Again
I’ve been lucky in my career. I began writing in the middle of the 1970's fantasy boom. I caught the tail end of the men’s action/adventure books. Then I saddled up for a long ride with Jake Logan and other series westerns. These were all done by traditional publishers selling mass market books in ways that have their roots in the Depression.
The first major change in the business came with the introduction of ebooks. I started putting titles up on Amazon and other indie venues about 15 years ago, with moderate (to no) success. But it was an education I needed in producing the book from the ground up. I coined a term VIPUB–Vertically Integrated Publishing. The author had to do it all. Writing, editing, cover, formatting, publishing and promoting. Along with messy business things like how to take money over the internet (and dealing with state taxes on those sales). The whole enchilada, as we say in New Mexico. That covers a lot of talents/skills and I am not all that good at many of them.
But the major book publishers still provided paying markets. For me, over the past 10 years I increasingly focused on the westerns. But the series began drying up. No more Jake Logans. No more Ralph Comptons.
Smart phones and audio books and Kindles all provided new and different markets, but the bedrock was still the mass market paperback.
Only now that is changing and we need to figure out what to do as authors, selling our own work. If you missed it, this is the Publishers Weekly article that details how the publishers and distributors intend to “winnow” mass market pbs by 2026.
What I read here is that the only print will be trade and hardcover. In 50 years of writing and over 350 titles published, I have had 3 books (2 westerns) that came out first as hardcovers. YMMV. But for me this looks like an asteroid heading for earth (mass markets).
Original anthologies don’t sell well. You know how well you do with original ebooks. Amazon (and others) lets you do Print on Demand. But sales are nowhere near what the major publishers can offer for mass market originals. And we have to do VIPUB. All that work when we could be writing new fiction.
I don’t have any answers how to survive in a world where mass market (and midlist) books disappear. So I am asking for discussion from the rest of the Western Fictioneers. What works best for you? Are your sales of ebooks and others strong? What did you do? Are small presses the answer? Ads, newsletters, giveaways, podcasts, Kickstarter? What formats and lengths and topics are most viable? Is there something you think is a wild idea that’d never work? Please share it. This may be the time for wild and crazy ideas.
We’re all in this writing corral together. Sharing ideas can be the way we all survive the changing markets. What can WF do?
Bob Vardeman
president WF
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