Writing

Book Wars Part 1: The Rise of Everyone

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BOOK WARS: RISE OF EVERYONE
You've seen a lot on the changes in publishing occurring in this blog, every few days, if not more often, there's talk about e-readers, e-books, Print on Demand, etc.  I could sum this up in many ways (including "oh, gods make it stop, it's confusing), but to put it simply:

  • There are more ways to get text to people.
  • Everyone wants a piece of that market.
  • This means new ways to deliver content and consume it.

Now, this basically means people can read more and authors can get their stuff out easier.  I have several books in the works and am pretty sure most if not all will start as Print On Demand with e-book options.  I see no reason not to embrace the new technology.

There's another side to this that often gets missed.  Yes, more ways to get more books in more formats.  We can guess that, we've heard about it, we know it's a given.

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Blogging, Bundling, and Brainstorming

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Awhile ago you all witnessed me mitigate my disagreement with the "everyone must blog" feeling that seems to percolate around the internet, especially in the career-sphere.  I admit that I still think not everyone needs to blog, but agree that blog involvement done right IS a good idea – it gets your name outs there, teaches discipline, builds connections, and informs people.

The problem is that a blog requires content otherwise it's really just a placeholder with an index attached to it.  I've been doing this blog with Bonnie for over a year, and as our early readers noticed, we began adding more and more content over the last few months.  So I'd thought I'd share just how I do non-news content.

First and foremost, let me reiterate what I've said before – don't blog about something if you dont have a reason to.  In fact, these techniques won't help much if you don't have any real reason to write.

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Facebook and distribution

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Idle speculation time here.

With Facebook pretty much dominating social media, and having obvious gaming aspirations, I began to wonder what else Facebook can deliver.  Once I began theorizing, I really began to wonder more.

Facebook could actually be useful as a way to distribute artistic (comic and manga) and written fiction.  Easy for alerts, easy to notify people it's ready, incredibly easy to get more fans to buy into it.  Nice, public distribution that makes people very aware of what their friends are doing and reading.

Facebook could be an excellent distribution platform – read the manga there, discuss it with your friends, etc.  There's already a lot of this in place now – and the widget creation could let OTHER companies do it while Facebook enjoys the piggybacking and additional attention (and possibly cash).

As its my firm belief community building is a big part of success for media efforts, especially new ones, Facebook is a logical place to try or do some of it.  You want to build and maintain an audience – that's one of the ways to do it very fast (with some limits).  A retained, happy, engaged audience buys more of your stuff when it comes down to it, and is more likely to want to see you at a con or invite you to one.

Do I think this is where media distribution is going?  No.  Part part of it doubtlessly will try, far more than is being done now.  I await seeing the results.

– Steven Savage