Bill Cunningham over at Pulp 2.0 has actually been doing all the things I've been theorizing about with new media. The first novel his company's published, the vampire blaxploitation horror novel Brother Blood, is out on Kindle. If groovy 1960's horror is your thing, Brother Blood's got your swing.
Also of note, of course, is J.A. Konrath's adventure in Kindle publishing. He's leveraged an existing print reputation into a great online business. People like that, as I've mentioned, are going to be the leading edge of new media -- tinkerers with an established base in the old media.
Where do you think media distribution is going? What are the obstacles? Sound off in the Comments.
28 comments:
Publishing has to change. That much is certain. It is also certain that it is a megaton behemoth that requires a LOT of time and energy to turn. It changes at a glacial pace -- and that's going to hurt it. It also seems determined to repeat the mistakes that the music industry made, rather than leap frogging and taking their lessons learned.
Many wannabe authors are jumping on Konrath's bandwagon and publishing on Kindle. The chances of that resulting in decent sales is as unlikely as getting decent sales from self-publishing has ever been. It works for Konrath because he ALREADY had a built-in audience thanks to his traditional-publishing career. It would work for Stephen King or JK Rowling or Stephanie Myer too.
I don't think a lot will change for wannabe authors. They can do it the hard way and go through the gatekeepers and have national distribution or they can self-publish and fall into the sea of the hundreds of thousands of other self published books.
So where is media distribution going? Books will be more and more online, with print publishing via print-on-demand. I hope and pray that the days of warehousing printed books and allowing returns to publishers is going the way of the Dodo. There will be a lot of growing pains on the way, though.
I noticed how you cleverly included the word LEVERAGEd....
PS I love my Kindle.
We have on-demand movies, tv, news, clips, periodicals, research materials - why not books?
I'm a librarian, and I've seen the paradigm shift, slowly but surely ('cause we're the library) from on-the-shelf to on-demand.
Moving in sync with format developments---from Books on Tape to Books on CD to MP3 files on pre-downloaded Playaways and from print to static scans to OCR and interactive digital texts---our patrons are even more unhappy with reserve lists for the titles they want.
They're used to instant gratification---and I think that librarians\educators\etc. should be thrilled they want to be instantly gratified through reading. Go literacy.
Interlibrary Loan Services for print items (the original 6 to 8 week on-demand, sort of) are giving way to providing e-materials through Wilbur and NetLibrary.
And I'm personally loving the e-releases of out of print and impossible to find backlists. I don't have an eReader yet (I'm weighing the options while I save up), but I have three early stories in The Destroyer series loaded on my Netbook---I love me some Remo Williams!
(Sorry for the long comment . . . I apparently had something to say---hope it was on-topic)
First off:
John - thanks for the shout out. Those of us out here in the field appreciate it.
"And I'm personally loving the e-releases of out of print and impossible to find backlists."
@SarahW - this is the very reason I got into publishing in the first place. I couldn't find good editions of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FRANKENSTEIN series (except on ebay at outrageous prices) so I contacted Don Glut (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, HE-MAN, THE TRANSFORMERS, SHAZAM) and got to work.
Part of Pulp 2.0's mandate is to republish hard-to-find / out-of-print genre books in inexpensive yet collectible formats. We do both print and digital and recently signed a deal to publish a never-before-seen Lester Dent western. It will be one of the featured stories in our upcoming RADIO WESTERN ADVENTURES.
I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on publishing and the future.
You can find us here: www.pulp2ohpress.com
All my stuff, or nearly all of it, anyway, is available at Kindle. Nice editions, too. You can find links to all of it here:
The Worlds of D.A. Madigan: Looking for the writing of D.A. Madigan?
As to the future of publishing, it's pretty much here, but I will echo Daniel Keys Moran, who has cogently stated that in an era of self publishing, writing talent is not enough. To be successful, you have to know how to market yourself, too.
I keep trying, but apparently, I am yet a padawan at this art. But, hey, I continue to strive.
Max Barry, who wrote "Jennifer Government" and "Company," basically wrote his latest novel, "Machine Man," one page a day, posting each page online. It's a great albeit disturbing read.
Interesting how comics seem to almost be going the other way -- with online artists building their reputation with online offerings, which they then take offline into print. Megatokyo, Order of the Stick, Girl Genius -- that seems to have become a full-fledged business model.
Is that actually the BETTER model these days, do we think?
I think that, in the long-term, what we're really going to see is a fracturing of the responsibility of major publishing houses. Now that it's essentially trivial to produce material on your own, publishers as gatekeepers of what's on the shelves are essentially going to disappear.
Instead, the divisions of companies that do all the other things -- marketing, editing, &c. -- are going to splinter out and ramp up. I think we'll see a system that involves more small companies that work like indie record labels; a large number of "producers" who serve as both editors, marketers, and probably most importantly, reputation builders, each handling a relatively small number of clients, taking the place of the handful of monolithic publishing houses.
Probably, it's going to be the next phase of blogging. Sites like io9, for instance (or, incidentally, Kung Fu Monkey or Warren Ellis's site), the next step up from just offering an opinion on subjects is actually building a small stable of endorsed media.
(I think this is essentially how Jeffrey Rowland's Topatoco business took off, though that's more of a ring of creators, rather than a marketing group, and maybe that's a potentially viable model for new, self-publishing authors, also.)
I, uh, don't mean to pimp my own blog, but I wrote a thing about advertising as practical superstition here. The point I'm making is only that blogs, especially semi-professional blogs, exist primarily to charge a name, an idea, or a "brand" with reputation or interest, and there's little point in putting money in the reputation bank if you aren't going to withdraw it.
Which is why I was saying that I think the next phase for popular blogs is to become, essentially, their own (music/book/movie) labels.
Melissa said: "It works for Konrath because he ALREADY had a built-in audience thanks to his traditional-publishing career."
That's always the first thing we hear from the naysayers -- "it's an outlier" is the second thing.
Sooner or later, though, the naysayers have to come to terms with the fact that it can't ALL be outliers, existing audiences and anecdotal evidence.
Some of us have been cranking away in electronic publishing for a while now, making a pretty nice living, without Konrath's built-in audience (and not even approaching King or Rowling).
@braak - Yes, I definitely consider myself a book "producer" more than a publisher. While you use the term from the music sense, I approach it from the film sense.
Our print editions are sized to DVD case proportion, and we've added elements to reinforce the film motif: behind-the-scenes bonus features, an exploitation poster cover style for BROTHER BLOOD, and we've even gone so far as to place a credit block on the back cover.
Our challenge, as with any publisher is to create a unique collectible item. Hopefully we've succeeded.
To address Cory's comment: Our Kindle editions are our "floppies" and our goal is for these editions to precede our print editions by 3-4 months. They don't have the same 'bonus features' as the print editions because we wanted to make each distinct.
I think it's all tools. I think the tools are becoming open and awesome! And the people with talent and hustle will be alright in the end.
At least, as I am preparing an indie feature, that's what I keep telling myself. :)
I love my Kindle. (I'm writing this comment on it.) And I love all the books I am finding that are now out of print. However, I love actually turning pages.
In my perfect world print and electronic books would be completely equal in accessibilty and popularity.
That may not be quite on topic, but it's what I had to say. Thanks for listening.
Anonymous -
Thanks to the tech (as Harlan points out) you can have both, and ideally they work WITH one another.
For us digital emulates the very same process that helped spawn the pulp and paperback evolutions - the impulse buy. You want a good read, fast? Kindle is the answer... you browse then buy. Quick and easy and in minutes you're reading. You can even sample the book first.
You want a collectible edition of a hard-to-find book you recall from your teen years? Something that looks good on the shelf and features a really cool cover, but doesn't break your piggy bank? Thanks to Print-on-demand we have that too...
Without going completely out of pocket for printing and other expenses.
Pulp 2.0 is not in bookstores, and for the foreseeable future I don't think we'll be in bookstores. There are just too many other ways for us to get our unique books into readers' hands without tying up our cashflow.
@Gareth-Michael Skarka:
Yeah, and any new movement is going to be primarily outliers at first, anyway. *Someone* is bound to be the first major, wholly-independent success story.
Personally, I think the change is inevitable; the question is really how long it will take before it becomes the norm.
I love books. I find the smell of a used bookstore intoxicating, *g*. What do Kindles smell like?
I agree that "progress" is unstoppable. However, I don't see myself embracing this. These electronics may well eclipse print books. Luckily, as I am at the mid-century mark and not particularly enamored with the idea of longevity, I will be long dead before books disappear altogether, lol.
Now, I'm off to finish a really interesting book about The Battle of New Orleans...
@RevTrask:
Yeah, but books don't smell inherently good. You like the smell of books because you like reading, and the smell of books reminds you of that. If you drank mint tea every time you read your Kindle, it'd be the smell of mint tea you were attached to.
I mean, it's your thing, and that's cool; you can like whatever you want. But it's ultimately arbitrary, a product of your personal experience, and wholly coincidental to the medium itself.
(Incidentally: kindles smell like the future)
@braak:
Too true. And yet, whose opinion can offer but my own, from my own experience? Okay, I admit to having cribbed from others, on occasion, but old people are forgetful and I can't always remember what my opinions are, lol.
And I agree with you in regards to the power of olafactory memory and the associations therein (or is it thereof?). Usually, being a bit of a technotard, I associate electronics and technology with the flop-sweat and burning rubber smells of failure, rather than minty-fresh beverages, *g*, but concede that conditioning might remedy that.
It's been a long time since I've taken part in a discussion that didn't involve convincing someone to hire me, my friends' latest medical maladies, or what the cat ate. Trying to think is making me light-headed. Either that or I'm having a stroke...*g*
Get the lead out, Monkey King. I got my feet wet this year and the water is very fine.
Unrelated but are you aware of the Leverage fandom on tumblr? It's got some very nice people making very pretty things. [: (http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/leverage)
Personally, I'm a fan of the Alternate Reality Game scene. Where your media plays with you and you get to play with it back.
ARG books in particular are great. Usually a story stands on its own, but when you dig a little deeper, cool things show up. Like fictional companies having their own websites and phone numbers you can call to track down non-existent people.
Of course, a Leverage ARG would kick all kinds of ass *coughhinthintcough*
Perspective. At least 84 billion people checked books out from the library in 2008 (last year for numbers). (aside - I'm number crunching for a library study. I can bore you if you want, but most data will wait till I publish.) That means there's a potential market for readers of at least that many people.
Now to answer the obstacles question.
One is simple resistance to change. It needs recognized even if nothing can be done directly.
I think the largest problem is cost. It's $200 (give or take) for something that will need replaced in a couple of years. If it breaks it stops the owner from reading the entire library instead of just a book or two. There's a savings per book if you own the reader, but it takes a lot of books before the savings pay for the reader.
Another obstacle is realizing that certain material is better in print. Large format books are better for children's books, for art books, and for atlases. Can you put these on ebooks? Yes. But e-books are not the best format.
The third obstacle, more of a hindrance, is the matter of control. With e-books, publishers have attempted to usurp the right of first sale. They also try to control format elements so while you get a great use on their reader you get minimal use if any off other readers.
Unless and until readers are not only ubiquitous but interchangeable print books will sustain a strong market. E-books will probably prevail eventually, but the hurdles exist.
OT perhaps, "Leverage" comes in the top ten in viewer emotional/involvement measures for TV shows.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=135731
The first time you've had a good 4GM post since I stopped being a consultant for 3GM, and I missed it!
I have a long, long rant about this, but publishing is the area I know the least, so I'll confine myself to this anecdote. I attended a highbrow "literature in the age of the internet" event a couple of months ago. And even these writers and editors, most of whom were older, none of whom were active social media users, all of whom found the idea of a blog vaguely distasteful even as they admitted their utility -- even these people knew that publishing's great current challenge was to not make the same mistakes that the music industry has made, and treat their customers as the enemy.
At the same time, at least in the US, publishing is locked into an economic model that makes NO SENSE even in a print-only world - ask your friendly neighborhood bookseller about the ordering and remaindering process - because it made sense several generations ago. I don't know what comes next, but I doubt it will be pretty.
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