The Competition?

The establishment would have us believe that, as writers, we have to compete and that, regrettably, there is no level playing field on which to conduct the competition. To begin with, just knowing all the rules of the game is an almost impossible task, there is a secret covenant; just when you think you’ve got the rules they change them.

According to the establishment – the established, traditional publishers, the established, traditional media, some of the established, traditionally published authors, all of which make up the established, traditional mind set – there are only so many readers to go around; and they don’t want to share!

So, are we in competition? Are readers a finite resource? I’ll leave those questions hanging for the moment.

For most of us, writing is not an option; compulsion more accurately describes the condition, or state of being we experience as writers. And we are constantly striving to perfect or, at the very least, improve our ability to produce worthwhile literature that we can share with the world.

First and foremost, writers write for themselves. So, if there was no available media to disseminate our writing to the masses we would write anyway. Maybe some of us (without the audience) wouldn’t write as much; perhaps some of us (without the scrutiny) wouldn’t write as well (I’m not totally convinced of either of those hypotheses by the way), but we would write, almost every last one of us would continue to write.

Writers, as with individuals, are all different. There are numerous writers’ communities, online and otherwise, which are mostly peopled by independent authors and, depending on wants and or needs, those communities all serve a purpose. Indeed, many writers and independent authors belong to several groups; the needs of an individual author may vary vastly, be that skills and or knowledge based needs and or wants, or more social and or psychological support based needs and or wants.

With the constantly changing face of the publishing industry (the term even conjures up a different animal than it did ten years ago) I’m not even sure everyone is talking about the same thing. Going back to the statement at the beginning of the post, and the questions I left unanswered in the second paragraph: the establishment want us (us being, all authors – traditional and independent – and writers who would be authors) to think that we are in competition with each other for a finite resource.

From 1982 until 2002 statistics indicated that there was a 20% decrease in the reading public; however, since 2002, there has been a rapid increase in reading for entertainment, and statistics indicate that the marked increase is aligned with the eBook revolution, and it is still climbing quite rapidly. So, a finite resource? I don’t think so!

The competition? Here at Indies Unlimited, for instance, we have an abundance of talented, accomplished authors with an accumulative plethora of skills and knowledge, and a veritable mountain of published material. Here at IU we exchange ideas and philosophies, and by sharing our expertise, and the stories of our own particular experiences on the Indie route, we attempt to smooth the road as best we can for our fellow Indie travellers: encouraging them to be the very best they can be; furthering the Indie cause. There is a competition, a challenge to meet; however, it is with ourselves: to keep on growing and learning and always to be the very best that we can be.

Author: T.D. McKinnon

Scottish author T.D.McKinnon ‘Survived the Battleground of Childhood’ in the coal mining communities of Scotland and England before joining the British Parachute Regiment at fifteen where he remained for five years. He has trained in the martial arts for most of his life and had five Karate schools in Scotland before immigrating to Australia. He writes across several genres and has completed five books that are all available as eBooks. He lives in Tasmania, Australia with his wife. Learn more about T.D.McKinnon at his website and Amazon author page.

16 thoughts on “The Competition?”

  1. Agreed, T.D. And the stat that reading has increased with the advent of e-readers is good news. Your remark about IU reminds me of a line in an old song (most of you won’t remember) – a happy little song. “We belong to a mutual admiration society …..” And it’s a great one.

  2. Great post. I really like your comments about how writers would write with or without an audience. It’s easy to get so caught up in the marketing/indie publishing game that you forget why you started.

    I agree that there is plenty of room for all of us and the competition is really with ourselves. I’m always trying to make my next book better than my last 🙂

  3. The notion of writers as being in competition for readers is one of the most pernicious and obnoxious ideas that has crept into publishing and is symptomatic of the dire lack of imagination within the industry. This originates from people who seem to think we all read the same kind of book. There may be people who read nothing but a very specific kind of fiction, but even they will want new things all the time (unless they are so obsessive they stick to a single author or a single book). There are elements of competition – I have to choose between books because (a) there are only six hours in each day that I can devote to reading and (b) I only have so much money and (c) I’m running out of wall space against which to build shelves; agents will only take on so many clients; publishers will only take on so many clients. But readers… millions of them, always on the lookout for something new, and many millions more to be tempted towards books for the first time. Competition will only kick in when everyone on the planet reads on a regular basis and there are more than enough writers to supply their needs. That day is a good few millennia in the future.

  5. Excellent post, T.D.; it is very important to remember what “competition” means in this publishing revolution. Thanks for spelling it out

  6. Great post, TD.Although I’m struggling with whether or not I agree that their isn’t a competition, I think it is correct to not view it as one. By cooperating through all the ways you’ve outlined, indie authors are helping expand the market and “raising all the boats.” I’ve seen it described as “cooperative competition.”

  7. Thanks for your insight, TD, you make some great points.
    When I’m writing I don’t/can’t think of it as a competition. If I did that during the process I shudder to think what I’d produce. But, I’m an indie author who self-publishes, so when I put on my publisher hat then there is an element of competition. For me, there has to be or this just doesn’t work. There are tons of readers out there and I agree with Lilian, I’m reading way more in the past couple of years since I started reading ebooks, so I totally believe that there will be more and more people wanting and reading books in the future.
    It’s just how, as self-publishers, we approach it. There’s no reason that it can’t be a healthy competition, and I love the fact that the more progressive indie authors pay it forward and pool ideas, much the way we do here at IU.
    It’s just a fact of life that businesses function by competing for clients.
    Just my two cents.

  8. I read far more books now that I have my Kindle than I did before I got it, perhaps five to ten times as many, and I suspect a lot of e-book readers do as well, so, I agree that the market isn’t nearly as limited as it once was. In terms of perceiving other writers as competition, it is sometimes more productive to perceive him or her as an ally. For example, I wrote a book about the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage, a subject on which little historical fiction has been written. When I discovered another book written about the Punic war, and it was well written, I wrote a glowing review of it for Amazon. I figure that if a reader reads this book and develops an interest in the subject of the Punic wars, he or she will be much more likely to read my book as well. It isn’t always a good idea to try to put down your competition.

  9. Great insight. And a refreshing antidote to all those “the glut of tacky indie writers’ incompetent books is ruining things for everybody” hysterics we see so much of online.

    The whole idea that writers are in competition with each other doesn’t shake out when viewed from business/econ side of things.
    Sure Pepsi and Coke or Bud and Miller are competitors, but even they realize that all advertising and acceptance of consumption helps them all.
    You don’t see four gas stations on a corner because the competiion is hurting them. If that were the case, they’d build further apart.

    In the same spirit as the truism “The problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity”, the problem isn’t people buying somebody other author’s books: it’s people not buying books.

  10. Good stuff, T.D. I think, as authors, we’re in a weird little pocket of capitalism: producing the same kind of widgets as each other (books, whether digital or dead-tree), but each of our books is a unique product. We’re not in competition with each other in the same way that, say, Coke is in competition with Pepsi. And when we band together, we are indeed a rising tide that lifts all of us.

  12. Thank you all for dropping in, and sorry for my late appearance; it might be Sunday where most of you are but it’s Monday here and it’s been a busy day for me. As usual, I’m acknowledging everyone from here because I can never get the individual buttons to work.

    Yvonne: I remembered, vaguely, the title of the song, ‘We belong to a mutual admiration society’, and somewhere back in the dim, mists of my memory I recalled part of a melody, so I Googled it; it was apparently number one in the popular music charts in 1956 in the UK, I must have heard it playing on radio when I was about six years old, the BBC was all we had in the UK at that time. And yes, it does fit us nicely. Thank you so much for dropping by, Yvonne.

    Melissa: yes, so much to do as all of the publishing, marketing and bottle washing et cetera falls to us, but let us not forget that we are, first and foremost, about the writing. Thank you so much for dropping by, Melissa.

    Charlie: thank you for your input; I’m glad that I have struck a parallel note with so many fellow writers. Six hours… Wow! I envy you, I truly do; I would be lucky to fit in an hour and a bit each day at the moment. If I ever take a day off though, I spend the entire day reading. Thank you so much for dropping by, Charlie.

    Lilian: exactly so, with the eBook revolution getting into full swing, and reading becoming a really inexpensive pastime (and of course space not being a problem), more people are reading, and readers are reading more books, and becoming more discerning. Like I said, as writers, we must be the best we can be. Thank you so much for dropping by, Lilian.

    Chris: we, who write these articles, know that most of the time what we are doing is gently reminding ourselves, as much as anyone else who happens to read them, in whatever way best relates to us, what we need to do to better ourselves as writers; therefore, furthering the Indie cause. Thank you so much for dropping by, Chris.
    Big Al: I do see your argument, and to a point I agree; however, I can’t for the life of me see how anything I write would be in direct competition with anything that you, or Chris, or Yvonne, or Melissa, or Martin, or Stephen King, or in fact any other writer on the planet writes. I believe that the competition between us is to produce the very best writing that we can, so that we can make available to the reading public the widest variety, from the broadest, diverse perspectives that we are able to; giving the reader choices, not based on writing standards, founded on what a book has to offer: in regards to what the reader wants or needs. Thank you so much for dropping by, Big Al.
    Martin: I think the point you are, or seem to be, making is similar to big Al’s, and I would therefore respond in a similar way; however, perhaps there is a slight difference in your divergence, conceivably we are talking about a difference in ideologies? As writer/author/artists we probably share a similar, if not identical, approach; however, as business people, that might not, necessarily be the case. We both agree that IU is a terrific place to belong though. Thank you so much for dropping by, Martin.

    Robin: I agree with all of your response, which you emphasised beautifully by your explanation of your reasoning and actions in regards to that other work on the Punic war, demonstrating the importance of having a supportive rather than competitive angle on what it is that we do as authors. Thank you so much for dropping by, Robin.

    Linton: as erudite as ever; the eRevolution is the shot in the arm the literary industry has needed for a long time. Thank you so much for dropping by, Lin.

    Lynne: beautifully said, and here at IU we ride a particularly splendid wave. Thank you so much for dropping by, Lynne.

    Laurie: you’re right, she did didn’t she, and your hamburgers analogy fits well too! Thank you so much for dropping by, Laurie.

  16. Never mind, Lois, it’s the thought that counts, thank you for that, thank you for the compliment on the photos and, most of all, thank you very much for taking the time to drop by, Lois.

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