In the course of some work I’ve been doing on another project, I’ve noticed three things about authors and their websites: first, a lot of authors still don’t have websites; second, some authors think that having a page on their current publisher’s site is sufficient; and, many authors who have websites don’t take them seriously.
Let’s take these in order.
The Oxford Media Works team spent last week at BookExpo America 2006 — an eye-opening experience for more than one reason. We’ve heard rumors that approximately 25,000 people attended BEA, and if you spent any time at all trying to fight your way through crowds in the exhibition hall, you’d probably say that number is low.
There were two aspects of the conference that created a big impression on us. First, he sheer number of books being pitched to book buyers (as opposed to consumers), reviewers, and anyone who slows their pace or catches someone’s eye. Second, the rather last-century relationship the publishing industry has with new media, including, oddly, the Internet.