Here We Go Again

Doesn’t every author love to see this? Your book in someone’s handbag.

The picture above – it wont happen soon. That is my first book Mantramala which has just come out in second edition – but in print since its too big a book for ebook. And my only print book is the only book no longer available because – here we go again.

The covid virus lockdown has shaken up the book trade. Bookshops have sadly pulled down their shutters. Books are considered non essentials and so you can’t just order the latest one from your favourite author right now. Well, actually you can – let me explain that.

The book world has split into two and strangely enough the sides seem to diverge even further. I am watching both because I have one foot in either camp. 

It happened with the advent of ebooks. Until then the writers path was very clear – you wrote your book and then you wrote those endless query letters trying not to sound like begging, to agents and publishers. It took me five years to get a publisher for my first book. In those days there was no option but to find a publisher.

Then came the whispers – something was happening which might upend the whole time tested business method. The whisper was about ebooks – and they were unstoppable.

Ebooks hit the book world hard. At first it was nothing but scorn for these impudent intruders. They were regarded rather like mice – a necessary evil you had to live with because there were just too many to exterminate.

There were many and getting to be more and more – and more. I dont know the number but you couldnt stock so many books on shelves even if you turned whole cities into libraries. And they were selling in quantities many did not want to admit.

Many in the old trade pretended they didnt exist. Many readers still dont even know they are an option. The book trade continued. People still bought print books – publishers still printed them.

Until covid brought everything to a dead stop. Bang. That business has run into a wall. There has been nothing like this before – this complete lockdown, the closure of bookstores, the impossibility of delivering print books since the online stores only deliver non essentials. Nothing like this has ever hit the book trade.

Everyone is in the same place, all around the world. Bookshops have closed – some may not open again. Many publishers are closed too – how to print, where to sell from with neither bookshops nor online deliveries functioning. If anything could bring the print book industry to its knees – that was the covid virus. I wonder who will survive – it does seem to me that many won’t.

Okay, let’s be clear – I am talking only about the print book trade. The publishers who did only print may or may not recover.

I am not talking of books because books are doing better than ever. There is another kind of book out there which floats unaffected. Ebooks sales are surging. Even publishers are looking at ebooks now.

Still, even with this standstill there are those who still don’t notice the world of ebooks. To them books are the ones made out of dead trees and glued together with dead animals. Thats a book.

Some readers are complaining, how can they stop delivering books? Even the bookshops are closed. What will we read?

Well, you know that Amazon and others have ebooks right? Do you know that it’s the same book, instantly delivered? The whole same book, in your hands in about a minute?

In the last month I have been asked this multiple times – is it difficult to download an ebook?

I realise the right answer to that is – it’s very difficult. The process itself is simple and anyone can do it. The mindset which allows you to do it is a mountain and going by the way people keep asking that same question year after year – it may well be insurmountable. The ‘I can’t’ barrier is the hardest to overcome. 

As a writer I am hardly affected by this lockdown. My ebooks are available at a click as always. And as a reader, the biggest store in the world is right there and yes, I have bought and borrowed plenty of ebooks to read in this lockdown. 

The best decision I took – five years ago – was to figure out how to publish an ebook on my own, writing, editing, proofing, cover art and uploading. Was it only five years? It seems a lifetime. The learning curve was very steep but very satisfying.

Today, I have 17 ebooks which continue to sell even when the print business has gone to almost zero. All it cost was the effort to write and publish them and, more important, the decision to take the path less trodden which has, yes it has, made all the difference.

Pins on a map

Our third anthology is up, pins on a map, from our very prolific Mumbai group which is just celebrating five years of banter, jokes, coffee, discussions, learning, three anthologies and a blog.

A few hiccups for this antho, but it sorted out in the end. Some great writers sent in poems and pieces about travel, covering most of this wonderful globe. Great reading.

Do take a look. It is available on Amazon as an ebook.

Amazon.in

Amazon.com

Amazon.uk

Lady of the Tree, a short story

Here is the first of many short stories which I am publishing as inexpensive ebooks.  Leading up to novels eventually. This one is fantasy and I had fun both writing the story and doing the otherworldly artwork for the cover.

This is what it is about –

She is the spirit of the tree, the last of her kind. She stayed to help humanity but she has stayed too late. Now she is marooned in an uncaring world. When they come to destroy her, how will she survive?

Amazon.in

Amazon.com

Lots more to come.

Workshop on how to publish your own ebook

Mark this date in your calendar if you always wanted to see your name on a book cover.

 

1st October 2016

at Somaiya Center, Mumbai.

(I will confirm the time and cost or you can check with Somaiya center)

 

I am going to tell you exactly how to publish your own ebook.

 

Today anyone can do it.  The publishing field has leveled out so much that anyone with the desire and the willingness can publish their own ebook.

 

If you are able to do the work yourself, the uploading on the Kindle Direct platform is free and you can earn a large percentage of each sale. Writing and publishing ebooks is very big right now and I can’t think of a better time for you to become an author.

 

Its not a path for everyone.  You have to be willing to put in the time and effort. If you can do that, I can show you how to proceed and make your dream come true.

 

Yes, you can do it yourself. It takes work and careful attention but you can do it. Whether you want to publish just one book of your memoirs or take the tough path to make a career as a writer – it all begins with that first book.

 

This workshop is for you if you want to know the process. Of course, while you can publish your book, getting readers and marketing is a different topic entirely and not covered in this workshop. But I will give you enough to get your started and point our where you can learn more.

 

If you do not want to do the work yourself there are inexpensive alternatives. Don’t believe anyone who tells you it is very expensive. It is either free if you do your own work, or affordable if you get others to do it for you.

 

I have published 6 ebooks on Amazon. The first time I published an ebook it took me a year to figure it out and I gave it to others to upload for me. Now I don’t have to do that.  I published the last five myself, doing the writing, editing, cover and formatting on my own and it did not cost me a thing.

 

I am doing this workshop because people keep asking me how to do it and it needs explanations too detailed to do individually.

 

It’s unlikely that I will do this workshop again soon. I am a working author and  too busy writing books. So, if you are interested. mark this date in your calendar. (I will post the details soon.)

 

Let’s see if I can make it easier for you. See you on the 1st.

This new world of ebooks

I have been publishing ebooks for almost a year and the first thing I realised is that most people don’t even know what ebooks are. I am talking of India and a very modern city like Mumbai.

They say, I would love to read your book but I don’t have a kindle.

Do  you have a smart phone, I ask them.

They do have a smart phone but hold it out helplessly, totally unaware of what to do with it. To make an account and download an ebook is almost beyond their capacities. They ask sons or grand daughters to do it.

Or just shrug because its too complicated to contemplate.

I can understand most people being unaware of the online world, but this applies not just to the usual person who uses an expensive smart phone for nothing but making calls to their children abroad – it applies to other writers as well.

It will take time, especially for writers who have been around for a while but ultimately, they will have to deal with this strange and confusing new world. Their old world is dying. Bookshops are closing. The single narrow and crowded road which lead to a publisher contract is getting lost amid the brand new highways which are opening up for writers. Yes, you can ignore it – but it won’t go away.

In my book club the word ‘book’ still means the print variety. Now, however, a few Kindles have appeared. Most readers still order their print copies online or search the few remaining – and shrinking – bookstores.

I don’t like reading an ebook, its very uncomfortable, some of them say. I like reading a real book.

They are probably hunched in front of a computer unaware that the easiest way to read is an ereader. Or even a smart phone or tablet. No use telling them about it.

It seems that, for most people, the very vast and rapidly overwhelming online ebookstores are invisible. For them its still the few shelves crammed between colouring and children’s books. That space grows smaller as chocolates and gadgets grab the shelves once devoted to shiny new bestsellers.

I have news for all those people.

Ebooks is a one way street. Once you start reading ebooks you are not going back. Once you start writing ebooks, you may add print books or even publisher books, but it will always be ebooks. Like most technological advances it goes only one way.

I am lucky to be here so early when the whale has not turned – though that is due – so I can get a ringside seat as the seasons of writing and publishing change. With one difference. The old ways will not be coming back.

One world will shrink and shrink until its a pale ghost of what it was. The other will expand exponentially until it grows so overwhelmingly huge that it just can’t be ignored. I leave it to you to guess which is which.