Ha! I went in today to work on my posts for next week and thought I’d already written – and posted – today’s post.  I was in a fog yesterday, since Rachel Wilder is here for two whole weeks of vacation and work, and I have not yet recovered my brain from its preparatory blitz.

That’s one of the changes that’s happened in publishing, which is, after all, the subject of today’s post.  We’ve gotten so electronic, and life has become so 24/7 online access, that the boundaries have blurred between “work” and “play.”  In the old days, when we went on vacation, we went away on vacation – no phone, no laptop, no nothing.  Gradually that changed and now we’ve become a society of communicators – we’re now on, and expected to be available, around the clock.

I think another huge change is the migration to self publishing.  A lot of authors have made the switch in the last 18 months, people who never would have done it even two years ago.  Authors are now learning about balance in the sense that they’re deciding whether or not to go back into working with a house or whether to strike out on their own, or to blend the two depending on the project.

What hasn’t changed is the reader’s thirst for good stuff to read.  Yes, there’ve been some notable “bad books” lately, but let’s face it – readers are educated consumers in the sense that they know what they like, and, frankly, on what they want to spend money.  And that “they” for readers is really a “we,” isn’t it?  I haven’t met a writer yet who isn’t also, and first, a reader.  So we are still looking around for material that will engage us, turn us on, and make us satisfied (which suddenly sounded way more salacious than I meant it).

What about you, Dear Reader?
What changes have you seen in the last few years as regards publishing?