How to Use Class in Historical Settings, Part 2
Three Problems to Avoid If You Publish a Fiction Ebook
Rethinking Ancient Symbols. Part I: ColorSocial publishing and my books
I just read an absolutely brilliant essay by Paul Hartzog about social publishing here.
I think he’s spot-on about how publishing is changing and gives a roadmap for how authors can move ahead in this shifting landscape. The crux of it is, as he outlines, that the old model used to be ‘select, then publish’; the evolving model is ‘publish, then select.’ We are finding that free content finds its own niche readership, and in turn drives sales of the author’s other works, related and not.
I’m going to take advantage of that dynamic. Social publishing encourages readers to take a work, share it, bookmark it, discuss it, even re-use it if released under a Creative Commons license. The result is greater interaction between author and readers, more engagement in the work, and more exposure and sales all around.
I don’t plan to put out everything I write for free – hey I have to eat too, of course. But I do want to have some particular items see the light of day, bypassing the labyrinth of traditional publishing, and landing full-blown in the public arena. They can be some things my fans have been asking for, where I also want to see how much the social publishing dynamic can generate interest in my work.
This is going to be an interesting experiment. It won’t happen quickly – it does entail writing an entire work of fiction of the same quality you’d pick up at Barnes & Noble, you know. But as Hartzog points out, it is perhaps no accident that recent Nebula winners have all been available free in electronic form. This has obviously had an impact on exposure and sales, sometimes a huge one.
So all I can say on this right now is, look for some interesting free material from me in the course of 2009.
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What formats are you considering? I also wonder if serialized fiction and blogs are a natural pairing. People subscribe to blogs in their RSS readers and check them on a regular basis. If they know a new installment in a serialized fiction piece comes out every X number of days (or whatever) they would be notified immediately.
Funny you should mention serialized. The interactive project I have planned for late 2009 includes a serialized novel or novella I’ll be releasing free on the web, within a larger context of supporting material and immersive interactive experience. (I’ll be writing more about that later in the year).
So yeah, definitely that’s a possibility.
Here’s the best roundup I’ve read yet about specific marketing and business approaches that dovetail nicely with the social publishing concept: the 21st Century Artists Business Model, by Reesa Brown, Kit O’Connell and assisted by Stephen Brust and others. I’m posting more about this in a separate blog post later too. Meanwhile, you can read more about it at the link above (scroll to page bottom and start with last post there).
I could go on at length about this and will as soon as I find some more posting time.