Email, Blogs, Skype and Face-Time: We authors must talk among ourselves.

By Judith Yates Borger
I had my two best e-selling months ever in July and August. I suspect that was because there was a lot of non-epublicity, mostly TV and newspaper, about the launch of my second book in paper, Whose Hand? A Skeeter Hughes Mystery. In another post I'll talk about how I guess -- no one knows for sure -- that paper publicity can work for ebooks.

But for now let's discuss the Kriswrites blogger, who says paper authors who have been fairly successful in the last five to ten years did not do well at all in August. Kris writes a lengthy piece to explain that some authors are thinking hard about ending their writing careers because of the terrible state of paper publishing. Here's an excerpt:

"The editor must do her publisher’s bidding or lose her job. And eventually that wears the editor down. Either she doesn’t care any more or she gets angry at the writers (and their agents) who are the only people she can safely get angry at and still have a job.

But the editor can talk to her colleagues and realize that they’re going through the same tough times. The agents see this happening to client after client and know it has nothing to do with the agenting, so it must be the writers themselves.

But the writers—oh, the writers—they work alone. And often they have no one to talk to. Many writers don’t tell their writing colleagues because these writers don’t want to be perceived as failures. When the writers tell their fans that the next book in a series won’t appear, the fans blame the writer."

It's a fascinating piece and I recommend it. Kris makes two key points: Writers need to talk to each other, honestly, even if they work alone in coffee shops, the library or at home. Being alone doesn't have to be ALONE. There are emails, blogs even Skype and face-time. Writers just have to take advantage of the technology.

But not just in communicating among themselves. Epublishing, Kris points out, may be wrecking paper sales, but boy is it good for authors who embrace it.

Like I said, I had a great July and August.