Digital or Paper: What's Your Preference?

There's a storm on the horizon of the publishing world - though some would say it's a lot closer than that. What's it about? The impact of digital publishing on the traditionally paper-dominated publishing industry.

Writers, agents and publishers are all angsting about it, tweeting about it and crystal ball gazing about it. As indeed they might, because it's their livelihoods at stake. Will e-publishing be the death knell for paper books? Or is it just a fad, a bit player in a mammoth market?

One thing's certain: nobody knows.

But everyone's got an opinion. And it seems to me (if I didn't already know it) I must be nuts to want a career in writing right now. Not only do I have to overcome my own inferiority complex, the futility of the slushpile, the multiple (read: hundreds of) rejections, the need to be a marketing expert - now I'm not even sure what 'publishing' means any more.

I always hoped I'd be published one day, that I'd hold my book, see my name on the spine. E-publishing didn't even cross my mind. It doesn't really count as 'published', right?

Wrong. E-published equals published. But - and here's the thing - e-publishing makes it easy for people to self-publish. Anyone can do it. I could upload my manuscript to Kindle and start selling it tomorrow if I wanted. Do I want to? Um... I'm not sure. There are lots of factors to consider - some I'm already aware of, but plenty of others I'm not, I bet. So, for now, I'm going to play a fence-sitting game.

Which probably means, as with most decisions I make, it's the wrong decision and I should've leapt onto the self-publishing train before it gathered speed and left me behind.

Seriously, folks, I was not meant to be rich. I'm not complaining - well, okay, maybe I'm whinging a little - it's just the way it is. Whatever I decide, you should do the opposite and, trust me, you'll be loaded in no time!

Anyway, enough about me and my bank overdraft. What I want to know is this: do you read books in digital format? Leave a comment and tell me yes or no, because I'm keen to see how many of you would currently choose to read e-pubbed books.

Want To Know Why I Haven't Posted Anything Recently?

You’d think God would be kinder to me. I mean, s/he’s thrown half a dozen significant earthquakes at me in the past nine months (hell, by comparison even pregnancy’s fun), and we’re being put through thousands of aftershocks, not to mention the loss of job security. Our city’s broken. Isn’t that enough?

I took on a part-time job. Just a little one. Hell, it barely even counts as a job! But it’s enough to let us have takeaways on a Friday night without a dose of the guilts – and that, folks, is a Big Deal for us just now.

A real job! Excellent idea, I thought. Beloved agreed. The cosmos, apparently, did not.

Within days (it felt like hours), our home turned into a House Of Ill. Drop the ‘Repute’ bit at the end – we’ve been so ill we haven’t had the energy for anything that exciting!

Little Miss Two – croup. Deduct one week.

Little Miss Two – gastro virus. Deduct two days.

Little Miss Two – croup (again). Deduct one week.

Master Seven – croup. Deduct four days.

Me – gastro virus. Deduct two days.

Little Miss Two – bronchio-freakin’-litis, for crying out loud! Deduct one looooong week.

Beloved – sprained ankle. Deduct zero days. No time for sympathy pampering, because…

Master Seven – serious infection. Hospitalisation. Deduct one night’s sleep.

Master Seven – severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea brought on by vicious, kill-the-bug-and-you-with-it antibiotics. Deduct five days.

And somewhere in the middle of all that I have to meet a major deadline in my new job and find time to write.

Guess what fell off the list? (Sigh.)

Post-script. Oh. My. God. Little Miss Two has come down with another cold. If it turns into croup, so help me, I’ll turn to drugs. For me, not her.

Am I the only one this kind of stuff happens to? Please, if life does this to you too - share it with me! Let me know I'm not the only one the cosmos is punishing. Give me permission to overdose on chocolate - or suggest an even better way of drowning my sorrows. :)