Posted by Justine Solomons on 14 February 2012, in News

Why I set up Byte the Book

To say I am passionate about reading would be an understatement. Back in 1995 I set myself the target of reading a book a week. Some years I’ve got to or even exceeded fifty-two books, other years have been less fruitful. I’ve got lists to prove it dutifully noted down in my trusty Filofax and listed here.

I also enjoy writing fiction and over the years have met a lot of very talented writers trying to navigate the changes that are happening in the publishing industry.  Personally I think digital is great (I’ve worked with technology for over ten years) and think that it could do loads to empower writers to keep more of the profits of writing and streamline the fat publishing industry.

Things got more exciting for me in 2010 when I started reading on a Kindle.  Despite always adoring books I fell in love with the device and two things struck me:

1. It was harder to work out what to read when you stopped going to bookshops.

2. Writers could now publish easily to a Kindle device, I was reading a friend’s manuscript sent to my Kindle in a Word document that looked exactly like a digital book I’d bought from Amazon published by a traditional publishing house.

So I decided to set up a Byte the Book to help readers work out what to read next and also help writers keep more of the profits from their writing, I also wanted to set up a community of writers and readers.

It’s early days, the site is just beginning, I suspect it’ll change as the years go by, but for the time being if you’re interested in writing and reading in the digital age then you might find this site useful.  Oh and if you’re interested in contributing as a blogger, reviewer or adding your fiction please get in touch.

Thanks so much

Justine