I’m not going to stop because the dinosaurs finally figure out that this is where the audience is moving to. I doubt any of us will.

I agree that Novelr and other sites might not dominate, but this new wave will give you something to build on (what a crazily mixed metaphor!).

My point is that sometimes we think we’re the middle of the digital revolution, and that we’ve got a natural right, being the first ones here. For instance, Chris Al Aswad said in a past comment that Novelr may very well see itself at the center of a digital publishing revolution. Which I didn’t think would be correct to say – because Novelr’s such a small blip in the grand scale of things! Maybe a tugboat in a whirlpool would be a more correct term to use …

Part of what Novelr does is to figure out how to get more people to read web fiction. This cause might well be irrelevant if what I’ve talked above comes true. And it’ll be foolish if we were to coordinate the community without taking into account outside factors – example: how do we best leverage this publishing inflow to benefit as many independent writers as possible? We may not be the biggest players now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t think ahead and prepare to take advantage of the landscape that is to be, no?

Last, but not least, competition has nothing to do with this. What writer, after all, considers his fellow writers as competition? The dynamic we have between writers could perhaps be compared to that between scientists, or artists … but then it’s always been an internal thing in these disciplines …

Okay I think I’ve just shot my argument in the foot.

Let’s be honest. For the most part, our readership is confined to ourselves. We’re reading our own work. The outsider readers are slim, if any. We congratulate each other, we criticize each other, we comment on each others’ blogs. That’s something the publishers won’t really effect, and like Chris says, they may even bring more outside readers in.

There are other platforms like this, albeit without the backing of a major publisher. You can publish your manuscript to Issuu.com and Scribd.com. Thanks for sharing “a working library”. I really like the aesthetic. Guess she designed it herself. Nice, clean presentation.

I guess my response to this is “meh”. I can’t say I ever went in this to “win”, nor do I think a few hundred readers — or even a thousand — is much to talk about, in the big scheme of things. It would be hard to make a living off of that kind of readership, that’s for sure.

If people with money want to start legitimizing this platform, I say more power to them. Frankly, *until* people with money show up to legitimize this platform, the platform is irrelevant. Money isn’t moral — it’s an indication, of collective will. It’s an *effect*, not a cause.

I’m still going to write my stories, and if only a handful of people show up to read them, that’s just fine with me. Though, frankly, if the big guys help teach large numbers of people it is okay and useful to read fiction online, I don’t see how that can be bad for independents looking for an audience.

Really, guys, we’re not that important. We never were. But that’s not to say we should stop what we’re doing.

Chris.