02009 New Year's Resolution #4: A Positive Step Forward
The fourth in my series of 02009 New Year's Resolutions is one that will be very easy to measure my success at. It's a binary proposition. Either I will fulfill it or I won't. There's no grey area here. So, here's my fourth New Year's Resolution of 02009:
I will finish typing and formatting my non-fiction book proposal and I will try to get at least one suitable publisher to entertain it. [The first publisher on my list is Oxford University Press.]
My idea is a stroke of genius. I'm confident in that.
However, there's some possibility that I arrived at it a few years too late. Not, as has happened with some of my best ideas, because somebody else beat me to the punch. Rather, because it is actually starting to look like there's some real chance that the age of the printed book is coming to a close. (Emphasis on "chance".) If "dead tree technology" is on its way out, then my book proposal has a very limited window of time to be of any value whatsoever. My odds of selling the idea to an appropriate publisher is, in my view, highly dependent on that publisher's confidence in the longevity of the book as we know it (printed paper pages bound together). If the publisher is willing to concede defeat to electronic media, then the fight is lost before it begins.
Ah, but there's my famous pessimism creeping in. New Year's Resolutions are about looking forward, full of hope for the future. So, I'm not going to let my pessimism deter me from fulfilling this resolution.
I will finish typing and formatting my non-fiction book proposal and I will try to get at least one suitable publisher to entertain it. [The first publisher on my list is Oxford University Press.]
My idea is a stroke of genius. I'm confident in that.
However, there's some possibility that I arrived at it a few years too late. Not, as has happened with some of my best ideas, because somebody else beat me to the punch. Rather, because it is actually starting to look like there's some real chance that the age of the printed book is coming to a close. (Emphasis on "chance".) If "dead tree technology" is on its way out, then my book proposal has a very limited window of time to be of any value whatsoever. My odds of selling the idea to an appropriate publisher is, in my view, highly dependent on that publisher's confidence in the longevity of the book as we know it (printed paper pages bound together). If the publisher is willing to concede defeat to electronic media, then the fight is lost before it begins.
Ah, but there's my famous pessimism creeping in. New Year's Resolutions are about looking forward, full of hope for the future. So, I'm not going to let my pessimism deter me from fulfilling this resolution.
Don't let the pessimism win! I for one LOVE reading books on my palmpilot BUT I also LOVE reading a dead tree version. In fact, some books are better the old fashioned way.
ReplyDeleteNothing to lose by trying - go for it.