The new buzz word is "app", muses Mrs. M. But what on earth is an app? Irritatingly, the culture and lifestyle pages refer to "apps" as though this term is in common usage.  We read this word with no idea what it means.  I find it very annoying that there is an assumption that everyone understands this slang.

The nearest I can come to a definition of an app is an "Apple application" or program that you can download onto your iphone, hence, the abbreviation.  iphones have a menu page which displays a range of app programs, i.e. weather reports, road maps, stock market details, etc.

One area in which the app looms large is self-publishing.  Whole books can be published and downloaded and read on your phone as an app.  God forbid!  Think of the effort of reading a novel like you read a text message?

There's no editing, no rejection letters, no need for an agent or an editor.  It's perfect for wannabe authors.  It's done for free.  Its price is 75% of a paperback, then the author and so called publisher split the proceeds 50-50.  Four thousand authors have signed up already. 

Publishing companies and literary agencies are wincing.  These days mainstream publishers are only willing to gamble on books that are guaranteed to be a hit.  They pay advances only to the biggest box office authors.

Online books, however, are booming.  They are the most plentiful category of app, with 27,000 on offer.  Cheap out of copyright classics are the market leaders, followed by religious texts, comics and graphic novels.  People carry their phones everywhere, so there is always a book at hand.

Books destined to sell only a couple of hundred copies can be published here.  Andrews UK is one self-publisher which is doing good business. However, box office hits like Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, are on offer. Wolf Hall comes with a video interview of Mantel by David Starkey.  

There is a website called www.strugglingauthors.co.uk which offers practical help to beginners.  This arena used to be called vanity publishing.

Some of the "big boy" publishers are now reading extracts online, and there just might be a chance of getting picked up by them.  Amazon has set up a special wing, AmazonEncoree which finds over-looked self published books that score well on their site.

Whew!

Then there are apps in the other areas of the arts. One popular app you can download for £1.70 is a visit to the National Gallery where you can view 250 paintings.  You can inquire about a painting and then are taken around the room in which the painting is displayed and explore the works of art there.  You can study the brushstrokes and hear stories behind the masterpieces.  Commentary and insights are given by well known artists, writers and experts.  

Even I can see the benefit of having this at your fingertips, but I still feel like I'm living on a different planet from these alien "app" creatures.  Eh, bien, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.