many years, I don’t seem to have the knack of selling myself. Which is why I’ve never thought about self-publishing. Frankly, I don’t have the nerve, or the money to throw at it. Or the time, come to that. I want to write.

It’s been brought strongly home to me that for the next few years at any rate, distribution will be the name of the game. The big publishers have some catching up to do, but they have lots of cash to throw at the problem, thanks in part to the pathetic royalty rate for ebook sales that many offer, or have offered in the past. Hopefully that’s about to change. It would be fantastic to see a publisher who honestly considers itself in partnership with the author do well, but that’s my dream. I can do nothing about it. Pushing myself forward, doing endless “buy my book” promos is self-defeating. Trying to be everywhere all the time is also a bit of a hiding to nothing. People don’t always want the author there all the time, intruding between them and their experience of a book. And if they can’t get hold of the book easily, if it’s not available at their choice of store, online or otherwise, they’ll pass. I can do nothing to affect that.

Yes, I’m pessimistic about my own success or otherwise in the long term, but it’s been a hell of a ride. I’ll keep writing, and I’m grateful for what I have. I’m grateful that people actually thought enough of my work to take me on and publish it. I’ll keep reading and sharing my opinions about what I write. I have learned that I have to be true to myself, and write what I love. Frankly, the money isn’t good enough for me to slog books out that I don’t believe in. But it’s good enough for me to worry about losing it. However, that is so not your problem. If you read my books and enjoy them, tell other people that you did. That would help a lot. Kthx. But not ‘bye.’ I’ll be around for a while, writing. “Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh Mr. Gibbon’? Just as well Gibbon kept on scribbling, or we wouldn’t have had “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

Oh yes, and I should mention that I have a new book out. “Hareton Hall.” I absolutely loved writing it, my editor said it was the best Richard and Rose book so far, and I want to do more. You can get it at Samhain.  I’d love to talk about it, but I’m not sure how that will go down, so I wrote a short story to go with it. You can get “Barbara’s Wedding” for free at Smashwords, or for a dollar at Amazon (they wouldn’t let me put it out as a free read).