This morning on BBC Breakfast they had a piece on ebooks. At least that is what they said it was about. In actual fact, when the piece actually came on, they had two authors who were quite clearly talking about the self published e book market. No mention was made of any publishers, either small or bix six, doing ebooks.
Now, since it is clear that this blatant misconception about the nature of both self publishing and e-publishing has apparently now hit the mainstream (if BBC Breakfast are talking about it, trust me its mainstream...) are there any strategies that we as writers can do to ensure that accurate information is out there? It concerns me that there seems to be this assumption by many that:
- All self publishing is done on ebooks (its not, many do print too)
- All ebooks are self published (they are not, there are many small press who do a lot of ebooks and you can get a hell of a lot of traditionally published books on ebooks now too).
I could also add to this that there are many classics out on ebook - not only the free ones that Amazon throw out but from places like Project Gutenberg - which surely is something that might encourage people to support the ebook as a concept (since the majority of journalistic coverage seems to be 'bookshops closing down! Ebooks killing publishers!' and other negative things....)*
So... what can we do to inform and educate? SHOULD we inform and educate?
* I don't necessarily disagree with these points, though I don't think it is as simple as all that either...
Now, since it is clear that this blatant misconception about the nature of both self publishing and e-publishing has apparently now hit the mainstream (if BBC Breakfast are talking about it, trust me its mainstream...) are there any strategies that we as writers can do to ensure that accurate information is out there? It concerns me that there seems to be this assumption by many that:
- All self publishing is done on ebooks (its not, many do print too)
- All ebooks are self published (they are not, there are many small press who do a lot of ebooks and you can get a hell of a lot of traditionally published books on ebooks now too).
I could also add to this that there are many classics out on ebook - not only the free ones that Amazon throw out but from places like Project Gutenberg - which surely is something that might encourage people to support the ebook as a concept (since the majority of journalistic coverage seems to be 'bookshops closing down! Ebooks killing publishers!' and other negative things....)*
So... what can we do to inform and educate? SHOULD we inform and educate?
* I don't necessarily disagree with these points, though I don't think it is as simple as all that either...