That is the dilemma that all of us modern, first world residents face. Regarding the blog post picture, it is literally a Schrodinger’s cat dilemma - are you looking at a laptop and a desktop, or two laptops?

I’m overdue for a blog post. I’ve been busy on a project. A writing project. The newest Bruce Highland novel. Most have Bruce flying all over the world. This one is going to be a little bit more local I think. I’m kind of at a crossroads on my writing career. More like over a crossroads. Let me explain.

The traditional method of publishing books is called trade publishing. To get your book published, you do your best to attempt to secure the interests of a literary agent, who will then approach the major publishing firm and try to sell them your work. Don’t even bother to try to do this without an agent, the publishers will laugh at you and have you escorted from the premises by armed security. Well maybe not literally but certainly figuratively.

There are major changes occurring in the publication industry. Publishers are being laid off right and left. Agents are quitting their jobs and going in to new lines of work. What this means is a big rift in the traditional way that books enter the marketplace. A lot of this is due to the fact that self-publishing authors are taking a large share of the marketplace. Yes I’m one of them. But the other thing is that what lead to self-publishing was the advent of ebooks. Ebooks made it possible for an author to publish and submit work to a worldwide audience with little to no cash outlay. The advantage to self-publishing is that anyone can do it. And the disadvantage to self-publishing, is that anyone can do it.

Here in the United States, there is one retailer of ebooks, well, actually commerce in general, and then there is everyone else. You know who I’m talking about. I have about ninety percent of my sales come from the Zon. If you have ninety percent of any income, pursuit, or avenue come from a certain single source, you focus your efforts on that source.

Print books as we know it are dead. And I know that sounds bad and evil, but they aren’t truly ‘dead’, it’s just that technology is changing the way we do things. Face it, a nice, illustrated ‘30’s era book on the American civil war is a far cry from the Dead Sea Scrolls in terms of communications technology, so change isn’t all bad. I don’t know what the future holds out. I suspect that the dime store paperback novels are a thing of the past. You can still buy dime store paperback novels, just not from your dime store. And then, like print newspapers, they will eventually disappear. Those print newspapers that are remaining are struggling. They are staunch holdouts. I like print newspapers, my early jobs as a teen were working in newspapers, as a laborer.

Oh, there’s more. You will notice a crossword puzzle on the screen of my #2 laptop. It’s a Youtube Playable. It’s new, seriously dated, and some of the clues and answers are outright wrong. Clue - Japan is located on what continent? Answer - Asian. Riiiigggght. Dingbats. Still entertaining I guess.