Publishing Perspectives on peddling e-trash

Ivan R. Dee, Now & Then Reader

Our venerable chief editor Ivan R. Dee put his own words out there today with a guest article on Publishing Perspectives.

Speaking of his transition from 30+ years publishing hardcover and paperback serious nonfiction to launching Now and Then Reader and publishing short form nonfiction books and essays for e-readers:

The other day, I was accused by an old publishing friend of traitorous activities. 

Even though I'm digital born and bred, I often feel traitorous as I switch back and forth between unfinished print books that have been lying on my shelf for months and the latest Kindle book I downloaded after reading a review in the New York Times.  From a reader's perspective, it's all about convenience and immediacy. I can read it now.  From a publisher's perspective, it's the same idea.  We can publish it now:

I needn’t remind those in traditional publishing about the agonizingly slow process of contracting for a book, developing the manuscript, seeing it through the editorial and design and manufacturing processes, getting it into the stores with adequate publicity — and finally trying to move it off the bookstore shelves. In my publishing house, once the manuscript was in hand, we usually accomplished this in five to six months — and we pushed. Many publishers of similar serious materials require a year or more  

By contrast, Now and Then can get a long piece ready for publication within two weeks, including editing, cover design, production, and publicity materials. Using two to three people. Compared with book publication, it’s a piece of cake — like the difference between a meal in the Gulag and tea at the Mayfair.

With the actual publishing side of things reduced to a simple, streamlined process, the challenge remains in reaching the audience.  We founded Now and Then Reader on the belief that there is a large audience of serious readers out there.  Recent studies states that the e-reader format itself is helping to nurture and expand the audience for serious reading.  And some would argue that the world will be a better place with more people reading serious nonfiction over novels.  Unfortunately, with the ease of publishing that the new format brings, also comes a deluge of content, good and bad, that readers must wade through to find something worth their while.  The same convenience and immediacy that we herald is actually making the job of finding the reader that much harder.

Sometimes I'm not sure it is possible for topics like ours to stand above the growing fray. But then I'm re-inspired by the words of support we get from new visitors to our site, new readers, new much needed media coverage.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, I have to finish the cover for our next title.

Read Ivan Dee's guest post on Publishing Perspectives.

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Chandos Erwin is the co-founder of Now and Then Reader.  He lives in Venice, California where there are occasional serious reader sightings.