Remember the movie, “You’ve got Mail”? Meg Ryan, the cute
and perky owner of a small bookstore wages a pointless war against the big-box
bookstore and eventually loses. She gained Tom Hanks in the end, and though he’s
NO Chris Helmsworth, she seems happy. But I digress.
The only bookstore in my city has become a Staples. That in
and of itself is fifty shades of sad. And it got me wondering. If Hollywood was
to do a “You’ve Got Mail 2”, where would we find Joe Fox, the big-box bookstore
owner?
Because the world of online books has literally exploded in the last few years, he
would probably be fixing to close many of the same stores that put the little mom
and pop shops out of business just ten years earlier. Dare I say, Fox books might even be heading
toward bankruptcy and Mr. Fox himself would be looking into to taking a senior
management position at…Staples?
I loathe that my bookstore is gone. I sit with the horse and
buggy bunch, constantly cursing both Amazon.com and the Model T. But as an
author in this brave new world of books, just as the buggy makers, I have to innovate along with the times or
be left in the dust.
My first novel is coming out as an e-book and
Print-on-demand from Amazon, no bookstore necessary- since there’s really not
many even around anymore. I’m lucky enough to have a publisher who is reading
the market and staying slightly ahead of the curve since the publishing world
is changing so quickly. Facebook advertising, website book-tours, the world of traditional
publishing is dying a little more every day.
So, we say one final adieu to the old ways of publishing.
You’ll find me reminiscing fondly about the smell and sights of the good ol’
bookstore, but bravely marching forward into the new world of publishing, and there's nothing traditional about it.
