Saturday, January 8, 2011

New Website for D. Robert Pease

I have finished development of a new site for www.drobertpease.com

If you follow this blog via an RSS feed, please update your link to: http://www.drobertpease.com/rss/blog1504.xml

Finally, if you'd like to have updates forwarded via email, you can sign up on the main blog page. I've moved all old blog postings over to the new site. But I was not able to move the comments over.

Thank you for visiting.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

2010 in Review and Thoughts on 2011

The final tally for the number of books I read in 2010 was a disappointing 18. However, to be fair, I think I probably read more pages in 2010 than I did in 2009 when I read over 30 books. 2010 was all about the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (the last two books being written by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death). Each book hovered around 1,000 pages, so if you consider most books are around 300, then each book in the series counted for three books. Therefore I read more like 45 books over the course of the year.

In writing news I completed the edits on Noah Zarc, Book One, and am now considering options for publication (more news on that later). I also wrote the majority of a new story, called Joey Cola and the Stoat of Many Colors. I am very excited about it, and hope to have it completed and edited by the end of this year.

Things are changing dramatically in the publishing world. I think by the end of 2011 there may be some pretty significant shifts in the book market. Look for big book chains to either scale back their store's offerings, or go out of business altogether. I think it will become harder and harder to just get in your car and drive to a local bookstore and browse. Publishers have to make a change because of the rising power of e-books, and they are fighting it tooth and nail, and in doing so they may just put themselves out of business too. Without publishers, where will bookstores get their books?

The good news is, if you have an e-reader, I think it will get easier to borrow books from the Library. E-Book prices will continue to fall, and e-book lists will continue to grow. By the end of 2011, I imagine the vast majority of books will be available on most e-readers, and some books, by big names, will begin to be released only on e-readers.

I have yet to jump on the e-reader bandwagon myself, simply because I love to have books on my bookshelf, but I can see the writing on the wall (or on my monitor). It will become inevitable, if you want to read, you will need an e-reader. Maybe not this year, but in the next two or three.

It can either be a scary time to be in the publishing business, or it can be exciting. As a writer, I'm beginning to feel excited about the power shift that seems to be taking place. Authors can write a book, and have it in reader's hands in a matter of days or weeks instead of the, literally, years it takes now. So bring it on 2011, I'm looking forward to what you have to offer.