Having registered that digital is the busy end of the business, I realised I could do more, and faster, on my own
Historical change … John Pilger in 1979, pictured outside Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum in Vietnam, and a 21st-century ebook reader. Composite: Hulton Deutsch/Sarah Lee
Last year, ebook sales in the United Kingdom more than doubled, as did their share of the entire books market – to almost 15%. Despite an understandable reluctance on the part of many readers to join this revolution (and in time it might well prove to be that) ebooks are here to stay – so why not embrace them and discover the advantages?
As a journalist and author myself, I have done just that. After writing more than 20 books, with major publishers behind them, I have found it increasingly difficult to get new ideas accepted. It is also frustrating as a writer to have a non-fiction book that is up-to-the-minute when "completed", only for it to come out maybe nine months later and seem slightly dated.
So I have ventured into the self-publishing ebook market with Breaking the Silence: The Films of John Pilger. My original book about the journalist's documentaries was published by Bloomsbury in 2001, but that was 12 years ago and Pilger is still going strong, with an even greater body of work. Suggestions that the book might be updated have been declined – the general feeling of publishers seems to be that it has "been done".
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As a journalist and author myself, I have done just that. After writing more than 20 books, with major publishers behind them, I have found it increasingly difficult to get new ideas accepted. It is also frustrating as a writer to have a non-fiction book that is up-to-the-minute when "completed", only for it to come out maybe nine months later and seem slightly dated.
So I have ventured into the self-publishing ebook market with Breaking the Silence: The Films of John Pilger. My original book about the journalist's documentaries was published by Bloomsbury in 2001, but that was 12 years ago and Pilger is still going strong, with an even greater body of work. Suggestions that the book might be updated have been declined – the general feeling of publishers seems to be that it has "been done".
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