The Publishing industry always had an attire that identified itself differently for the author and the reader…. What happened in recent years with the self-publishing and ‘publish on demand’ services coming up is that attire was removed…. In fact Publishing industry just got out of its shell and became accessible to a wider audience…..
Readers transformed to writers…. Even people who never read much but had an immense amount of experience to share with the world became writers…. People who were able to provide their expertise in practice were able to document it and deliver for the benefit of others… Yes blogging did that too… but publishing is still different from blogging…. If not why do people publish books of their selected blog posts….. There is still a growing passion for the print…..
A blogger is called an online author and a ‘published author’ is a title many would love to have with them… I published my first book in 2011 and then my second in 2012 which was a different gratification after my years of blogging…
Now, one criticism that some highlight is that this service enables more stuff to get published that are not necessarily worth reading…. And I am not saying because my books are the best of its kind…. There are people who liked it and people who did not… But I know it for sure that one won’t publish everything they write…. because I have not published everything that I have written…. I completed my Novel in 2011 as part of the National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) which I did not even edit till now and I know without editing publishing it will be a disaster.. even if people are not tortured, I will be in shame…
Another interesting thing I noted is I did not hire a service of one of the “print on demand” service providers for this, probably my ego suggests I can do it better… but that is a different thing…. But the bottom line is the “print on demand” does not really mean that quality is going down… it just means there are more writers born…… and there are many services beyond the publishing that can help the wannabe writer become a real writer with professional support….
Across the world the busy schedules have seen a decline in readership but people are not losing the touch with the word…. Yes… may be bookshops are closing and the only one left in my town is a “half priced books” store which is always packed with word lovers…. I also see people extensively using Libraries, reading is getting back into people.. a realization that reading opens more human senses than the TV or the laptop….
When I get to the Library and pick usually around 20 books… ranging from poetry to philosophy with a lot of stops at the short story area to talk to Kafka, Chekov, O’ Henry and others I see a whole new world of people connected with words…. Yes tastes are changing…. I still remember trying to get my teen to read Charles Dickens and she came back and said it is so depressing…. Well she did not lose her love for word but I left her to choose her books based on her teacher’s suggestion… she moved into twilight and hunger games and so on…..
The interesting thing is she is also writing as she read….. this just tells me that there is a writer growing in every reader and the blogging and “print on demand” services just make it blossom….
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Vinod Narayan 
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