The Changing World of the Writer

Good perspective from a very experienced Christian agent and former publisher:

Changing World of the Writer

By Les Stobbe
Special to ASSIST News Service

TRYON, NC (ANS) -- Writing books, especially novels, has become a growth industry, with hundreds at each Christian writers’ conference -- and more than 500 at the annual conference of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers).

Yet what can writers do when their dream of writing a book is finally realized, only to discover that the publishing world has changed and is not interested in their book? This situation has been happening frequently to authors recently and is most disconcerting. There are, however, alternatives to books in getting out writers’ messages, if that is their purpose for writing a book.

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 and competing technologies.

What are some of the factors influencing change?

* Changing ownerships, with large general-market 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 players is also affecting reading time. Add Amazon's Kindle, Sony's electronic reader, and Apple’s new devices and you have a technological change that both reduces time available for traditional ways of reading books and satisfies the need for entertainment.

Regaining Market Share

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 taking several steps:

* Reduce risk as much as possible by refusing to take on books by authors who do not have guaranteed sales through their platforms. That means if you are known only locally or regionally, you have only a small chance of your book being published by a royalty publisher.
* Publishers are moving to print on demand, 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 lives 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 quite a different marketing approach. Some Christian writers' conferences now have workshops on how to enter these digital markets.

Adapting to Publishing Realities

If getting out the message of what it means to be a Christian and live as a Christian is important, writers will quickly adapt to the new realities. There are two alternatives to books to do so.

* One, writers 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. Print media editors also show up consistently at Christian writers' conferences in all parts of the country and may be approached on what they are looking for. The reality is that while book authors might reach 2,500 to 10,000 homes, with an article they can reach up to 100,000 or more homes.

* Two, writers can explore the digital world of articles on the Internet. More and more e-zines are popping up. Many of them still do not pay for articles, but they provide writing experience and exposure. Blogs are also great opportunities to get exposure as a writer.

Getting the Word Out

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 Christians, our job is to get the Word out by whatever means we can. In reading through 1 Thessalonians in "The Message", I was. struck by the apostle Paul's admonition in 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 Jiving, spirited dance.”

That is the writer’s challenge in a publishing world that's constantly changing.



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