Kobo Writing Life

Sometimes I think I'm the new mascot or salesman for Kobo but they seem to get a lot of what ereaders, both the hardware, Kobo Touch, and the people, want.

They're starting Kobo Writing Life at the end of June.  This is a place were independent authors can get their books published, via Kobo, in 170 countries, while getting, they say, a healthier return on their commissions than other digital publishers, Smashwords and Amazon, promise.  A lot of the smaller details are still withheld, until the big unveiling, I guess, but, once again, Kobo is pushing digital books forward.

With the birth of ereaders and tablets independent authors have moved front and center.  Even some 'dependant' authors, those signed to a contract with a publisher, have found success where success had once been elusive.  Think 'Fifty Shades of Grey' would have been a runaway best seller if people actually had to go to a book store and carry it to the cash desk?  Now, you just press a button on your ereader and you're guilty pleasure has arrived. Funny, I've always used this analogy for the popularity of Britney Spears and Ke$ha.  If you had to carry the album to the front and buy it and then risk the chance that your friends will find it in your car...you would probably pass on the purchase.  But with the iPod, guilty pleasures found their hidey drawer in your bedroom.  Now, it would appear, that the same scenario is playing out with books.  I'm not saying I'm going to write the next 'Grey' novel but what I am saying is that genre is fading.  All those authors out there that never got published because they didn't fit a niche have found a voice, their own.  We have books about S and M, "Fifty Shades of Grey" and children who's mothers think they're demons, and turn out to be correct "Switched" hitting number one on the bestseller list.

I'm pretty eager to give this Writing Life a try myself.  I'll be polishing off a short novella I've written and throwing it to the digital wolves, just to see how things can play out.  My story is a case in point when it comes to defying genre.  It's a gay road trip haunted house story.  I'm sure there's just the spot for that novel at Barnes and Nobel or Chapters...not.