[Has it been a success though, I ask.] I don't know, ... I don't have another first novel that wasn't pushed electronically to compare it to. But the book itself is doing very well. Looking at other publishers, a good example is Baen Books , who do a lot of multi volume series of books. From experience, they know how much volume 13 should sell based on the sales of boook 12. So when volume 13 comes out, they bundled a CD-Rom with eBook versions of the first 12 books. They also hosted these eBooks online for free. When this happens, the sales of volume 13 were beyond expectation, and volumes 1 through 12 see a bump in sales as well. |
[What is the new is the creative process involved in producing a blook.] Blogs encourage their authors to publish in small, partially formed chunks, ... Previously, such jottings might have been kept in the author's notebook but something amazing happens when you post them online: readers help you connect them, flesh them out and grow them into fully-fledged books or blooks. |
And it is promotion. My publisher, Tor Books, have some modern methods that allow them to make a profit on as little as 3,000 copies of a hardcover novel. The traditional methods would need a print run of 50,000 paperbacks. That means Tor can afford to have tons of first novelists every year on much shorter runs. But then the marketing effort is diluted to cover all those authors. It's not possible to make a good living from being a mid-tier author, just selling in the bookshops. I need to promote myself, with all the tools I have. |
Blogs encourage their authors to publish in small, partially formed chunks, |
Blooks differ from books in several ways |
But this is just the start of something much bigger. |
DRM is already widely deployed without a hint of success and the NAVSHP group has the opportunity to learn from its well-known failures, ... NAVSHP should take a new look into how DRM affects the public, artists, and industry. |
Finally, in the short term it's really obvious. People need to hear about my book, and if they've found out about it and buy it, I make money. The net cost of eBook distribution from my website is approaching zero. With half a million downloads of Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom , it doesn't matter if my conversion rate is a tiny percentage, it's still doing incredibly well in physical sales. The first print run of 10,000 was sold out in months, and so was the second print run. The hardcover was twice the size of a normal run, and it's on it's second run as we speak. The numbers are modest on the scale of the Internet, but that gives you an idea of what the stakes are in science fiction publication. To raise the stakes, you need to go outside the traditional realm. If I rely on just the bookstore sales, I won't make a living. Putting it online does not put my livelihood at risk, you make a living finding new ways to do business. |
If I am going to be a writer, earning a living in the era of digital text, I need to understand where the opportunities are. They won't disappear, they'll just be different, and need to be recognised. In the last days of Vaudeville Theatre, they sued Marconi because radio was killing Vaudeville, where you had to pay to go into a relatively small room to listen to music and voice. But it didn't kill music, the outcome was a thousand times more music, making a thousand times more money, reaching a thousand times more people. But in the short term, there was panic. If digital text will result in hundreds more authors, with hundreds more novels, I need to be in the middle of eBooks. I need to be heavily engaged. All those people downloading my text is good news. |
if I want to enable my readers push copies to their friends, and they're in circles like Slashdot, Wired, Boing Boing, who never meet face to face, just online, well i need to give it to them in a suitable format so they can do whatever they need to do with it. SMS, MMS, Email, FTP, Cut and Paste, P2P, all are valid. |
is it any different to loaning a book to someone? There was a book in the US ( Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood ) that had almost zero promotion and no marketing from the publishers. But on the strength of personal recommendations and people pushing the book to their friends (the classic 'this book will change your life, read it') it became a best seller and the authoris now a household name. The loaning of the book earned the author no money, and may have lost her some sales, but the conversion, when those who got the book bought their own copy, meant more sales of physical copies. |
It does the thing that all great non-fiction needs to do — makes a subject interesting because of how it's covered, not because of the subject itself. I don't care about French food but I loved this book. |
Previously, such jottings might have been kept in the author's notebook but something amazing happens when you post them online. Readers help you connect them, flesh them out and grow them into fully-fledged books or blooks. |
Put simply, I want to treat my readers as partners and not crooks. There is no future in calling your most active promoters crooks. |
The EU and the world are experiencing a revolution in creativity thanks to the Internet, ... An entire generation of remixers, talented amateurs, and Creative Commons enthusiasts have created works that do not require DRM to thrive. NAVSHP should produce recommendations for systems that embrace unrestricted distribution methods in support of these new Internet-native business models. These European creators deserve every bit as much attention from the EU as do American film studios and other incumbents. |