Don’t believe all that hype about government interference that is designed to foster an Amazon monopoly of the ebook business. What the six major publishers were alleged to have done was collude in fixing prices that, if true, was a desperate act that they must have known would fall afoul of anti-trust laws.

The new ploy by book publishers is to characterize Amazon as a monopoly poised to take over and dictate terms and run rampant over those who create ebook content. That is like saying Starbucks is a monopoly because it currently dominates the coffee retail business.

As an author who introduced the SONY reader, the very first reading device at the 2007 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show to what was then an indifferent audience, I felt certain that one day e-readers would dominate the marketplace. I thought SONY was really on to something and would one day be the imaginative leader of the ebook industry.

Soon after the SONY launch, Amazon introduced the Kindle and followed through with verve and imagination to become, as we speak, the dominant force in ebook content and sales. I was an evangelist for these devices largely because of the ease of purchase, clarity and wide variety of available content and, above all, convenience, especially for those of us to whom reading is an important part of our lives.

Barnes and Noble, a super successful big-box book chain, apparently saw the advantages of getting into the ebook business early on, created an infrastructure and then, in an act of counter-productive bean cutting, abandoned its ebook business entirely. I remember meeting Steve Riggio, Barnes and Noble’s chief honcho, at the home of the late Bill Riley, one of his board members, and politely chastising him for getting out of that business.

Sure, it was light cocktail chatter, but I could tell that he was contemplating getting back into ebooks. It must have soon become apparent that in order to survive, Riggio had to get into that business, and Barnes and Noble did indeed with its excellent reader, the Nook. Unfortunately, they were late and are now playing catch-up. But to dismiss the Nook as a competitor to the Kindle is to sell Barnes and Noble short. Early on, they revolutionized the book business with their big-box stores and merchandising techniques and will undoubtedly ratchet up the ebook competition.

Then there is Kobo, a Canadian company trying to earn its bones in the business. They have to be counted as a future factor in the competition. There are others, as well, trying to crack into the coming e-reader bonanza.

The introduction of Apple’s iPad gave the publishers, as they might have seen it, leverage to fix their ebook prices. You couldn’t blame them since the challenges posed by ebooks are a very real threat to the profitable print publishing business. I have a feeling they believed that Apple would, like everything they touched, eventually dominate the e-book business as well, hence their alleged collusion.

Although I am an Apple guy and a great admirer and loyal user of their products, I did not think that the iPad would dominate the book business. It doesn’t and, in my opinion, will not. My opinion is based on the fact that the tablet concept is too distractive for the customer, to whom reading is a centerpiece of their leisure activities.

Marketers use a cute term called “immersive reading.” It is redundant. All book reading is immersive and requires from its devotees time and, above all, mental concentration.

Somewhere I read that the great Steve Jobs thought that reading, meaning the content that is defined as “books,” would decline against the onslaught of other cyber activities, which he seemed to deem more important. Indeed, he must have fashioned his foray into the book business with that in mind. With a million distractions now available on the iPad, the so-called “immersive reader” is relegated to be merely one of the pack, with “book” content hardly in the same exclusive domain of a solo device.

I am well aware that Amazon is having great success with its “Fire” tablet. My sense is that it will have exceptional value to Apps Aficionados but might not to book content readers. In my view, those who are repetitive “immersive” readers of all ages will stick with the solo reading device.

What could be a worry for Amazon, Nook, and Kobo would be if Apple decides to come out with its own solo reading device.

I have not dealt with the plight of the author, the creator of the content without which the traditional publishing business would have to close its doors. What could happen is that authors might find it more advantageous to create their own self-publishing business models, which has been my choice, join together to create cooperative ventures, or throw their oar in with numerous enterprises serving authors who have the means to self-publish with all the bells and whistles of traditional publishers.

As it stands now, the publishers are busy scratching their heads and trying to come up with measures to assure their future viability. Someone, perhaps far outside the publishing box or an enterprising author might come up with a business plan that will make economic sense. We shall see.

Fear not. Readers must read. Writers must write. It has always been thus. And creative minds will prevail to eventually figure out ways to bring the two together in ways profitable to each.

Warren Adler is the author of 32 novels and short story collections. His books are published in 25 languages worldwide and several have been adapted to movies, including “The War of the Roses” and “Random Hearts.”

Based on more than a decade’s experience in pioneering e-books and non-traditional methods of publishing non-genre novels, I am embarking on a costly experiment to determine whether it is possible for an author of such works to take control of his own career, increase his readership and beat the odds in an increasingly confusing and destructive traditional publishing environment.

My latest novel The Serpent’s Bite will be published in September by my company Stonehouse Press. It will hopefully establish a new paradigm for an author of numerous novels to continue on a career path in an environment that does not favor an author of non-genre novels.

I define non-genre as mainstream novels, strong on both character and plot that tell stories that offer insightful revelations into the human condition that cannot be slotted into the traditional genre and sub-genre categories such as mysteries, fantasy, thrillers, romance, zombies, vampires, young adult, children’s books and on and on.

My hope is that following my experiment will be instructive to the vast numbers of non-genre novelists who believe their work is worthy of readership by discriminating serious readers, and who are either unknown or, like me, modestly branded but still determined to keep on writing and finding readers.

My objective is to inform, instruct and lay out what I will be doing over the course of a number of blog posts and to keep interested readers up-to-date on my progress and the various strategies to be employed. Essentially this is an experiment in marketing and although it might seem blatantly self-promotional, that is not the final objective of this instruction.

Whether or not my experiment works, to break out of the box will be largely dependent on the size of my investment and the choice of companies I have made to administer this experiment. I have incidentally experimented in other ways, having released five of my books simultaneously with Amazon exclusive, about which I have learned the hazards of multiple releasing.

For this marketing experiment and after careful research, I have hired Greenleaf Book Group for distribution, Media Connect for Public Relations and Verso for advertising. I will keep all those interested in how this is working out in future posts. As a further inducement we will be offering limited free downloads periodically of my earlier works in advance of publication and during the launch phase beginning with The Children of the Roses, the sequel to The War of the Roses. Keeping my back list viable will be an essential part of my promotion.

Beyond that will be the subject matter, style and interest in the novel, which is completely unpredictable and in the end, will decide its sales fate. In my case, I write only what interests me with little thought to its marketability until the book is finished and awaits public exposure.

Everything will be transparent and designed to instruct those who will hopefully profit by my experience or discover its flaws. There is no way to assess whether or not it will succeed or fail.

Below is the present reality that is the fate of the self-published non-genre novelist.

There are thousands of books being published every day, both by traditional publishers large and small and a growing band of intrepid self-publishers. The fiction category is dominated by genre novels.

Among the most successful are “factory” books, published under the name of branded authors who “supervise” and no longer write their books like Patterson, Cussler and many others, some acknowledged, many not. Yes, your favorite author may be a gaggle of ghosts.

The young adult category influenced by the astonishing success of the Harry Potter books and romance fiction aimed at women is currently in vogue for publishers, both traditional and self-published. Vampire and fantasy books are particularly strong.

In the non-fiction category, note the number of best-selling “authors” who flack their largely ghost written or committee written books daily on their own television programs.

Such books by authors branded by other industries, particularly entertainment, politics, finance, news and discussion TV personalities, are now the primary sweet spot for commercially minded publishers. This is why you see so many books by television personalities like O’Reilly and novels by Gingrich, et al, many of them out of context with their day jobs. That kind of “free” promotion is eagerly sought by publishers.

Books by celebrities, mostly ghost written, in categories like children’s books, memoirs and biographies are also the fare of choice by many publishers for their brand recognition sales potential.

The fact is that traditional publishers are reluctant to invest in promoting non-genre novels, especially by non-branded novelists, although they are attempting to brand a very limited number of first time authors hoping for a breakout. Many are quickly abandoned if their books don’t sell.

Even well-known novelists are falling off the sales cliff because of the revving up of technology, the reading tablet distraction factor, the shortening readership concentration spectrum and the swiftly widening generation gap. Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame has been reduced to fifteen seconds.

Add to this the reality that big box bookstores are imploding at a fairly rapid rate, with Borders gone and Barnes and Noble struggling and shifting to their Nook device and beginning to sell products other than books in their stores. Amazon, relentless and creative with its own publishing company, is eating the traditional publisher’s lunch.

Beyond all this gloom and doom meandering is my belief that there is still enough of a robust market out there for emersion reading, for books self-written by serious novelists who wish to engage with serious readers, who look for compelling stories that provide insight into the human condition, excite the psyche and offer a parallel world for people in search of meaning to explore and enjoy.

Serious novelists who self-define themselves in such a category are, of course, opening themselves up to discourse by peers, critics, and academics who believe themselves to be the expert arbiters of such interpretations. But then, that has always been the case. Such folks, who consider themselves keepers of the canon have strong and influential opinions and may look askance at the self-published and ignore their work.

So what is a serious novelist to do to gain readers in the hurly burly unpredictability of this revolutionary phase of modern publishing?

For those who are determined to stay or enter the non genre fiction arena and have exhausted the shrinking traditional publisher route, the only course of action is self-publishing. A giant industry has arisen to guide self-published novelists through the technical shoals to launch their work into cyberspace. This will give the novelist the possibility of discoverability in the huge open landscape of cyberspace.

Finding readers for even the genre self-published novelist is a tough slog. For the non-genre self-published novelist it is like scaling a sheer cliff without climbing equipment. Indeed, the list of free e-books is the fastest growing category of books, offered by writers trying to get a foothold into the reading public.

There is a huge cottage industry promising miraculous sales but in the end, those who have aspirations of self- supported economic independence will most likely be faced with financial disappointment.

Self-published authors will, of course, receive great psychic rewards e.g. the ability to be recognized by peers as an authentic novelist, join groups of common interest with other writers on the vast number of websites where writers with similar yearnings can share conversation and experience, widen one’s circle of readers through book signings, book club discussions, attract local media, and, if really really lucky, generate a following of loyal fans that will provide recognition, favorable feedback, some reviews and personal satisfaction. Not too shabby for hours spent in isolation pursuing one’s artistic bliss.

This is the reality for the self-published writer. My goal will be to help others transcend this outcome, increase their chances of greater visibility and sales and refine ways in which the present and future non-genre novelists will be able to increase their odds of success. In the end, of course, content rules and whether or not, once discovered, the novel connects with the reader will always be the wild card that will determine an author’s success.

Stay tuned.

Download a FREE copy of The Children of the Roses.

A number of years ago, Larry Russell Brown and I met at the Donna Reed Festival in Denison, Iowa. Larry is a songwriter whose credits include such perennial favorites as “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” “C’mon Marianne,” “Knock Three Times,” and many others. We were each invited to speak to high school students as part of the festival.

We had time on our hands, since there was little to do once our talks were over, and would sit around discussing our careers and how we saw our future projects. I told him about the eleven stories that Viking had just published titled “The Sunset Gang.” The president of Viking at the time, Tom Guinzburg, had given the manuscript to his mother to read and he reported that she was so taken with the stories that he just had to publish them.

The fact was that these stories were based upon my own mother’s experiences as a resident of Century Village, a huge community created in West Palm Beach for middle class people like my parents. Many of them were people who were either immigrants or had come to America as children as part of the mass migrations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century from Eastern Europe. They were mostly new residents who had retired to Florida and were bonding together late in life.

After the short story collection was published, Linda Lavin, a superb actress looking for producing projects, was taken with the stories. She had a retired Dad living in Florida and, as a consequence, related to the material. The project was quickly sold to the Public Television Networks and three of the stories were shot on location in Florida. The first of them is titled “Yiddish,” but, although there is an ethnic twist to the trilogy, the stories apply to seniors of all ethnicities.

In my conversations with Larry, I told him about this upcoming project and he reacted by suggesting that we take the material and, using our mutual talents, create a musical. We wrote nineteen songs. Larry wrote wonderful music and I wrote the lyrics and the book. The musical, developed in a number of showcase events, was put on by the Jewish Repertory Theater to full houses and ecstatic audiences. It is now making the rounds of producers. Our hope is that it establishes itself as a classic about how the senior years can be creative, fruitful, and filled with excitement and romance.

The three episodes of the acclaimed trilogy of the Sunset Gang are now online. I will be posting them soon for your enjoyment.

This is one of my favorite songs from our musical collaboration: WE ARE THE SUNSET GANG

Theater Companies, both professional and amateur are welcome to request both the script and all the songs. Inquiries on production of the musical should be directed to Catherine Crow at Catherine@warrenadler.com.

Warren Adler

So now that the pricing structure of e-books has been resolved once and for all, where does that leave the authors, without whom the publishers, their employees, and agents might be on food stamps?

Once the gatekeepers of the printed word, the power of the publishing community has been severely diminished by the indifferent scythe of technology. The e-book intrusion on their vaunted system of cultural filtration has been breached and they are now forced to compete with anyone who believes they have something to say that will add to our knowledge, entertainment and cultural advancement, once the exclusive purview of the publisher-chosen printed book.

For fiction authors who are published by traditional publishers and rely on advances and royalties for their living, the future is dim. There will be exceptions of course, especially in those books that attract youthful, computer-savvy genre readers and in certain categories, like romance fiction, which a largely feminine audience gobbles up like popcorn and currently represents a large chunk of the e-book consumer market.

But the destiny is in the numbers. There are presently multi-thousands of books published every week. This number is sure to rise now that the ease and cost of entering the marketplace has shrunk affordably. A growing portion of these books are self-published by mostly genre fiction authors. Many are priced at 99 cents and still others are given away free by self-published authors hoping to gain reader traction in the process. So far, there is no metric to determine the success or failure of such giveaways.

The best rule of thumb for the marketing of trade books is that 50 percent of readers are persuaded to purchase by publisher advertising and promotion, if any, and the other fifty percent by author familiarity and word of mouth. It is a purely arbitrary number since no one really knows the answer and the variables are legion.

The endurance rate of author popularity will most likely shrink rapidly in the forever-spinning universe of cyberspace. So called “Best Sellers” will have a much shorter lifespan than before. Entrepreneurial authors will proliferate in cyber space, especially in the genre fiction field.

The traditional publishers will probably continue to publish the non-genre authors, especially the serious novelists to whom writing is an artistic calling, as a matter of prestige and devotion, but the advances will, by economic necessity, continue to shrink. But then, serious novelists have always been on the bottom rung of the author income chain and yet continue to pursue their calling, despite the slim odds of making a living, by creating their brand of immersive reading.

Publishers and authors are now scrambling to find the magic bullet that will propel books sales. The process is bound to get hotter now that pricing has become a wild card. There is still, however, some robustness left in the traditional book business. But the changes that are occurring are swift and profound and what’s ahead is, to say the least, challenging.

Unfortunately, the traditional publishers either did not see it coming or did not react fast enough to their changing fortunes. Their reaction comes a bit late in the process as e-books have begun to take hold. Their agency ploy strikes me, with its secrecy and collusion, as a desperate act that they knew would fail.

My guess is that more and more authors will opt for their own promotion and depend on creating circles of interest that could proliferate and help to increase readership. Like everything else, what was once mass has now becoming splintered and fractionalized. Success may soon be measured in more modest terms.

But while my clairvoyance meter has run pretty high when it comes to e-books, I cannot discount the creative imagination that rarely fails to choose a wayward path to another, more satisfactory outcome. The fact is that immersive reading is a powerful motivator and important human need. It has proven its resilience time and time again.

There are certain bedrock givens that continue to stoke my optimism. Stories are created by the author and, however delivered, they are the very essence of human communications. Their value to culture and civilization is immeasurable. A way will be found to fulfill this need and what is important to the human condition will find its way to be profitable.

It is no small thing to write a book. It takes dedication, concentration, discipline, singleness of purpose, long hours of isolation and, above all, ideas. Years ago, before the rise of the Internet and the ease of digitization and the proliferation of e-readers, those who self-published were considered the bottom of the publishing barrel, rejected by mainline and established publishers, ignored by agents and dismissed as ego-centric wannabes.

For many who had hopes and dreams of obtaining authorial credentials by being taken on by the publishers who controlled the marketplace and the distribution chain, the prospects were grim to nil. Publishers and agents relegated their manuscripts to what the industry referred to as the “slush pile” and most, if not all manuscripts, were returned unread by clerks who inserted printed rejection slips and returned the manuscripts in self-postage ready envelopes.

For many, those days are over. The “Vanity press” has morphed into “self-published,” now a reasonably respectable process that allows anyone who writes a book to be digitally “shelved” with those authors who have passed the filters of the traditional publishing companies. The stigma that once relegated the army of “rejected” authors no longer applies.

The motivation to write has not changed. In fact, the new technology has encouraged people who held off pursuing their dreams of authordom for fear of rejection and humiliation to get into the fray, pursue their creative muse and live in hope that somehow, someway, their work would find an audience.

As a pioneer in e-books, I have been astonished by the vast avalanche of authors that have now published outside the well-trod path of the traditional publishers. I should have known. The desire to write, to communicate, to become known, to pursue fame and fortune, however illusive and almost impossible, is something deeply embedded in the human psyche. It is the same impulse that has made Twitter, Facebook and social networking in general an international phenomenon. Notice me. Watch me. Follow me. Here I am.

There is obviously a crying need for people to be seen and heard, to be known, to tell their life story, to chase the goddess of celebrity, to be understood, loved and admired. Millions want their thoughts and experiences to be preserved through the written word, to tell their stories, whether true or imagined, to offer others their point of view, to educate, instruct and elucidate. The urge to communicate is a universal impulse and in a literate society, the most personal way to do this, beyond face to face interaction, is through the written word.

This is not to denigrate other ways of communication through music, art and performance, but the written word is universally available and the means to disseminate these words and package them through technology is simple and affordable. Indeed, a vast network of commercial companies have sprung up to further simplify the process of bringing a manuscript into a respectable product, not unlike those books being published by traditional publishers.

That said, producing a book, whether an e-book or a physical book, is only one part of the process. Since a book is a one-on-one communication system, if it does not attract a reader, it is merely a static artifact. A reader must have a reason to take the time to immerse him or herself in an author’s production.

The obvious task of an author is to produce his or her work and, by using modern technology, make it available. Beyond that, he or she must figure out how to make it discoverable in a pool of millions of available books. Of course, the book must offer something to benefit the reader for his investment of time, whether it be knowledge, insight, entertainment, self-help, a compelling story or something else of perceived value.

In the area of fiction, there are well-worn genre paths. Even children and young adults, stimulated by the extraordinary success of Harry Potter, are getting into the publishing game on their parent’s dime. Why not?

Note I am making no judgments on the quality of these offerings and the demand they fulfill and I am ignoring the value of talent and skill in organizing and creating the manuscript.

The given here is that the urge to write is profound and that there are millions of people worldwide who desperately want to fulfill this need. I suspect that anyone who writes a book, especially novelists, believes in their gut that their book is an important and durable contribution to the genre or the literary canon. I’ll leave such judgments to others.

With fifty thousand books published every week in every category and no self-published books ever going out of “print,” there will be shortly millions upon millions of books of every category available to readers. How will a reader find and choose a book? How will an author get read or recognized? If there was ever an example of the old chestnut, finding a needle in a haystack, this is it.

For the self-published author with no visible track record, no public platform, no branded name, however small, the odds of making a readership dent are long. This does not mean there won’t be psychic pleasures, like being recognized as a genuine author, being given the opportunity to speak at book signings and book clubs, perhaps being interviewed for one’s hometown paper or being asked to a local radio and television show to showcase their book.

For many, that might be more than enough satisfaction. Indeed, there is surely destined to be some self-published author who breaks through every barrier and is lauded and lionized and well rewarded commercially for his achievement. After all, someone does win the lottery.

But beyond the writer’s hopes and dreams, beyond ambition and the secret craving for artistic respect or the thirst for recognition and commercial success, is the personal satisfaction inherent in scaling the toughest climb of all, writing the book in the first place. Just accomplishing that mission alone is certainly worthy of an enthusiastic high five.

Warren Adler’s latest novel “The Serpent’s Bite” will be published in September.

I have been baffled for years over what constitutes the definition of a “literary” novel. Over the course of my career, I have heard numerous definitions, but none quite resonate for me as the one gold standard, definitive answer.

In search of this definition, I am tempted to discount all of the various genre novels, many of which are well written and exemplary, but they do suggest formula and have been slotted by common publishing practice to fit a category that does not suggest “literary.”

Thus, I assume that mysteries, romance, thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, zombie, vampire and various young adult categories and numerous others might be considered out of contention.

Well then, in what category will we put the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories? I’m sure there are other examples.

Most definitions of what constitutes a literary novel stress that the subject matter is strong on character and irony, with lesser emphasis on pure plot and offers more serious explorations of the human condition and is, therefore more meaningful and more philosophical.

Clashing opinions among intellectuals and academics are fiercely subjective and often open to bitter contention. Publishers have timeworn, fixed definitions that they adhere to and propagate as gospel truth. So-called “high brow” readers insist they know it when they read it.

Others will dismiss popular and commercial fiction as non-literary, especially if they are mainstays on best seller lists.

Some will say it is the author’s style, which they will often describe as “lyrical,” that is a key determinant and clue to the literary definition. Others will cite the use of metaphors, similes and references to classics, myths, and symbols as the ultimate marker.

Many point to the so-called “experimental” novel as a prized example of what is literary, which opens up academic questions on literary theory and various academic offshoots that deeply study trends and movements to determine how literature impacts thought, history and civilization.

One might point to James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as the prime examples of the literary novel. In the case of the latter novel, the issue of accessibility comes to mind. Does this mean that a novel that is as inaccessible as Finnegans Wake available to a handful of ardent readers is a prime definition of a literary novel? Is obscurity another marker for a novel that is literary?

As an English major, I understand the wonders and joy of literary scholarship as a lifetime pursuit and have enormous respect for those who live in this splendid world.

Still, the definition is illusive. In terms of the novel, it is easy to dismiss what is popular at the moment as not worthy of being defined as “literary.” Still, some novelists have been enormously popular in their time and well beyond. In the English realm, we have numerous examples, like Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy and others. Then there are those authors that were less popular in their time like the Brontës, Jane Austin, George Meredith and others who have climbed into the literary canon.

Other books have been lifted from obscurity to world wide literary grandeur like Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, which barely sold a few dozen copies when first published. There are numerous other examples, but I will spare readers the historical literary analogies. They are endless.

The definition gets even murkier when time frame makes its entrance. Does durability, for example, constitute an important definition of what is or becomes a literary novel? How does a novel become a classic? Who determines what becomes a classic?

If a novel is studied in schools and has relevance to its time, does that make it a literary novel? Is, therefore, To Kill a Mockingbird a literary novel? It is certainly popular and studied as part of many school curriculums. But then, so is Huckleberry Finn, which has been lauded as the seed from which all American novels spring. Was it conceived by Mark Twain as a literary novel? Is subject matter by itself another clue to what is a literary novel, especially if it deals with human rights or other hot-button issues of our era?

When I was in my late teens, I was in thrall to Thomas Wolfe and gobbled up his books with alacrity and deep devotion. I felt certain he would be celebrated forever as a truly great novelist of the literary variety. Today, he is dismissed by the so-called establishment as over exuberant and wordy, his books overwrought, overblown, over praised and overrated. At some point, I will revisit him and make my own assessment.

John O’Hara was another of my contemporary literary idols. Once popular, he seemed to have fallen over a cliff to obscurity. Would his novels and short stories pass the test of what is “literary”?

On the other hand Hemingway and Fitzgerald seem to continue unabated, both seemingly assured a place as literary icons well beyond their lifetime. Not so Faulkner, who seems, arguably and certainly undeservedly, headed to obscurity.

Perhaps I am straining too hard and put too much emphasis on durability and less on contemporary judgment, which adds to my own confusion on the definition of the literary novel. Does the Nobel Prize for Literature qualify to identify a literary novel? Or does enduring readership? Who but a small coterie of academics remembers Henrik Pontoppidan, Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Salvatore Quasimodo and numerous others? Am I being unfair by going back too far? Probably so.

After all, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Saul Bellow, and numerous other once popular writers were among the Nobel winners. Does such an honor automatically confer literary immortality?

My instinct is to opt for durability as essential to the definition of what is literary. To me, it is the master test and, unfortunately, may take many lifetimes to come up with a truly definitive answer. Indeed many a contemporary, hardworking, serious novelist secretly believes in his gut he might one day make the cut.

Which reminds me of that great quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak to me.”

There are many ways to assess the content of Katherine Boo’s remarkable book Behind the Beautiful Forevers which is about, in general terms, the disenfranchised, struggling, impoverished underclass of India.

Beyond the general however, is the harsh statistic that India contains one-third of the impoverished people on the planet. This, despite a surging Indian middle and upper class that has burnished the reputation of India as a place where democracy has proven its worth and created an economic transformation which has made India a power player on the global chessboard.

Boo focuses on the lives of people living in the rabbit warren of a slum called Annawadi, which is adjacent to the glittering showcase airport of Mumbai and a “Glimmerglass” super luxury Hyatt hotel, but is hidden from view by a large outdoor advertising sign, “Beautiful Forever,” touting Italianate floor tiles.

She tracks the lives of Abdul, his family and his neighbors. Abdul is an entrepreneurial ambitious slumdog teenager who survives by picking through the garbage of the airport and the hotel, and selling it for a pittance to recyclers.

Boo gives us a thoroughly rounded inside glimpse of the thoughts and actions of these people and their hopes and dreams of one day breaking out of their economic imprisonment and finding a better life.

Most are uneducated and refugees from the failed agricultural communities of this vast subcontinent, who have come to the big cities in search of the illusive leg up the economic ladder. All of the families portrayed by Boo are dysfunctional and it is no wonder. They live under the most appalling conditions with little privacy, where early death through suicide, disease and neglect stalks the population who seem to measure their success by how much better off they are than their slum neighbors.

They are plagued by alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, bad health, mental problems and are, in effect, one step from living on the sidewalk. Boo does not spare us these observations, although there is no escaping her love and compassion for these people. Her eagle eye searches above all to illustrate their humanity in the face of staggering poverty and neglect.

While the government, in its alleged wisdom, offers these people some dubious handouts and seems sincere in trying to bring this underclass into some semblance of economic security, one gets the impression that despite their efforts, the culture of corruption that pervades India is the ultimate roadblock to the hopes and dreams of these unfortunate slum dwellers.

Still, according to Boo’s acute observations and thorough research, many of the residents seem to truly believe in the possibility of rising from the horror of their situation by dint of shrewd manipulation, and working through the cracks in the system. The obstacles for such an outcome seem enormous. Nothing moves without bribery. The police are corrupt. The judicial system is corrupt. It is endemic, a way of life.

Somehow, one discovers through Boo’s observations that many of these people, who live like maggots on a decaying corpse, have been convinced that the possibility exists of one day realizing their hopes and dreams. Perhaps, Boo seems to say that for some tiny percentage of these slum dwellers despair is not a final option.

Perhaps Boo, despite her recounting of the appalling circumstance of these people, is crediting the human instinct for survival and a strong belief in the power and resiliency of the human spirit for holding out the possibility that somehow, by some miracle, a few lucky souls will break the chains or this horrific existence and join the economic miracle that some, at least, are enjoying in modern India.

One comes away with admiration for these people whose lives she recounts. But I could not shake the contention that despite all the government of India has tried to rescue this vast horde of impoverishment that lives within its borders, the chances of creating an environment for these people to participate in the good life is not very promising.

The current memoir by a middle-aged woman named Mimi Alford about her affair with President John F. Kennedy when she was a 19-year-old White House intern heralds a new genre in the book business, Lover Lit.

Mrs. Alford’s “coming out” reveals her 18-month sexual escapade with President Kennedy who, she alleges, took her virginity in the First Lady’s bedroom. Contrived to be self-effacing, the book and its author have received kind reviews and interviews, like the one recently in The New York Times that reveals a gushing bouquet of envy by a writer who appears to fondly wish she, too, had parked her shoes at the foot of Kennedy’s bed, any bed.

Considering that John Kennedy was by all accounts a serial adulterer, one can expect a vast series of books to be inflicted on an eagerly awaiting public under the new genre with one overriding theme: “As a young nubile, naïve woman, I was the mistress of a powerful (and very well known) man.”

There is, of course, precedent for such a category, such as the Monica Lewinsky memoir and certainly numerous others, but the Alford memoir seems to offer a unifying content label that can encompass a vast output of sexual “tell-alls” about affairs with horny, dead men of historical importance. Just think of the lineup at Agents’ and Publishers’ offices with outlines of juicy details about bedding down with famous dead men.

Heck, a clever woman or man with a galloping imagination and a zest for research can make a case for herself or himself that might pass as fact.

In the matter of John Kennedy, there are numerous well-known anecdotes about his many seductions using the White House swimming pool as a perfect luring environment. Intimate Kennedy staffers have often told the story of the two girls in the typing pool, dubbed “Fiddle” and “Faddle” who were called upon frequently to utilize their servicing skills for the president’s needs.

Then there is the oft-touted story of his liaison with Judith Campbell Exner, the girlfriend of mob boss Sam Giancana, now deceased, and the one about Ellen Rometsch, the alleged East German spy. Both can be easily packaged in book form.

Dollars to doughnuts, the ladies of his many affairs held dear those eventful trysts and one would think they or their progeny or their best friends would be first on line to peddle an account of their real or faux memories of those halcyon days. As this genre progresses, expect even more intimate details of sexual techniques and preferences to spice up the accounts.

Ahead, too, with women beginning to surge in the political arena, one cannot discount the possibility of lovers surfacing with their own accounts of secret sexual affairs. An entire industry may be aborning.

Having lived in Washington many years and known some of the inside players of the Kennedy era and before and beyond, there are enough stories both hidden and in circulation that would constitute a vast library for this genre. While the Kennedy’s — Dad, John, Teddy and Bobby — may seem like exemplars of the sex gambols, there were others, many, many others, equally blatant, but much more discreet, who used their powerful positions to exercise the venery.

We might even cite historical precedent. Hamilton, Jefferson and Franklin come to mind, but they are merely the tip of the iceberg. Research on this subject would require two lifetimes to pursue.

Aside from politics, insiders in the nation’s capital always knew that sex, in all its manifestations, straight, gay or whatever as currently cataloged in the millions of porno websites on the net, was the coin also of the federal realm.

As a novelist/observer of the many foibles, sexual and otherwise, of our Washington elite, I have recycled my behind-the-scenes knowledge into many of my Washington novels and my Fiona FitzGerald mystery series which deals with the real skinny of life in the political fast lane where the aphrodisiac of power provides a drug of choice to enhance the libido of both genders.

For years, such libidinous acts were off limits for media sleuths and publicity seeking participants wanting their fifteen minutes of fame, but now that the cover has been removed from the once inviolate pressure cooker, the tasty secret brew has exploded into the soup of commercial packaging and nothing will ever be expunged again.

Either Washington has caught up with the times or the times have caught up with Washington. There is no shame in sexual peccadilloes anymore, providing the participants are of legal age. Indeed, perhaps a subgenre is in the spawning stage when the victims of pedophilia, incest and other aberrations open up their own vast library of secrets to the book trade.

Yes, Washington is all screwed up. But then it always has been.

You’ve spent months, perhaps years, composing your novel. You’ve read and reread it hundreds of times. You’ve rethought it, rewritten it, and revised it, changed characters, dialogue, and plot lines. Writing it is the most important thing in your life. The writing of your novel has absorbed your attention, almost exclusively. Both your conscious and your subconscious mind have been obsessed with it. You have read parts of it to your friends, family, former teachers. Most think it’s wonderful.

You have finally considered it finished. Armed with optimism and self-confidence, you obtain a list of agents on the Internet and begin to canvas agents. You agonize over whether to send your precious manuscript to one agent at a time or to a number of agents. You choose the first option.

Just in case, you send it electronically, unsure of whether or not this is now standard practice. You have high hopes. You are aware of the massive changes in the publishing business, but have chosen to take the traditional path as your first option.

Weeks go by, then months. The agents are, you believe, reading it in the office, passing it around, deciding to take it on. You live on such hopes. Finally you call the agent’s office. They haven’t a clue as to who you are. Somehow, they are reminded and search through the piles of manuscripts in their office, find yours and send you back a form letter, perhaps made to look like an original out of politeness.

Well then, you tell yourself, it is only one agent’s opinion. You send it off to another agent. A letter comes back swiftly, similarly worded. You get bolder, send your manuscript to two agents at a time, then three, then every agent you can find. Nothing happens. “Good luck on getting published,” they tell you. “Not for us.” Sometimes there is a personal, scribbled note that says something nice and you live in its glow for days.

Years go by. You start another novel, but you are less optimistic now, less confident, and unsure. You tell yourself you have not paid enough attention to the marketplace. You begin to analyze what is selling, what is not selling, what is being published. You read books on the bestseller lists and are certain you can do a lot better. You try to use these books as a guide to what is selling and you write accordingly. Nothing helps. You are continuously rejected.

You begin to read various pitches on the Internet about how you can publish your own books and get them marketed on electronic venues. Some sites promise that they can get your book in front of movie producers for a price. Some say they have the magic to make you a successful career novelist for a price, of course. For more of a price, you will be told how best to market your book. You debate the idea and as your pile of rejection letters mount, you give it a try.

You spend money. A book is produced in print on demand format and an e-book is created and placed on every electronic sales venue on the net. Your family buys copies and sends them to friends. It is even reviewed in publications that review self-published books for a price. There is a word or two of praise in the review and you send it around to the media and everybody you know. Unfortunately, there is little or no sales, no afterlife.

Despite your confidence in your ability, despite the fact that you truly believe your novel is certainly worthy of publication, you feel the full impact of rejection and failure. Still, you cannot shake the certainty or your talent. You write another novel. Perhaps a third. Perhaps more. You go through the same process. Again and again you are rejected. You begin to question your ability, your ideas, and your talent. Is it a fantasy, an exercise in unrealistic aspirations? You are becoming embittered. Your dream is crashing.

If you are fortunate, your wife, husband, partner, and family stick by you, continue to encourage your dream, help you keep it alive. Other realities begin to chip away at the dream. You have financial obligations. Your kids are growing up. You are losing out in the job market. Others are moving up in their jobs, while you are falling behind.

You feel lost, adrift. Rejection after rejection has beaten you down. You see this as the end of your world, the end of your hopes and dreams. Your high hopes and self-confidence in your own talent is petering away.

What now?

If you’ve read this far without your stomach congealing, I suppose you are awaiting some prescription offering a magic coping pill. Sorry, there isn’t any available your corner drug store. And you won’t find it here. Luck — that strange, illusive, heaven sent, burst of good fortune-has not fired a missile in your direction.

Not yet.

You have three choices. The first is personal surrender. You’ve been on a fool’s errand following an adolescent dream. Time to throw in the towel and concentrate on your day job. At least you tried. The second choice is postponement. You weren’t ready. You needed more experience of life. But you continue to believe it will come. Some talented people are late bloomers. Give the dream a rest. Wishing won’t make it so. There are enough popular clichés to give you courage.

Now, for your third choice, the clincher. It is not recommended for the faint of heart. Never give up. Never, never, never. It may be impractical, unwise, foolish, pure madness, but if you truly believe in yourself, your talent, your ideas, your calling, your personal mission, why not, as Lewis Carroll wrote, “go on until the end, and then stop.”

To do this requires a monumental ego, total self-confidence in your talent, and an unshakeable belief that you have been anointed with the right stuff. You will require obsessive focus, singleness of purpose, a draconian ruthlessness and total devotion to a belief in your artistic ability. Fancy words, I know, but with the absence of luck, you will need these attributes to sustain you through the process.

What this means for the true novelist is that he or she must continue to soldier on, keep writing, keep trying, taking the increasingly painful hits of rejection after rejection until … well, until someone out there catches on … or doesn’t.

We are all waiting for Godot. Sometimes he comes.

For centuries, the author of a book has been a revered figure, a symbol of intellectual achievement, wisdom and wit, brilliance and, above all, prestige. Indeed, the book, whatever its contents, has been an item of iconic significance.

It is no wonder that a large percentage of people want to write a book. Some have motives that their composition in the covers of a book, however defined as a physical entity or a cyber product, will make them rich and famous; some see such an achievement as an expression of their persona, their point of view, their record of a life lived, a work of the imagination and the fulfillment of a secret wish for immortality.

Some harbor hopes that they can establish careers as full-time writers in genre fiction, or self-help, or advice to improve the lives of others or on subjects that display their knowledge of cooking, history, politics, religion or whatever has absorbed their interest.

Whatever their motives, their ambition is an obsession and they are willing to take the time and muster the discipline to pursue their dreams of authordom, hoping that the words they compose will be read, contemplated and engaged with by others. It is, indeed, a noble aspiration.

Before the advent of the Internet and the e-book reader, publishing was dominated by a hierarchy of professionals who bought, judged, edited and distributed books through a process of middle men and a chain of brick-and-mortar outlets to sell their book offerings for a profit. For those who, for whatever reasons, were rejected by these professionals, there was always what has been called “vanity publishing,” whereby the author pays for the production of his or her book that rarely, if ever, found its way into the distribution channel.

The divide between the professional publisher and the vanity author on the Internet has disappeared. The two are now on equal footing in the Internet distribution chain, which is surging and will eventually dominate the book business. Now, any author who writes whatever book he or she chooses is on equal distribution footing with the professional publisher on the Net.

The result, which I view as an unintended consequence, is that the floodgates have opened for the wannabe writer of book content and all those who hungered to write a book and see it distributed to a point where the self-published book will undoubtedly outpace the traditional book publishing industry by huge numbers, perhaps by millions.

Consider, too, the vast number of out of print books and the back list books of published authors that will be reincarnated on the net. Ten million available books on the net is not an unreasonable possibility.

It has spawned a huge new industry that covers every area of the book production and marketing chain. There are hundreds of outlets that can convert a manuscript into formats that will fit any platform. Apparently, any book content properly formatted is acceptable to the main e-book and POD retailers. Write a book and it can enter the system in days and theoretically compete with every other book in the marketplace.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of book bloggers have emerged offering reviews, some paid for, presenting themselves as advertising mediums. Once respected and allegedly neutral industry review publications like Kirkus will review any book for a price that will undoubtedly offer some favorable quotes for marketing. Other such sites have sprung up as well.

Promoters of every ilk have emerged with the promise of getting one’s book publicized and getting the author on TV and radio outlets. Social networking “experts” abound, promising to create author awareness on Facebook, Twitter and other open venues on the Net. Every form of promotion will have its “stores” on the net, many providing videos, apps, enhancements, and whatever else can be devised for a price. Determined authors with ample funds will be happy to part with their money in their attempt to realize their hopes and dreams.

Many sites offer free conversions and a distribution deal that takes a piece of sales revenue provided the author pursues his own individual marketing program, many of which are offered on the Net for a price.

Because of the vast volume of self-published authors who have been rejected by traditional publishers, it has become a numbers game, where the outlet who designs the content for sale in the online marketing chain takes a percentage of any sales generated by the author. The truth is that the vast majority of self-published authors will barely sell more than fifty to one hundred books, after his chain of friends and relatives have been exhausted. Thus, the company that produces the formats for distribution has found a way for the individual author to be a freelance sales agent for the company who has put the book into the marketing chain.

The company with the most books under contract can make a fairly hefty living with its battalions of authors out there beating the drum for their book sales. Small sales numbers for each self-published book adds up.

As for the quality of the book offering which, in any event, is subjective, the honest filters of the past will be rare. Anyone can be a self-proclaimed literary critic. Perhaps they will attract clusters of fans but there will be so many of them it will be difficult for a layman reader to make a choice.

The fact is that there is little chance for a self-published author to expect to earn enough to do such work full-time, unless he keeps his day job, has a pension, or is independently self-sufficient. Some might do it. Good for them.

I do not wish to cast any aspersions on the business practice of those who have discovered the benefits of catering to the self-published. It is legitimate and in many ways satisfies the hopes and dreams of the author who can now say he is a published author with his book in a respectable catalogue featuring books by other authors. A novelist can be in an online bookstore with the likes of Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald. A mystery writer can be in an online bookstore with P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. And so it goes for writers on any subject or genre.

This is not to say that there won’t be breakout commercial books for self-published writers. The media will cover them, although some might be contrived or suspect. But even if legitimate, they will be few and far between.

I must confess that although I have been a pioneer in promoting the concept of e-books, I have been stunned by the vast explosion of self-published books. Perhaps this essay has stressed what some might consider the downside of the process.

Actually, the upside is far more gratifying. Writers whose voices had been silenced by the old system now have a chance to present their creative talents to a vast audience despite the difficulties of gaining traction in readership.

They can legitimately call themselves authors and be recognized as such, a satisfaction of great personal import. A press of a button will acknowledge that their work is out there for now and perhaps for all time for their descendents to acknowledge with pride. In some ways, they might consider themselves to have achieved some tiny piece of immortality.

Note I offer no judgments on the quality these ventures only on the virtue of intent and accomplishment. To separate the wheat from the chaff will pose a monumental problem for readers and many talented writers might disappear in the vastness. Who knows how this will play out over time.

Nevertheless, I take my hat off to anyone who can sustain the creative process and find the discipline to write a long form work of the imagination, or can stick with the enormous mental effort to write a book on any subject. In the end, after all the dreams of fame and fortune fade with time, it is the work itself that really counted.