General information
Writing is both a blessing and a curse. To justify this statement - please direct your attention to the cold, hard facts that face every author in today's world. Most publishing houses are in the business to make money. Nope - that is wrong! All of them are in the business to make money. If they aren't - they won't stay in business very long. The question is - how do they make their money? Either it is by taking a chance on a well known author or by taking a risk on an unknown - who usually pays up front for the priviledge of being published. The up-front expense usually takes the breath away and discourages those who really aren't up to the challenge of getting published. Then after the book is published - you have the added expenses associated with advertisement and getting the word out about your 'new' book. At some of the paper publishers the author ends up paying for a merchandising package and may even have to pay for their own books - in an effort to get the word out.
Choose the Alternative Passage
What does an author do when he/she has a manuscript and is faced with the old-fashioned ways of submissions, waiting, 'It isn't good enough' letters, re-writes, re-submissions, etc.? Can you really blame us for becoming confused and irritated with the overhead that it takes to get a book published? The watchword in the whole process is patience and persistence. It also includes looking for options.
Options is where e-book publishing comes in. There are web sites that provide the option to the author to publish at a low cost to the author. e-books is probably the 'wave of the future' breaking over the publishing world of today. Tomorrow will see bookstores closed and shuttered unless they embrace the 'on-line revolution' that is well on its way.
The Ultimate in 'Do-It Yourself'
Men like Mark Coker at Smashwords.com offered a method of publishing manuscripts that might languish in the depths of oblivion. His company offered the beginning and mid-term authors a way of publishing that was not available previously. Publishing manuscripts as e-books provides a low cost method of 'getting a manuscript published'. That cost is in the form of the ISBN number that is associated with each e-book. The crunching of the manuscript to make it fit all the electronic medium of today is free. The website where the e-books reside is free. The ability to track the number of downloads and sales is free. This is the ultimate device for anyone considering publication of their work. And Dragon's Breath Publishing can help by being a well-known site that offers a spot for writers to publish and advertise their work.As a species, humans have the ability to design and change their environment. Things we accepted as being permanent become refuse for the heap as we move on down the road of our specie's evolution. It is no small wonder that we find ourselves standing at a point where we can possibly leave the trees alone and not continue to use them for publishing our writings. Buy a Kindle Fire, a Nook or an iPad and get involved in the evolution of reading.