Merry Christmas everyone!

Hi everyone, welcome to the New Age! Now that all this end-of-the-world rubbish has been kicked to the kerb we can get on with planning for an exciting New Year in 2013.

The pace of change in the publishing world is still increasing. This year saw the Big Six continuing to struggle with their outdated business model, and I suspect the now Big Five will not find things any easier next year unless they embrace radical change. The successful business model in tomorrow’s publishing is a small, nimble company (or individual) who can produce good quality books quickly and economically, and promote them to their target readers using a variety of techniques and channels. Here are some of the options to consider.

The way to achieve meaningful sales – which for New Zealand authors means ebooks and POD – is to have an active online platform. That doesn’t mean you have to spend weeks figuring out how to use your website, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, a blog, LinkedIn, AND a dozen other channels and then sit on your computer for hours a day tweeting and posting to all of them. It does mean that you need to actively engage with strangers online in whatever channel you are comfortable with, exchanging comments, asking questions, and contributing useful information to be shared. Or even reposting some good jokes now and again! All of that gets your name out there and establishes you as a recognised source of good content. And you'll make some good friends.

Many quite ordinary writers have started a blog, posted such good content that they’ve gained a large following, and then gone on to become world authorities in their field. The potential is there for any of us with talent and determination to do the same.

Now that the world seems set to continue for a while, I think making the effort will be worth it. World literary domination in 2013? Who’s with me?!

Wishing all our blog readers a happy and stress-free Christmas and apocalypse-free New Year.