The world of books has come to a sad milestone. Borders is liquidating.
For those of you unfamiliar with the intricacies of bankruptcy law, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy involves reorganizing and eliminating debt while continuing to do business. Chapter 7, or liquidation, means all the assets are sold off. The company ceases to exist.
The world of cloth and paper books has suddenly shrunk. Mom-and-pop bookstores have been suffering for years under the onslaught of giant retailers like Barns and Noble and Borders. Amazon originally exacerbated the trend by unifying retail into a single, online distributor.
This is different.
Borders was a bellwether of paper books versus eBooks. Some pundits fear its demise means that paper books have entered an inevitable death spiral. Perhaps this is true, but I’m not sure how dire the situation actually is.
The problem is, paper books are essential to publicity for new titles. How can you have a book signing for an eBook? What possible justification can you have for an author appearance if there’s nothing to buy?
People have suggested putting in an appearance on YouTube, in hopes that it will go viral, thereby building name recognition. My first idea might’ve brought me to the attention of the FBI, who are not known for their humor. I thought reading a passage would be too boring for words. My third idea is frightening, but I just might do it, anyway.
I could do it with a commercial in the form of cover art in the background, or a screen shot at the end, but the whole thing smacks of blatant self-promotion, which, of course, this blog is not. Did I mention that my titles are available on Amazon?
One enterprising eBook romance author got around the dilemma by offering her first book for free as an enticement to buy the others in the series. She was wildly successful. Maybe I’ll try that when the contract runs out with my current publisher.
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