But its not because of technology that e-books are wining, although it helps. Its because of how e-books are changing my relationship with the writers I want to read.

The other thing I have done this evening (other than meet some friends for a drink) is enjoy some social networking. Facebook and Twitter between them are now a regular evening activity, as they are for hundreds of millions of people. I don’t think I need to argue the case for social networks as a major revolution in our cultural lives, as important in the 21st Century as television was in the 20th. Social networks are a different experience for their many different users. If you like music or fashion, your social network will be full of those things. If you like reading, its likely your social network will include many writers.  Certainly mine includes hundreds of writers whose work I love in one way or another.

And more than anything else, its my social network that is driving my reading choices now. The writers whose books and stories I’m reading are also the ones I’m following in the blogosphere, or chatting with on Twitter or Facebook. These social mediums are great for writers, who are perfectly adapted for what is largely a text driven social media world. In social media, writers are able to build a direct relationship with the niche audiences who love their work. Its a model that has been evolving alongside the evolving internet. But it seems to me that e-books have now provided the last piece of the puzzle.

By their nature, social networks are very transitory. They consist of many light-weight relationships, that change quickly over time. If I become interested in a writer through their social network, it does not follow I will go and buy their book in a shop, or even order it online. But there is a good chance I will download a sample chapter from the Kindle store or iBooks. And if the book catches me then, I will definitely buy it. E-books allow a writers social network to directly feed readers towards their books, in a way that paper books really do not. As social networks become ever more central to the work of writers, e-books are becoming the primary way writers get their work to readers.

I’ve been working on the upcoming Writing Industries Conference today, and am happy to say we have already sold out of early bird tickets. I think it’s possible we might sell out of full price tickets before we even announce the programme, so if you are planning to come then get one soon.

Now for two hours work on The Hundredth Master of Ninja Assassin. I want this finished this week. As previously stated you can help me achieve this goal with a well timed nag. Go on, you know you want to.

Elsewhere…

Kat Howard wonders what to read next?

Are Amazon selling 100,000 Kindles a week? Even if they are then the there might be some light at the end of the tunnel for the publishing industry.

After some consideration, I’m no longer expecting an ebook or ereader revolution. Ebooks will slowly grow in popularity as a format, and while there may be a few minor or even major casualties in the print sector, publishers will reach the common sense realisation that it is to their benefit to provide their content in as many formats as they possibly can. The idea that a brand like the Guardian exists purely in print, or even on the web, is already becoming more and more difficult to sustain. Brands, be they national newspapers or bestselling authors, are going to make their work available in every format. I’ll be very surprised if major novels aren’t simultaneously released as print, ebook, audio, blog-serialsation and the rest within the next few years. And in coming years the number of possible formats will multiply massively, until the central function of a publisher will be making contet available through them all.

Of course, the ugly head or Digital Rights Management and Intellectual Property is the boggie man in the corner of my utopian vision. I wonder how long it can be maintained, or will it even manage to cripple the media entirely as it currently threatening?

Either way, its the publishers who should be scared of e-books. And writers who stand to benefit. If a healthy online market place for e-books emerges, it really calls into question what role publishers will play. Publishers, like the major music labels and and film companies, exist only because they have a monopoly on distribution. Internet distribution undermines that monopoly. Over time it will completely destroy it. If I am a happy digital book reader, why would I bother paying the salary of umpteen pointless publishing executives when I can go directly to an authors website and get the same book for a quarter of the price, whilst knowing the author is receiving four times as much as the measly publishers royalty?

One consequence of e-books will be to make almost extinct the the mega-authors of our era. Yes, you’ll still get the occasional Stephen King but the digital marketplace will be much more geared towards serving a multiplicity of niche markets, and will produce a larger number of authors making a living rather than growing rich. Knowing your niche and building a relationship with your readership will be more important than ever. In some ways we are returning to the pre-mass media model of cultural consumption where every village had its own storytellers, musicians and theatre. Of course our villages are not geographically limited, but related instead by shared values and interest. But once again those communities will need artists to articulate their identity. That seems like an exciting prospect to me.