Natasza Waters

There are titans vying for control and Indie authors are like the David's of our time. The titans don't go by the names of HarperCollins or Penguin Random House. Those folks are still in shock that we dared to, with the help of Amazon and Smashwords, come forth like a dark horse and break every fence that exists with the e-book phenomena, but they may have the last laugh. Anything that builds too fast can have weak legs and the sheer weight may bring it tumbling down. Thousands of writers have been walking in the desert for years with no home for their novels. Finally, they had a mechanism to share their hard work that had been shunned by the old guard. Even insightful authors who wrote for big houses saw the opportunity. They took their backlists and tried again in the new frontier. Their fans followed. No more waiting two years for a book to be presented into the hands of their readers, and the authors earned most of the marbles. In September, I attended a conference where Mark Coker, the creator of Smashwords, presented an eye-opening speech. Sitting amongst many authors, I listened to an ominous warning: only the best will survive. The Moses (Mark) of the E-publishing world had a few commandments to share, but he also said something far more daunting. The signs are already evident. The time is coming when there will be more books than readers. Only the hum of the air conditioner broke the...