My new e-book “Listening to Dogs: How To Be Your Own Training Guru,” has been out for a month now. It is my second e-book original, which is to say the book is only available digitally and not in paper. It is a book about a new way to think about training your dog, and it has been well-received. It is a step into the new era for me, a book published by my agent and myself. I will write paper books for Random House, and hope to write paper books for a long time. This was – is – an important experiment for me. Writers have to exchange complaining for  evolving and changing in the new world of publishing, I am happy to change and evolve, in my life, in my work.

The idea of the “big” book, a centerpiece in writing and publishing, is fading as a goal for me. I’ve had some “big” books and for most writers, the odds of that happening in the new market are slim. We can write good books, we can sell quite a few. But we will be living on earnings, not advances or expectations or runaway sales. Commercial publishers live for big books, good writers live for good books.

I am allergic to writers who lament e-books and the Internet, who tell me they love bookstores and the feel of paper books. So do I. So what? Nobody cares what we would prefer, our readers are plunging ahead into new ways of reading and buying books.  I’m publishing a third e-book this summer (“The Story Of Rose: A Man And His Dog” was the first), it’s a collection of my color photographs called “Love And Light From Bedlam Farm,” and I think it will be a beautiful and hopefully uplifting book. It will be inexpensive too, “Listening To Dogs” is just $2.99. In the fall, I’ll publish my next paper book, “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story.”

“Listening To Dogs” sold more than 1,000 copies in its first week, more since. It’s interesting to note that there are more than 150,000 visits a month to the blog and my social media pages, and this percentage of sales is somewhat typical for writer’s blogs and book sales. Lots of people read the blogs, a small percentage buy books. There are complex reasons for this, one is that people have been reading things for free on the Internet for some years now, and it is still an understandable expectation. Another is that this simply the new normal, people browse many blogs and sites online, they are careful of what they buy, even at $2.99. I also think the blog is something of a book in itself, that is how I felt about it and when I introduced my new subscription plan – I believe in a few years the blog will be subscription only, with some exceptions for people who simply can’t pay.

I thought a lot about the subscriptions and I felt I am ready and so, obviously,  are many of you. Most readers of the blog have not subscribed, but a lot have, and the subscriptions keep coming in. I am very pleased with it, it is working. I am not asking people to support my farm or my life or the animals I acquire, I am not a charity, or a noble idea that needs other people’s money, rather this is simply a way to pay for the content people are using, the creation of which is now my primary work.  I think of the old “Life” Magazine, that is often on my mind. I am not comfortable with idea that people ought to be asked to pay for my life, there are many people far needier than I am if it comes down to that, causes much worthier than me. I am not a cause, I’m a writer, observer and story teller. Don’t support me, pay me for my work.

The big change over the past few years is that the blog is my creative centerpiece now, the heart of my work, and I just see it as a continuing book. It is where the bulk of my writing is going, and all of my photography. That was not true a few years ago. The world is moving fast.

So the new writer’s life is not one thing – it is not any longer the big score – it is a number of things. The blog. The e-books. The paper books. Subscriptions. Podcasts – I’ve done four. And videos. My You Tube videos are averaging about 5,000 views. I’ve introduced another exciting new experiment, the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, an exciting new idea, a community within a community, a semi-autonomous region, a province of Bedlam Farm. It is an interactive idea for me, it helps expand the idea of Bedlam Farm as a community. There is also my Facebook Page, now with more than 13,000 followers. I am getting there, it feels good, I think I am putting together the new way, I am not there yet. My blog feeds onto Twitter, but that site is not a focus for me, I write in longer form.

I see these new things as seeds, all of them have lots of space and audience to keep on growing, steadily is good enough, it doesn’t have to be explosive, it ought not be explosive, that is not a good way to grow. The blog is my space, my readers have the right to their own space, and in just a few days, more than 700 people have signed up for the Open Group, again with no publicity other than the blog itself. Many of these people share some of my values – photography, blogging, writing, spirituality, encouragement, the love of animals, a site free of argument and conflict and bad news.

So that’s an update on my writing life. I thank you for sharing this experience with me, reading my writing, appreciating my photography, listening to my podcasts, watching my videos, joining the new community of the new writer.  I love the challenge being handed to me, I am determined to rise to it, to work hard and create and create. Many more chapters to come.