Amber for Indies

It still feels like a big, ol’ mostly empty warehouse space where much has been planned but little, thus far has had a chance to happen, but what Amber Square already has in place looks promising.

AmberSquare.com has been created to help indie publishers reach a wider audience and to provide readers with a far greater choice; bringing to their attention books that they miss simply because the dominant industry leaders prefer populating shelf space and column inches with big-name “fast-sellers”. So many wonderful books go unnoticed because the high street book stores and literary media can’t (won’t?) stock or promote them.

Despite the sour sounding grapes, this collective idea -- well done -- could go a long way towards alleviating some of the marketing problems facing independent publishers even if, at a glance, it is currently impossible for the casual visitor to determine if all English-language indies are welcome, or if this is going to be a UK-only affair. Also, though it’s possible that insiders know exactly what’s going on here, it seems to me there are more of us in the world who aren’t part of Amber Square’s inside and we’d like a page that tells us clearly how the site came to be, who is doing it and what their hopes and dreams look like.

More as Amber Square takes shape but, at the moment, what’s in place looks good. You can visit the fledgling Amber Square Web site here.