When a glut can spoil the whole barrel

I sense a slowing down of indie book sales; not just
here in the Parker household, but generally across the whole spectrum. I could
be wrong and way off beam, but I have read opinions on the web from people
working at both ends of the publishing industry. In the continuing battle
between Amazon and Hachette, a claim has been made that they are each trying to
eliminate the other. This sounds like one trying to gain a territorial
advantage over the other. The product, i.e. book sales, is being spread too
thinly. I also read yesterday of a publishing company laying off staff and
generally rearranging the furniture because of the sales drop off they are
experiencing. But their genre authors write mainly erotic romance, and it is
there that I suspect the underlying malaise in sales can be found. Since Fifty
Shades of Grey took the world by storm, a lot of writers (hacks?) jumped on the
bandwagon and wrote steamy novels. The result meant the genre was over
populated and effectively sewn up, leaving little room for writers who were
more or less mainstream in this area. Their world has been overtaken and their
market ruined.

It isn’t just the implied overstuffing of that genre
that leads me to think the indie business is going down the tubes for many, low
ranking authors: I believe most of the other genres are suffering too, and the
mainstream publishers are reasserting their dominance. They are responding to
the challenge and reducing their prices, offering quality against quantity; and
once again leaving the low cost indie writer, particularly writers without any
backing, floundering deep amongst the bottom feeders.

Another problem for the writers who publish a book and
hope to see it do well, is the advent of box sets. Just over a year ago I
purchased a box set of nine thrillers. Each one was purported to be a gem: top
of the genre stuff by established thriller writers. I think I read one, got
half-way through a second and realised I’d been sold a dummy. How much did I
pay? $0.99. I won’t buy any more and yet see a definite explosion of box sets
(and not just books by the way).

So what does the future hold? Which is the best way to
sell a book? Well, think about the old days when we had book stores and libraries.
You could go in, browse, flick through the pages and make up your mind. I know,
they exist still but not in the same quantities as they used to. And they exist
on line I hear you say. But how many allow you to browse the entire book? It
should be technologically possible to block several sections of the book while
it is being looked at. The Amazon ‘Look Inside’ facility comes close, but never
enough. So we need some entrepreneur to come up with an on-line library that
stocks quality authors in all genres giving the reader an opportunity to browse
and buy. Would it solve the indie road block? I don’t know, but I would like to
see some significant change where the good stuff comes to the top. An unanswerable
puzzle.

Five weeks to go now and me and Pat will be heading back
to England for good. I hope to reinvigorate my writing career and have some
ideas running around in my head. Finishing my current WIP would help. Wish me
luck!