The only way forward for new writers is digital publishing, says game and novel writer Michael Stackpole. If you want to write for a living, learn to love this post-paper age.
Stackpole gave a seminar titled, “Writing in the post-paper era,” at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH a week ago. His feelings on the subject were made clear immediately when he pointed out that he was the first author to make short stories available through the iPhone App Store. Stackpole is convinced that both established and fledgling authors need to embrace new content delivery methods or fade into irrelevance. In fact, he offered evidence that digital publishing will not only be necessary for authors, but that it will work in their favor.
From Stackpole’s perspective as an established author (more than three dozen published novels, eight of them Star Wars novels), digital publishing offers more control and direct, reliable payments. Selling stories directly though his website generates a payment before the buyer has even finished downloading the story, and the profit margin on even a short story is far higher than on a paper novel. By comparison, the lag time on payments for sales of a hard copy novel is six to nine months, and even then he pretty much has to take the publisher’s word for it that the accounting is accurate.
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