Publish and perish

A gloomy but relevant article in today's Globe and Mail: Publish, and your book will probably perish. While the examples are mostly Canadian, the situation is the same everywhere. Excerpt:

A book's promotion was also, remembers Toronto-based fiction writer Andrew Pyper, about "sharing rides in Hondas to readings in church basements in small towns" - a phenomenon, after having published four books in the last 12 years, he still deems "the core of the thing." 

Indeed, [Margaret] Atwood - who once, early in her career, did a book signing in the men's socks and underwear section of an Edmonton department store ("I think it was because it was near the escalator") - continues to call publishing "an art and craft with a business component." 

"But now," adds Pyper, "there's this additional virtual [promotion] apparatus of sites and blogs and whatever. ... Do these things actually work? Nobody seems to know."

I sympathize with Atwood: For my first nonfiction book, I was stationed in a Vancouver department store, where someone asked me where the men's shirts were. (The department store, a major national chain, is now defunct.)

Comments

[Mark Irwin]

I found your comments interesting and informative. Having just had published my first novel, the euphoria ofsome good feedback did not last long. I wasquicktofind out that there is indeed a business side to. I wasnot ready fo this. It is ashock and a reality to which I am just now coming to terms.

It would be interesting to hear more about your travails and the successes or not of your efforts.

Mark