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It happened on a city block. It happened in rural farm towns. It went like this:
Mom is home washing, cleaning and cooking. She waits for the sounds of a man shouting his wares outside her kitchen window. She listens for the knock at the door, for the next delivery, the next salesman.
If you can’t get out to the world market … the market will come to you.
A man lumbers down the avenues, a giant suitcase on casters, in tow. It is filled with dresses for the misses and the little girl of the house. They can be purchased “on time,” and there is always a variety of styles and sizes available. Don’t see what you want today? He takes out a little note pad and a number two pencil and puts you in his book. “Next week, I’ll have that one in blue.”
They were the merchants who sold their wares, the milkman who delivered milk, cream, butter and eggs. No equal opportunity for women, it was a postman who carried a heavy bag over his shoulders, and another man who wrote down your weekly insurance payments. One policy for each member of the house. He worked for Metropolitan Life or Prudential. If anyone was lucky enough to own a car, he might be the one to take your weekly payments for the car insurance.
Simple wasn’t it?
Books?
Do you wonder if there was a man who carted books in a horse-drawn carriage? Did he have a designated day to roll down your block with the wonders of Twain or Dickens? Did he carry those dime store novels you were told would rot your brain? No silly, those were in the Five and Ten Cents Store.
Most books were sold in tiny bookstores, or the corner of the drug store, the far wall of the Woolworth. They were borrowed from libraries, and Scholastic reader came directly to your classroom.
Life was so simple then. Writers could knock on a publishers door, introduce themselves and plunk down their 250K word manuscript on the editor’s desk. Then we all grew up and the rule book for the National Football League and Random House changed.
To market, to market to buy a fat pig,
Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.
The way things are sold has also changed. The insurance man doesn’t come to your kitchen and talk to the man of the house about his “coverage” while the little lady is making a plum pudding.
The way we shop has changed. You get on a personal computer, click a mouse and upgrade, order, cancel, pay for or add on to insurance, utilities, cable bundles, buy music, play games, order games, read books, order books, or even buy dresses for the misses or the little girl of the house.
It’s called instant gratification and something about that concept makes some people worry, judge or define when enough is, enough.
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Home again, home again, market is done.
If you can’t get out to the world market … the market will come to you.
Writing and selling, printing and delivering books has changed. Right now we are on the apex of the most important change since chapbooks were replaced by hard covers. More important than when the small presses in rural cities, were replaced by the Big 6, more important than when the little bookstore on the avenue was sucked up by the Brick and Mortar giants.
Oops, the tale is no longer David and Goliath … the tale is a battle to the death of several Goliaths. They are choosing their weapons, defining how you should buy the books you want to read. For those who wish to write books, they are defining how you should publish those books.
I recently read a post by Anna DeStafano: Publishing Isn’t for Sissies: On the Radar. Take the time to read the entire post. You will thank yourself. I site one paragraph.
But this is MY business to manage, not my traditional publisher partners’. I’m convinced (and I’m not the only one) that multiple streams of income are the way through this period of upheaval and change.I’m exercising my more technical skills, “officially” editing now with a digital-first publisher I believe in, one with great distribution, foreign sales, and subsidiary plans and author-focused contract terms. I’m also submitting digital projects that seem to fit that more flexible market better than more traditional avenues (I’m an outside-the-box kinda girl whose creativity frequently doesn’t “fit” an inflexible mold, no matter how hard I might try). While I keep my options open to even more opportunities.
What about those books you want to write?
Voices are echoing in tunnels, shouting from street corners, pushing their carts in your direction. Write, print, publish, market, sell and sweat with ME.
I am on the right side of this debate and I know what’s best. If you go with “them” you can’t be seen by my readers. If you don’t go with “me” you probably aren’t literate enough to lunch with “us.”
Makes me feel ancient, like that old guy in the supermarket who tells you how much he used to pay for milk, cream, butter and eggs.
Oh hell, I’m tired. I think I’ll go outside and wait for the ice cream truck, the Good Human man or the little Italian guy who shaves ice, pours bright liquids over it and calls it an “icie.”
Damn, are they gone too?
Does it all make you think you should roll up your wares and wait for a better day?
fOISinTheCity 