virtualDavis

The term “self-publishing” may have outlived its usefulness, according to Jon Fine, director of author and publishing relations at Amazon… When asked at a recent past conference what “self-publishing” looked like in ten years, Fine… said that it probably won’t be called that anymore. In the future, authors will publish in a number of ways.”If you’re an author in ten years, you’re going to have an array of options… [it will be] possible to take a story and make it available to hundreds of millions of people around the world… and do it in multiple formats.” (Digital Book World)

2012 Publishing Predictions Revisited (doodle by virtualDavis)

Seems like more and more authors, editors, agents, publishers and retailers are adopting Amazon’s vision for the future of self-publishing as a hybrid author model. Makes so much sense. Has for several years. But it’s an uncomfortable change for big biz and entrenched authors, editors, agents, publishers and retailers. Necessity is the mother of invention. They’ll come around.

Hybrid authors and hybrid publishing platforms will be the norm, I expect. Fine foretells the end of the “self-publishing” term. I suspect the same will come for “publishing”. As storytellers of all stripes adapt to the exciting new possibilities for sharing their message, the limitations of conventional publishing loom ominous. Books are jolly, and I’ll hang on to mine so long as the moths let me. But books are only one limited, expensive, inefficient, environmentally clunky, distribution-clunky, production-clunky package for stories. I foresee platform-androgynous storytelling with more and more weight shifting to digital audio.

And the most endorphin-pumping aspect of this shift? I foresee authors and other content creators breaking free of “book think” and beginning to explore—I mean really explore—the potential of sharing a story in across diverse media. Instead of simply repackaging the same story identically in print, digital, audio, etc. (in one lump or serialized fashion), each version can be unique, developed/expanded/enhanced/etc. according to the benefits of each medium.

It. Will. Happen.

And, just like bundling, there are easy ways and reasons to dismiss the Oracle of Essex. But mark my words! ;-) Necessity may be the mother of invention, but possibility is the father of invention. Dream, experiment, explore, storytellers. And I suspect you too will grasp the wide open future. Hybrid authors will reinvent storytelling. Again. And again.

Related articles

• Self-Publishing Has a New Buzzword: Hybrid Author (goodereader.com)
• Radiolab: The Art and Science of Digital Shamanism (bigthink.com)
• Paper Lantern Lit and the Rise of the Hybrid Agent (goodereader.com)
• How Do Literary Agents Fit Into The New Book Publishing Ecosystem? (forbes.com)
• New ‘Hybrid’ Literary Agency, Foreward Literary, to Aim for Both Traditional and Self-Publishing (digitalbookworld.com)

Take a skinny dip in the data stream from the last day of the Writer’s Digest Conference 2012 (WDC12). After the intensity of the last two inspiring days, most attendees are simultaneously exhausted and sad to go. The energy, connections, and cross pollination at WDC is infectious, so saying good bye to new and old friends is tough. Back to the garret! But with a band of new co-conspirators. Read the rest of this entry »

Thrilled to be returning to New York City this year for another round of Writer’s Digest Conference (WDC12). What follows is a loosely curated overview of the data stream generated over the course of the three day conference. If I’ve overlooked a salacious tidbit, please let me know. I’ll add it in ASAP. Thanks. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »

Johannes Gutenberg (Image via Wikipedia)

If you write or in any other way participate in the world of book publishing you’ll enjoy reading “Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal“. Wait, enjoy is probably the wrong word for what some will feel… Angst, perhaps?

It’s an update on Amazon’s publishing inroads. Major inroads!

Of course, Amazon execs are playing down their recent victories, and they’re dismissing traditional publishers’ doomsday moans and groans.

“It’s always the end of the world,” said Russell Grandinetti, one of Amazon’s top executives. “You could set your watch on it arriving.” 

He pointed out, though, that the landscape was in some ways changing for the first time since Gutenberg invented the modern book nearly 600 years ago. “The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader,” he said. “Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity.”(NYTimes.com)

Risk and opportunity. Amazon risks pissing off the old guard while gobbling up their lunch. But I, as a storyteller/writer/reader/listener/watcher, the increasingly intimate writer-to-reader relationship that stands to grow stronger, closer and less complicated. Right?

Not so fast, suggest some critics.

Amazon’s publishing program… positions Amazon as agent, editor, and publisher… putting Amazon in direct competition with the world of publishing.(ConsumerReports.org)

And this full frontal assault stands to complicate writers’ situations, at least for a while. Kiana Davenport’s story serves as a warning to writers who try to straddle the opportunity with one foot in traditional publishing and the other in the Amazon world of publishing. I suspect her story is not unique.

Davenport’s infraction was ostensibly innocent enough. While Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin, prepared to launch her novel, The Chinese Soldier’s Daughter, she attempted to beef up her platform by self publishing Cannibal Nights, a collection of twenty year old short stories, as an Amazon ebook. Penguin promptly spanked her by pulling her book deal and demanding that she return her $20,000 advance.

“They’re trying to set an example: If you self-publish and distribute with Amazon, you do so at your own risk,” said Jan Constantine, a lawyer with the Authors Guild who has represented Ms. Davenport.

The writer knows her crime: “Sleeping with the enemy.”(NYTimes.com)

While Amazon is busy rewriting the rules of book publishing the old guard is lashing out, trying to preserve an increasingly unsustainable business model. Time is a reliable resolver of such conflicts, and though we may one day lament certains aspects of the transition, making examples of industrious, self-promoting authors strikes me as a desperate and futile exercise.

As Amazon accelerates it’s challenge to traditional publishing do the opportunities outweigh the risks? Or should self-publishers cower in fear?

I conclude with a thoughtful (but unfortunately unacredited) reflection posted at Instapundit:

Amazon isn’t getting rid of publishers, it’s becoming a publisher. This means the group that controls the distribution also controls the content selection. Not exactly a blow for the Army of Davids in my opinion — when all the publishers are gone, who will publish the books critical of Amazon? Bottom line: It’s not getting rid of middlemen, it’s just muscling them out so it’s the only middleman. It does however reveal that in the age of digital publishing, discoverability and promotion on the digital storefront is the only thing that actually matters. The role of publishers in curation is almost totally abrogated to the sellers. When anyone can publish a book, it’s no longer the publishers that are the gating factor to what we read, it’s the digital storefront. It’s a very interesting shift and definitely good news for Amazon and the like. (Instapundit)

Hat tip to Kathryn Reinhardt for referring the article, “Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal“, to me.

Related articles

• Amazon’s moves into publishing business cause traditional publishers to feel threatened (teleread.com)
• Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal (nytimes.com)
• Amazon Bypassing Publishers By Signing Authors Directly (news.slashdot.org)

Image via Wikipedia

Ready to turn your damned-good-doggerel into an ebook? Or that collection of your grandmother’s delicious desserts? These “Six eBook Formatting Tools” from eBookNewser will get you started:

• Calibre: This free tool will let you create an eBook for all of the major eReaders, including Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony eReaders as well as a bunch of others. You can transform news from websites into readable files on eReaders and even make DRM-free eBooks. But note that it does not support Word files.
• Aspose: Using Aspose.Word plugin, you can convert a Word file into an ePub file. It is a pay service, but you can test drive the application with a free trial.
• Mobi Pocket: This free tool lets you create an eBook from HTML and Word and image files. Image files –GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP– get automatically optimized for a PDA viewer.
• Jutoh:This $39 tool lets you make books for Kindle, iBooks and Nook, among other formats. It can ePub, .mobi, .txt and .odt files through its in app text editor. It works in Windows, Mac and Linux.
• Feedbooks.com: This free tool lets you create your own ePub, Kindle and PDF files from within its software platform.
• BookGlutton: This free tool lets you turn HTML books into ePub files

Did I miss your favorite ebook creation tool? Please tell me about it, and I’ll add it to the list. Thanks!

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• PDF/ePUB to Kindle Tool 1.3 (techappz32.com)
• Kindle Books Now Outselling Print Books (digitalbookworld.com)
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• A New Frontier: Independent eBookselling and the Google Experience (digitalbookworld.com)
• Is Barnes & Noble Gearing Up to Completely Kill eReader and Fictionwise? (geardiary.com)
• How do you convert PDF to ePub for iTouch (wiki.answers.com)

It’s no mystery that the folks at Just Beer at Buzzard’s Bay Brewing are a slightly quirky bunch, so it should be no surprise that their newest version of India Pale Ale is served up with a novel idea: A hard-boiled detective tale in twelve chapters, one on each of the 22-ounce bottles in a 12-bottle case.

The Case of the IPA, the name of the beer and the story, is a result of the melding of the minds of brewer Harry Smith, author Paul Goodchild and owner Bill Russell. The noir-style tale, reminiscent of “The Maltese Falcon” author Dashiell Hammett’s gritty detective novels and his serial magazine stories of the 1920s and ’30s starts off with the main character, “a two-bit shamus in a dirty, gritty, bluesy, and cool city of some renown” who is summoned to a wealthy businessman’s “swank starter mansion in the ‘burbs” and wraps up 264 ounces later. And Russell has one suggestion for readers: “Please don’t drink Chapter 12 first.”

Goodchild, who described himself as an artist who doesn’t count on royalties, said he came up with the idea of writing a story on Buzzard’s Bay beers about five years ago, but it didn’t fly until the Just Beer brand started making the 22-ouncer, just the right size for each chapter. “At first I thought about writing a science fiction serial because I love that genre, but I didn’t want people to think we were pandering to kids. This serial is decidedly adult — not XXX — but a hard-boiled detective, noiry serial; it’s perfectly oriented to the IPA. I’m a big fan of Dashiell Hammett,” said Goodchild. (Herald News)

Is it too late to pretend I invented this? This may be one of the most compelling reasons yet to focus on print publishing versus digital publishing. I mean, how often do folks offer up virtual cocktails on Twitter, etc? And how disapointing are they when you toss them down the hatch?!?! But this is the real deal. Analog literature for the mind and soul…

Related articles

• Hoppy, I Mean Happy, IPA Day! by Lauren Buzzeo (winemag.com)
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I just read Dianna Dilworth’s post at eBookNewser from last Monday (I know, I know… but it’s Thanksgiving!) about Amazon’s platform upgrade toCreateSpace.

The upgrade includes the ability for members to buy their own ISBN from Bowker LLC, directly through the CreateSpace platform. Other new enhancements include… an upgraded cover creator toolset for both books and discs… [with] a free image gallery that writers can use for their covers. There is also a new custom trim size feature in which members can choose a customized trim size for their book. (Amazon Self Pub Upgrade Adds ISBN Feature)

Sounds great! Another leap forward for self-publishing authors, streamlining the journey from creation to customer.

All is vanity by quinn.anya, on Flickr

[Seth] Godin, a best-selling author of marketing books such as Tribes and Permission Marketing, felt he no longer needed his traditional publisher. Notably, Godin defined “publishing” far more broadly than did Penguin Group. He plans on distributing his content in a number of media—audio books, apps, podcasts, print on demand, etc.

As for the value of publishers, Godin commented: “Publishers provide a huge resource to authors who don’t know who reads their books. What the Internet has done for me, and a lot of others, is enable me to know my readers.” … As someone who has had six books and innumerable articles published by traditional print publishers… I have seen the transformation of a raw manuscript into an edited, indexed, laid-out publication. It is a sight to behold, and certainly something I couldn’t do on my own.

That said, if publishers can’t find innovative ways to create new markets for an author’s content, and if more successful authors shift to Godin’s model, we may get to the point where print publishers are seen as the vanity press and high-quality self-publishing is the new professional standard. If writers do not know who their audiences are, they can, in essence, ride the coattails of the marketing channels of a traditional publisher. If, on the other hand, they have already built their readership through other avenues, they may rely on their own reputation for credibility, rather than on the imprimatur of a publisher, to sell their books. econtentmag.com

Publishing hasn’t seen this much change in its 800-year history. New technologies bring a wave of opportunities as they disrupt regular print cycles and business models. Books are consumed digitally on portable devices, a new opportunity for authors and publishers to produce multimedia content. Authors can self-publish without the support of a major publishing house and find an audience through social media. As major publishers shift their businesses, new upstarts launch ideas for sharing digital content on a variety of platforms. (eBook Summit)

In less than one month I’m off to the eBook Summit to tip-dip my toes into a new era of publishing. I’m planning to soak up as much as possible from this crackerjack lineup. Time to learn what publishing challenges, opportunities and tools away in the digital age! With luck, I’ll emerge better focused on how proceed with Rosslyn Redux.

The greatest benefit of social media for indie authors is the chance to make and build connections with other authors, readers and publishing industry professionals. The quality of these connections (how consistent, how useful, how deep, how much trust. how good is your actual product/book/service?) will determine how many of your social media pals actually “convert” i.e. buy your book, interview you, review your book, give you a contract, share your posts etc.

This where your advantage lies because you, one man/woman writing publishing phenom that you are, can build deeper connections than the Stephen King’s and Susan Collins of this world.  Success and popularity can often decrease the depth of social media connections simply by dint of the numbers involved. Elite twitterati like Neil Gaiman and Paul Coehlo have mostly one way relationships with their followers because they can’t afford to read what all those followers have to say in turn.You don’t have that problem. (penswithcojones.com)