Boom in e-books – my way forward

Reported in City & Finance, Daily Mail, August 27: The CEO of Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton is looking forward to tapping into the boom in digital books. ‘Newton believes Britain is “one year behind America”, where e-book sales trebled in the first six months of 2010 to £120m. The report ends, ‘With a £33m warchest, Newton is looking for further acquisitions after beefing up its non-fiction wing following a spate of recent takeovers.’ So small-to-medium publishers had better watch out. I’d like to think his acquisitions would be new authors rather than other publishers, but maybe I’m being a bit naive there.

Anyway, I’m embracing the e-book. I’ll still buy and treasure printed books and wherever possible I’d like to see and hold my books in print, but e-books have their advantages too.

In light of the above, I’ve accepted the job offer of editor made by Gary Dobbs, the chief western editor for Solstice Publishing (pictured right in pensive mode).



Gary achieved the impossible by getting his Black Horse Western Tarnished Star to outsell any other Hale westerns and in record time. His Tainted Archive blog is worth visiting regularly too. He has constantly banged the drum for a western revival in books. And he is the driving force in getting the Edge gritty western series by George G Gilman into e-book format (published by Solstice). This western line for Solstice is shaping up into an exciting project and I’m honoured and pleased to be a part of it.