International Christian Writers Report, JANUARY 2009
The Changing World of the Writer
What can you do when your dream of writing a book is finally realized, only
to discover that the publishing world has changed and is not interested in
your book? That has been happening a lot to authors recently and is most
disconcerting. There are, however, alternatives to books in getting out your
message, if that is what is really your purpose in writing your book.
Why do I bring up this topic? Christian book publishing had already changed
a lot before the recession began, but change has accelerated because of the
financial pressures of dropping book sales. What are some of the factors
influencing change?
* Changing ownerships, with large secular houses buying up Christian
publishing houses to try to capitalize on the flurry of bestsellers in the
Christian market. They are merely going where they think there is money to
be made.
* While the advent of television did not have the expected negative
effect on book reading, the availability of information and entertainment on
the Internet is impacting available reading time and sources people use to
get their information.
* The extraordinary growth of storage/listening devices like the i-pod
and MP3 is also impinging on reading time. Add amazon.com's Kindle and
Sony's reading instrument and you have a technological change that both
reduces time availability for traditional ways of reading books and
satisfies the need for entertainment.
When a market begins to slip those participating in it have to make changes
to try to regain market share. From the publishers' perspective that means
several things:
* You reduce risk as much as possible by refusing to take on books by
authors who do not have guaranteed sales through their platform. That means
if you are known only locally or regionally, you have an extremely small
chance of your book being published by a royalty publisher.
* Publishers are moving to POD, Kindle and other opportunities to gain
a foothold in the digital information market. Books that were once declared
out of print are now having their "shelf life" extended through these
avenues.
* Authors also have access to these new technologies if all efforts to
enlist a royalty publisher have failed. They are, however, a totally
different world from traditional book sales and require a quite different
marketing approach. Some Christian writers conferences now have workshops on
how to enter these digital markets.
If getting out your message of what it means to be a Christian and live as a
Christian is important, you as a writer will quickly adapt to the new
realities. As I see it, there are two alternatives.
* You can refocus from book writing to article writing. There is still
a wealth of print media available for writers who know what it takes to
write and market articles. The quickest way to discover what those markets
are is to acquire Sally Stuart's Christian Writers Market Guide and spend
some hours in research on what publications are taking your kind of written
material. Print media editors also show up consistently at Christian
writers' conferences in all parts of the country and can be approached on
what they are looking for. The reality is that while as a book author you
might reach 2,500 to 10,000 homes, with an article you can reach up to
100,000 or more homes.
* You can explore the digital world of articles on the Internet. More
and more e-zines are popping up. Most of them still do not reimburse the
author in cash, but do provide writing experience and exposure. Blogs are
also great opportunities to get exposure as a writer.
We live in a fast-moving technological age in terms of information
dissemination. Traditional means are shrinking. Even the newspaper is now an
endangered species. But as writers who are Christian our job is to get the
Word out by whatever means. In reading through 1 Thessalonians in The
Message I was struck by the apostle Paul's admonition in 1 Thessalonians
4:1, "We ask you-urge is more like it-that you keep on doing what we told
you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living,
spirited dance."
If you are interested in some of the changes I have seen in 54 years in
publishing, go to
and the IdeaBlog on the home page.
Les Stobbe, Director
International Christian Writers
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