Japan has a system and expectations (KaiTai) of what literature should look like with for instance whitespace on the page inserted by the author for the mobile device. In the US this hasn't happened yet, but people are into the idea of the serialized novel. Especially people with frantic lives who don't have the time to sit down with a book for a couple hours. Daily Lit is looking to create content that is written for the mobile market. Like a cliff hanger at the end of each installment that Dickens did or just a distilled thought from a business book. Harlequin is doing "nooners" short things that can be read on your lunch break. [this is the first new technology I could see myself using]
The key to experimentation is to be open to what might happen, to not force a prediction on it. For instance Daily Lit tried out a service where a book could be built from a blog and it turned out that no one was interested, but suddenly in August they started selling 100 a day. Something happened somewhere that caused it to grow and the lesson learned for experimentation is patience, though, be sure to monitor it with good numbers.
Publishers do not observe what their readers do in their daily lives and they need to. 78% of 12-17 year olds play games online, but only 50% of generation-y, so a huge online change of attitude is coming.
One model big publishers could take is to watch the self or micro publishers and pick the books up when they start to go.
Lester Wunderman's book on marketing, "Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay" (Random House) is the best book on marketing.
Metrics: what is the cost (resource & outlay), time to return cost, what intangibles are trying to be achieved. There are no new metrics, just new terminology [really? don't we have access to far more accurate metrics] Though maybe it just boils down to how much time does it take the editor to do it and what the technology costs versus how many books need to be sold to cover that. [that does make sense]
A book that is written with reader comments may never be finished. It is a living document, a new format that continues to exist. It is a new form of literature that some authors will like and want to work in and others will not. Also this process could be split so when the book is finished and published, then a blog (or whatever) is started and that keeps the conversation going.
[maybe what the publisher should do is determine what the format the author should work in. they might pitch a commented novel, but the publisher says, no it should be a serial download]
Publishing is developing an infrastructure to tell stories
If there's only one reader for a novel, the new technology allows that -- though it may not be profitable
Video games are a different form of narrative art than we are used to. It is a new form of storytelling that engages people.
Reference books might be the kind of books that should allows evolve and not be static.
How does a small publisher deal with a book that lives forever? How do they keep resources on it constantly? [maybe what happens is that's the difference between front list and back list. Front is that which you keep updating, and back list sits static. Maybe you then pull a book from back list to front list in much the way you do today and push more money into it]
[Maybe big publishers should publish much less and watch micro publishers for good content. When they grab the good content they turn it into a big living document with all the technology behind it.]
The Smithsonian did a thing where they had a bluetooth enabled kiosk that electronically poked people with blue tooth devices and said, "hey are you interested in the American Indians exhibit, it's just around the corner?"
Daily Lit is mainly read on desktops or laptops, but mobile is growing.
No comments:
Post a Comment