What Would Rip Van Winkle Say?

Kendra Bonnett--Getting Read #10

If I am forced to use just one word to describe the publishing world in 2009, that word has to be CHANGE. And as soon as I’ve uttered it, I’m going to cry foul and demand a second word. What would my second word be? I’m sure you guessed it, EBOOK.

If you doubt me, then imagine what Rip Van Winkle would find upon waking from his 20-year nap. He falls asleep in 1989…probably waiting for his acoustic modem to connect to CompuServe. He awakes to a world of iPods, iPhones, and Kindles. It’s a world where bookstores in the United States are shuttering their doors at a rate of about 400 a year (according to Grant Thorton LLC’s August report on retail, and that number is up 500 percent from 2008). A world of print on demand, Amazon.com, and ebooks…thousands and thousands of ebooks and millions of downloads. 

I love stats for their ability to give a quick view of trends. Here are a few I've corralled for you:

• 3 million smartphone ebook application users (according to Flurry.com book apps overtook game downloads in September) 
• 700,000 is the number of ebooks offered through Barnes & Noble’s new eBookstore (they expect the number to surpass 1 million in 2010) 
• $46.6 million is the third-quarter revenue from ebooks in the United States (from the International Digital Publishing Forum). 
• 3.6 percent is the amount book sales are UP for the year 2009 (so far, according to the Association of American Publishers); we hear so much bad news about book sales, it’s nice to report some good news. 

Join Us in a Discussion on Getting Published

Change and ebooks are big topics in any conversation about publishing…and now a word from our sponsor. Austin, Texas, is the place to be this February 5-7, 2010, when Story Circle Network hosts its Fifth National Women’s Memoir Conference: Stories from the Heart V. You can follow the link to the conference program. This is going to be an exciting conference, filled with hands-on workshops, interesting speakers, and excellent networking opportunities. 

Specifically, I want to draw your attention to the publishing panel discussion on Saturday from 11:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., moderated by Helen Ginger, who in addition to her editorial and marketing services writes one of my favorite blogs, "Straight From Hel." The panelists include my co-author and business partner Matilda Butler, author Susan J. Tweit (whose "Walking Nature Home" also ranks among my favorite blogs), poet and lover of all things western Laurie Wagner Buyer, award-winning journalist Linda Wisniewski, and me. I expect this will be a lively discussion. By my quick count, the six of us have written more than 30 books (and we've all published memoirs), so I think it's fair to say that we have a few stories, and probably even several war wounds, to share.

Do You Have Questions?

With so much going on in the publishing industry, I’m sure you must have questions. So why don’t you share your questions in the form of comments appended to this post. Helen has asked her panelists to suggest topics for our discussion. I thought it would be useful to open that request to all of you.

 

One More Word

I have one more word that I have to use when describing the publishing industry in 2009. But to learn what that is, you must follow this link to my post over on Women’s Memoirs.