Open Thread!

'Tis the season, mes auteurs, and I've been swamped with meetings and required reading. Thus: open thread!

Ask questions, leave comments, make requests, &c &c. I'll try and pop in from time to time.

Thanks, Nathan

As many of you by now know, mes auteurs, Nathan Bransford is leaving the industry. As he announced on Friday, Nathan has left his position as an agent with Curtis Brown and is now installed as a social media strategist for CNET. (See here for extensive media coverage.) This is what happens, dear readers, when you have INFINITY BILLION BLOG AND TWITTER FOLLOWERS. Seriously. Take notes.

In all seriousness, though, I'd like to take a moment/this blog post to thank Nathan profusely for all the help, advice, information, and kind words he's offered over the past several years. His blog has been indispensable to me since 2007 and was instrumental in my decision to work in the industry; in fact, it's because of Nathan that PMN even exists.

I know all of you, too, have come to depend on Nathan's daily posts for help crafting your query letters, industry news, and encouragement in the face of rejection, and while he's not closing up shop and will continue to post about the industry, it's still a little sad knowing he won't (at least in the foreseeable future) be representing you and your work. As for me, I'm sure I can find someone else to hawk Bros and Vampires and More Bros: Also Some Zombies and Explosions. But it won't be the same.

So in honor of Nathan's nigh-decade-long tenure as a literary agent and his impossibly helpful blog—Prithee, Inform Me, meine Autoren: what's your all-time favorite Bransford blog post? Your most oft-quoted Nathanism? The piece of advice that time and again has helped you put your rejection letters behind you and your keyboard in front of you?

My favorite is Digging for Mushrooms. I'm not sure why—I guess I just like the extended metaphor. Also books. Also mushrooms.

What about you?

Copyright Wrongs Round Up

Friday's round-up, courtesy of Laura:

I want to share something I learned recently, friends and foes. It turns out: everything written on the Internet isn't proprietary, and can be lifted and reprinted elsewhere for free! That's what the editor of Cooks Source told a writer she stole from, at any rate. And it seems like she's been stealing for a while—there's a whole list of jacked material. On a slightly larger scale, Alaa al-Aswany found out that, even though he had not sold Hebrew rights to his famous novel The Yacoubian Building (which is faboosh, FYI), someone translated and distributed it anyway. And people are mad that he's mad, because clearly this is a political issue, not a copyright issue (before anyone says anything, yes, we're all aware that the reasons al-Aswany wouldn't sell Hebrew rights are politically motivated. But that doesn't excuse or justify straight up theft of copyrighted property). Insult to injury: Harry Potter is causing an owl shortage, because people keep stealing owls. Oh, the humanity!

If only we could go back to a simpler age, where Walkmen roam through novels and a 23-year-old Oscar Wilde wants to be famous, or at least notorious. Thank goodness for a love of all things retro, bringing us the PacMan Moleskine (with a super cute video at the link).

Alas, readers, we have to live in the now. The now that brings zooborns to print (oh em gee, baby elephant! baby elephant!) and Vooks to the Kindle. A now in which Gabriel Garcia Marquez is starting a new novel, the damn successful Janet Evanovich is looking for Patterson-esque co-writers, and Cash Money Records is starting up Cash Money Books. It's a time of progress, in which you can sign an e-book or win an award for writing good gay literature for young readers, a time when kids actually are reading, just maybe not in the narrow "only a book" sense.

So buck up, kiddos, and have a nice weekend, curled up with some of the best books of 2010 or a book-based horror movie. Until next week!

World of Tomorrow Week, Part 4 of 4: The Independent Renaissance

Part four of four, meine Autoren! Without further ado—

A Little History

For those who don't remember (though I suspect many of you do), before the late 1970s, independent stores were the primary retailers of books. Where chains (such as Walden Books or B. Dalton) existed, they were mall operations that generally didn't stock a large number of titles; for used, rare, or non-commercial books, independent stores were the way to go.

The '70s saw the purchase of Barnes & Noble by Len Riggio, however, and within a decade he had converted the company into a retail chain. Barnes & Noble bought B. Dalton in 1987, and by the 1990s, Barnes & Noble was the largest book retailer in the United States. Borders Books (which now, more often than not, is accompanied in print mentions by the adjective "beleaguered") evolved more or less contemporaneously, acquiring Walden after itself being acquired by K-Mart.

All this to say: by the 1990s, independent stores had lost their dominance in the market and were being replaced left and right by outlets of the rapidly expanding book store chains. The chains could offer title selections and deep discounts that the indies couldn't, and as a result, the number of independent booksellers has decreased by over 60% over the past twenty years.

On average, that's an independent book store closing every two days.

The Rise of On-Line Retailing

Granted, on-line retailers like Amazon didn't exactly help the situation. Although Amazon didn't become the monolithic book retailer it is today until the early 2000s, the convenience of on-line shopping and deep discounts similar to those offered by the brick-and-mortar chains (not to mention great deals on shipping and, later, aggressive bestseller and e-book pricing) set the stage for phenomenal growth. They are now the largest book retailer in the world and the largest on-line retailer in the United States.

Needless to say, the combination of lower prices, greater selection, and increased convenience offered by chain book stores and on-line retailers took a significant bite out of independent booksellers' bottom lines. Many closed; others contracted. Several that had planned to invest in their businesses by opening additional locations were unable to do so.

The Fall of the Chains

As I mentioned yesterday, right now I'm predicting that the major brick-and-mortar chains will, without significant reallocation of their business to the Internet, be all but gone within a decade. The decrease in physical print runs coupled with the increasing cost of warehousing, shipping, and rent for physical storefronts has already caused store closures for both Borders and Barnes & Noble. As e-books replace physical copies as the go-to format for mass production and consumption, the sprawling physical presence of brick-and-mortar chain retailers will become unnecessary and unsustainable. That is to say: easy come, easy go.

While some think that this will lead to the complete domination of the market by electronic retailers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble's .com operation, I think that consumer demand for physical books (albeit reduced) will remain strong, and physical store locations offering in-person browsing, readings, community events, book signings, and immediate access to used/rare books will ensure the survival of independent book stores. Moreover—if they play their cards right and participate as much as possible in the new media and formats—they could see something of a renaissance.

The Independent Renaissance

Again, as mentioned yesterday (and above), I think independent book stores offer experiences and benefits that are simply unavailable from e-retailers like Amazon. Amazon cannot host authors for readings or signings; it cannot function as a community center; it cannot grant you a quiet space to read or meet friends for coffee.

As the economy begins to recover and the e-revolution continues, I think it's pretty unavoidable that 1.) the chains will continue to close underperforming stores, 2.) existing indepedent book stores will begin to see their sales recover, and 3.) more money will be available for the creation of new small businesses (indie booksellers included).

Beyond this, however, independent stores can take advantage of social networking sites (like Twitter), electronic ordering systems for quick acquisition of new titles from publishers (instead of relying on paper catalogs), and potentially even in-house distribution of POD titles and e-books. This goes back to my theory that, over the next ten years, the industry will see a lot of consolidation; I see no reason why indies can't offer e-books as well as the age-old experience of browsing physical shelves.

The independent book store of tomorrow will be able to cheaply print copies of books that it doesn't have in stock, will be able to offer access to e-books, will promote local authors and host events, and will actively participate in on-line discussions about literature via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. They will adapt to changes in culture and technology, and they will continue to be relevant so long as reading remains relevant.

And despite all the doom and gloom surrounding this industry, remember: reading has been relevant for thousands of years, mes auteurs. That's not about to change anytime soon.

World of Tomorrow Week, Part 3 of 4: The Future

And now, mes auteurs, you're about to embark on a journey through another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next stop: The Twiligh— I mean, publishing world of tomorrow!

(Also, dear readers, please don't think I'm ignoring you by not responding to recent comments on this series. First, it's conference season in the Land of Publishing, so I'm short on time; second, I want to foster as much of a debate between you folks as possible, and it gets complicated if I keep gallivanting into the comment arena to clarify or expound.)

That said—on to the exciting and terrifying future!

The Big Shrink (Publishers)

Over the next decade, I expect publishing to become smaller. Not in the sense that there will be fewer retailers and publishers; on the contrary, I think there will be more (see Consolidation and The Independent Renaissance, below). What I mean to say is: the giants (that is, the Big Six) will need to scale back their operations in order to remain profitable, and this will probably result in a net loss of jobs in the industry.

As the shift to e-books continues, there is/will be a temporary need for more employees at large publishing houses (chiefly for e-book conversion and on-line marketing). As publishers streamline their process, however, not only will they no longer need additional staff for the sale of electronic media, they'll actually need fewer personnel as the print runs and sales of physical books decline. Increases in overall title count may counteract this to some extent, but as everything from production to warehousing scales back, fewer people will be necessary overall.

Additionally, I'm predicting that the industry will consolidate somewhat (see below), meaning that jobs previously offered by publishers may increasingly be available with agencies and retailers.

Consolidation

As print runs decrease and e-books become the norm, it will 1.) be increasingly fiscally feasible for smaller operations to turn out a greater number of books, and 2.) no longer require that there be so much specialization and segmentation within the industry. A new, "boutique" literary enterprise employing a few literary agents, editors, tech gurus, and a small staff of on-line marketing and sales folks will be able to do the e-work currently undertaken by individual agencies, publishers, and retailers. Why sign with an agent, have him/her pitch to a house, and have that house deal with the logistics of selling it through myriad channels (often requiring greatly varied and/or incompatible information and file types) when you can get it all in one place?

Amazon already maintains in-house editors, and the Wylie Agency's Odyssey Editions fiasco telegraphed the intention of (at least some) literary agencies to take on roles that were previously the province of publishers and/or retailers. I think this signals a shift toward greater consolidation in the industry over the next ten years. Whether this means Amazon will be taking unsolicited mss or Simon & Schuster will open their own e-book store remains to be seen, but I think this niche will be filled by companies that already have a strong toehold in the digital market.

The Big Shrink (Retailers)

With the rise of electronic media and on-line retailers like Amazon, brick-and-mortar chains are under enormous pressure to adapt. I've previously likened the current environment to the Cretaceous era immediately preceding the mass extinction event: smaller/independent retailers are the scrappy mammals, brick-and-mortar chains are the dinosaurs, and Amazon (or Internet book retailing in general) is the comet. I don't think this is too hyperbolic.

Unless big chains like Borders—which, according to Publishers Lunch, will be seeing another round of layoffs and store closures—and Barnes & Noble can move a sufficiently large percentage of their business to the Internet, they won't (à mon avis) be around ten years from now. Eventually their operations will shrink to the point where their offering of a physical storefront is outmatched by independent stores' ambience, personality, and community involvement (see below), and they'll likely transform into an all e-operation, selling physical books via the Internet. Since Amazon already does this better than they do, I imagine they'll simply go out of business.

The Independent Renaissance

Finally, meine Autoren, I believe that the combined effects of e-book popularity and brick-and-mortar chain downsizing will lead to a resurgence of the independent book store. Offering everything you can't get from Amazon (locality, community involvement/events, readings, rare or limited edition physical books, &c), they'll expand to fill the roles they lost with the rise of the major chains in the early 1990s. But! More on this tomorrow.

Questions, (dis)agreement, conspiracy theories? To the comments!

World of Tomorrow Week, Part 2 of 4: Self-Publishing

It's no secret how I feel about self-publishing, mes auteurs. Granted, the publishing world of tomorrow is fast approaching, and with the rapid and pervasive transformations currently occurring in the industry, it's not surprising that the arena of self-publishing is also undergoing some changes. Ultimately, however, I still don't think it's a good idea to self-publish your work in an attempt to make money or establish yourself as a legitimate author. Here's why—

Faster ≠ Better

These days, nothing stops you from converting your beloved ms to a .pdf and posting it on your blog for the world to see. Not that many people do this; I'm just saying that if you're looking for quick and dirty, you can self-publish your work in a matter of minutes.

If you want your book to look a little more slick and reach a wider audience, there's a panoply of options open to you, including—but not limited to—Lulu, iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, and (increasingly) Amazon (via CreateSpace). Be forewarned, however, that the vast majority of titles produced via these self-publishers do not compare to their traditionally pusblished counterparts: they are not as well-written, they contain significantly more grammatical errors, and their overall design (typesetting, cover image, &c) are not as good. They also don't sell very well at all (almost all sell fewer than 100 copies).

I'm not blaming the printing technology for the general inferiority of self-published books; devices like the Espresso Book Machine can produce copies virtually identical in quality to mass-produced, traditionally published books in a matter of minutes. Frankly, I'm blaming the self-publishing authors.

You're authors, folks. You're not graphic artists, you're not marketing gurus, you're not salespeople, you're not copywriters. (At least, most of you aren't.) If you're all these things and you've written a very niche book that publishers won't touch, go ahead and self-publish. As usual, I'm not aiming this advice at the outliers: I'm aiming it at the vast majority.

So, by all means, eschew the traditional method of publication and save 18 months (minimum) if you'd rather produce a sub-standard text that no one except your friends and family will read.

This Goes for E-books, Too

More on this below the next header, but just because you're not creating a physical book doesn't mean you should skip traditional publishing altogether (so long as you're writing something you believe will appeal to a wide audience; your family's genealogy or a book that will only appeal to Kazakh agronomists living in Indonesia are good candidates for self-publishing).

As e-books become a larger and larger component of the market, more and more people will flock to e-self-publication as a means of getting their words out there. The more voices there are competing for attention, the more difficult it becomes for any one voice to succeed on its own merits. Not only does your e-book have to be phenomenal, it has to command attention in some way; in other words, someone has to vet it. (More on this under Brand Management and The Democratization of Publishing is a Myth.)

Every Author Needs an Editor

When you write a book for publication, you're creating a text for someone (generally many someones) besides yourself. This means, mes auteurs, that the presentation of your story that seems optimal to you may not be optimal for the greatest number of readers; there are probably a myriad grammatical, typographical, and stylistic errors/problems to which you are blind; and the aspects of your work that you find most clever/entertaining/engaging might distract or turn off a large number of potential fans.

That is to say: you need someone else to read your work before it goes to press.

Not only that, you need (à mon avis) someone who is familiar with the current market, someone who knows the ins and outs of your genre and can speak to what is effective and what isn't, someone with whom to collaborate to produce the best piece of art of which you're capable.

Brand Management

In the world of publishing, meine Autoren, you are the brands. As a début author, your goal is to establish yourself as a brand in your chosen field or genre; you want people to say, "Guys! The next Francisco Battlebro thriller is out!" Or, "Oh man, I just got the new Sylvia P. Conundra mystery from Amazon!" Your reputation as a writer, your name or pseudonym, are social currency in the Land of Books; you need to establish yourself if you want to succeed as a working writer.

Here's where publishing houses come in. When your book comes out from a publisher (big or small, venerable or brand-spanking-new), it says that someone besides you has read your work and loves it. (Or, at the very least, can sell it.) Further, that house is investing in your talent (they paid you instead of the other way 'round, remember?) and wants you to succeed! They want the world to know your name and buy your books and make them (and you) money. That house uses their team of professionals to design, market, and sell your book, and it's their job to help brand you and make you a household name.

When you're flying solo, that's all up to you. And the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, the author who attempts to do this on his or her own does not succeed.

Past Sales Affect Future Sales

Remember BookScan? Well, if you decide to self-publish in any meaningful way and receive an ISBN, BookScan will be able to track your sales. And, as I've mentioned before, a poor sales history can scare off an otherwise interested agent or editor.

If your poor sales are the result of publication through a previous (legitimate) house, you can at least explain to your new agent or editor that those sales were, at least in part, the fault of said publisher (poor positioning, little or no marketing money or co-op, mishandling of stock, &c). If those poor sales are the result of your efforts at self-publication, you've got no one to blame but yourself. Yourself, and the reading masses who you tried to reach directly because agents and editors were keeping you from your adoring public.

The Democratization of Publishing is a Myth

Finally, there seems to be this rumor floating around that the rise of the e-book and the sophistication of current POD systems (where physical books are concerned) will not only make editors, literary agents, and publishing houses obsolete, but will usher in a Golden Age of Publishing where a true merit-based democracy will rule, and the reading public will determine, by show of electronic hands clutching electronic dollars, who will succeed and who won't. No more gatekeepers; no more insiders and outsiders.

Alas, mes auteurs, this myth has existed since the time of Gutenberg (and probably before) and is no closer to reality than it was six hundred years ago.

As I said earlier, the sheer volume of voices competing for attention guarantees that a system of separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff will be necessary. Consumer recommendation systems (like those employed by Amazon) are helpful, but insufficient; people often give five-star and one-star ratings to books for nepotistic, spiteful, or downright bizarre reasons, and while this might not affect titles with large followings (read: established brands), it can wreak havoc on lesser-reviewed titles. Which, if branding is determined by consumer review, will be all of them.

All this to say: there has to be a way of identifying, cultivating, and branding talent such that the fresh, engaging, and important voices are heard, and the rest are left to their own devices. While word of mouth is a necessary condition for this to occur in a free market, I don't think it's sufficient. Another filter is necessary, and that filter is the publisher.

That's all for today, bros and she-bros. Tomorrow: what I think the publishing landscape will look like by the year 2020!

World of Tomorrow Week, Part 1 of 4: eBooks

Happy November, mes auteurs! It's world of tomorrow week here on PMN, and we're kicking off the new month/week/feature with a discussion of that troublesome new(ish) format, that enfant terrible, that enigmatic elephant in the room: the e-book.

A Little History

First, I hesitate to call e-books "new," since they've been around in one form or another since the early 1970s. Granted, they were impossible to read and not exactly portable, but they were there. They became slightly more popular as computer technology improved; I know several people who have been reading them since at least the mid-'90s. However! It's undeniable that the format has undergone a virtual (get it?) renaissance in the past three years due to the release of myriad dedicated e-readers, chief among these Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's nook.

Since 2007, e-book sales have annually been increasing by hundreds of percentage points (that is, doubling, tripling, or more), and these sales have largely been fueled by consumers (like you!) seeking lower prices, more convenience, and greater portability. Physical books aren't seeing anything like this. While I certainly sympathize with those of you who remain unwaveringly supportive of the physical book, I caution you not to do so at the expense of missing out on the digital revolution. Physical books certainly have a place in the market, but e-book market share is growing exponentially. Eschewing them out of nostalgia or spite is, frankly, shooting yourself in the foot.

Pricing

This has been a contentious issue for awhile now. Here are the basics:

· E-books are not free to create. Yes, the overhead associated with creating an e-book is much lower than that for a physical book: the publisher does not have to pay for printing, shipping, or storing physical texts, nor do they have to deal with the expensive specter of returns. However, many mss that are fine to send to the printer for the creation of physical copies are unsuitable for the production of e-books: the flow of text may not translate, facing pages may be split apart, images may need captions added, &c, &c.

Granted, as publishers become more accustomed to preparing mss for e-production, this issue will begin to be dealt with from the get-go, but it's not a factor that can be ignored at present. However—

· E-books should be cheaper than physical books. As a consumer, you're not really buying a book when you purchase an e-book; you're purchasing a permanent license to read that book. Further, while e-books aren't free to create, they are much cheaper, and so it makes sense that the final product should cost less for consumers to purchase.

Here's where I put in my plea for patience, mes auteurs. If you see bizarre pricing on Amazon, or if the e-book somehow costs more than the physical book, or any other aspect of the book's price or availability pisses you off, please do not retaliate against the author by giving the book a one-star review. I understand I'm largely preaching to the choir here, since most (if not all) of you are writers and most (if not all) of you would never do this to a fellow auteur, but it does happen and I do want to discourage this practice.

Example: a publisher who has accepted Apple's agency model is selling an e-book on Amazon. Due to said model, the publisher sells the book through Amazon at a fixed price, which Amazon cannot alter, and Amazon takes a cut on each sale.

The physical book, however, is sold by Amazon on the wholesale model, meaning the publisher sells it to (rather than through) Amazon at a fixed discount, and Amazon can then re-sell the book to consumers at whatever price they want. This means that, occasionally, a physical book can cost less than its e-version. This is mostly Amazon's fault, and only slightly the publisher's (and certainly not the author's).

· The publisher and the retailer have the right to sell an e-book for a profit. It's called capitalism, folks. If a publisher can't sell an e-book at a profit for $2.99 a copy, you're not getting it at that price, no matter how much you carry on. E-retailers like Amazon (in fact, almost exclusively Amazon) have accustomed customers to these prices by selling their e-books (and bestselling physical books) at a loss for years. When publishers assign prices through the agency model, they aren't being greedy when they tell you you can't have a book for $1.99 or $2.99 or $9.99; they're trying to stay in business. Granted, sometimes they do it in confusing and/or stupid ways. Again, however, to quote Bender Bending Rodriguez: the truth is often stupid.

This is one of the most exciting, unpredictable, and (honestly) scary times to be working in publishing, mes auteurs, and a lot of industry insiders (particularly—no ageism intended—the older ones) are bewildered by e-book sales. They're afraid those sales will damage the big chains; they're afraid those sales will destroy the independent book store; they're afraid those sales will eliminate the hardcover or the mass market paperback or physical books altogether; they're afraid they'll lose their jobs. To be fair, in some cases, these fears have a legitimate basis. But I would say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, e-book pricing is determined by numbers and sales projections, not by irrational hand-wringing.

Sales and Distribution

Currently, the e-book market is dominated by Amazon and Barnes & Noble, with a little influence from the Apple iBookstore. As time goes on, however, I fully expect smaller e-book publishers (taking advantage of the minimal overhead and the vast sales floor that is the Internet) to get in on the game. I'll address this later in the week, but I imagine self-publishers and "boutique" e-book publishers (combinations of agencies, small publishing houses, and independent booksellers) will start to gain appreciable market share over the next three to five years.

Keep in mind that all this means maintaining your on-line presence (via your author website, blog, Twitter account, &c) will become increasingly important. If your books are principally being sold via the Internet, you need to be present in and selling yourself via that same medium. This is more important if you're with a smaller house; the branding of the larger houses will help you to some extent, though if you're solidly midlist, don't expect a lot in the way of marketing or co-op.

I don't think the larger houses will start selling directly to consumers, as large e-retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble would retaliate by pulling those publishers' titles from their e-shelves, which (I imagine) would do those publishers more harm than their DTC operation could offset. For better or worse, I think the Big Six are in bed with Amazon for the long haul.

Parity with Physical Books

I've been known to tout the year 2015 as the point in time when e-book sales will reach parity with physical book sales; that is, the point where e-books will comprise 50% of the market. Given the current rate of growth, however, I'm now more inclined to estimate parity occurring in late 2013 or early 2014.

Parity means that fewer physical books will be produced, although I strongly disagree with industry professionals who believe it will be a one-to-one correspondence (e.g. the market can only support 200,000 copies of a given title, so if 100,000 are sold as e-books, only 100,000 will be sold in physical form). I am convinced that hardcover buyers and e-book aficionados are, at least for the time being, almost entirely separate markets, and moreover that e-books are encouraging non-readers to read, not converting current readers wholesale to the e-format. All this to say: greater e-book sales will, à mon avis, mean more sales overall, not the same number of sales split different ways.

What You Can Do

Finally, dear readers, what you can do:

· Make sure there's an e-book. It sounds basic, but it's essential: make sure there's going to be an electronic version of your book. If your agent sells the rights, do your best to make sure those rights are exercised; if you reserve them (which is quickly becoming less and less common), make sure you find someone to sell that e-book for you.

· Get as much e-exposure as possible. Make sure that your e-book is available on the Kindle, the nook, via Google Editions (when it's available), via the publisher's website (if applicable), &c &c. Link to it on your blog, tweet about it, put it on Facebook, keep a permanent link somewhere on your website, and so on. Mention it in guest blog posts, on podcasts, in interviews. You want a digital footprint to rival Bigfoot's.

· Try to ensure the e-book is mentioned wherever the physical book is found. Every time the physical copy is brought up, try to get the e-book plugged as well. While they may (in the near future) be packaged together, the two formats are currently treated as more or less separate. Even a single line reading e-book available will help generate sales. This goes for all electronic and all printed promotional materials.

· Target your audience. Find out from your agent, editor, or publisher who's reading e-books in your genre and target those people. Guest post on blogs they read; try to get advertising on websites they frequent; ask about electronic co-op in the form of e-mail blasts, coupons, and splash pages on e-retailers' sites. E-book fanatics are among the most voracious and loyal readers of all. If you can get them hooked on your book(s), you're advancing your career in a major way.

· Innovate. True, there are a number of genres (such as cookbooks, children's books, art books, and graphic novels) that haven't yet made the leap to the e-book format; it's currently the domain of fiction and narrative non-fiction. However! If we've learned anything from our sojourn through the wond'rous world of electronic media, mes auteurs, it's that the industry is changing rapidly. If you're shopping, say, a picture book, keep in mind that it may be the norm to produce it as an e-book by the time it's represented, sold, and ready for publication. Ditto for other image-heavy or non-traditional media. For all you know, there may be e-pop-up books coming. Remember: at this pivotal stage in the history of publishing, if you're not a step ahead, you're a step behind.

That's all for today, meine Autoren. Tomorrow: self-publishing returns!