publishing

Pottermore: Harry Potter Ebooks Out!

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The long-promised eBooks (and more) are available at the site!

So of course, you can bet we’re going to watch this one – because there’s not much out there like “Pottermore”, so it’s kind of a giant lab experiment.

Thoughts:

  • I think there will be attempts to do more “Pottermores” no matter what the success of the site – the model is interesting enough and amorphous enough for people to give it a go.  If it works is a bit of a question.
  • Meanwhile GigaOm chimes in with a great article on what publishers can learn from Pottermore, and points out DRM *is not your friend*.
  • Building on that issue, one of the flamingly, neon-bright obvious things from Pottermore is that people respond to a good property, a place to gather, and response.  The entire “walled garden” model of publishing is missing the fact you have an economy/culture building on connectivity.
  • The Pottermore site may seem complex, but consider how fast sites can be put together these days – so it may be easy to create “lesser Pottermores.”
  • I could see people building web/media careers on creating “Pottermore” like sites.  Of course, if someone founded a business to easily make these central sites for indie media properties . . .
  • Pottermore represents a multimedia exploration that is only just starting.  What if a site with books tied into an MMO?  Films?  DLC?

– Steven Savage

 

Thomas Pugh’s Blog Tour: Welcome to Rollicking Tales!

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In some ways I feel a bit of a fraud offering up advice to would be self or small press publishers. After all I haven’t been in the game very long, it was only January that the Rollicking Tales wagon really began to roll. But then, when I come to think about all the things I have found out it has actually been a very steep learning curve. And if I can impart even one pearl of wisdom to a prospective publisher and help get more stories out there, then it will be worthwhile.

As a bit of background I am a farmer with, up until recently, no experience of the publishing world. I’ve been dabbling in writing for a few years but had never actually finished a story, let alone looked at publishing my own or other people’s work.

Then, in the autumn of 2011 I came to the conclusion that it was time I pulled my finger out. However many ideas I had for stories they were never going to see the light of day unless I sat down and actually wrote. A whole story. Right to the end.

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The Phenomena of “Wesley Crusher: Teenage F*** Machine”

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It’s going to be difficult to do a straight-up analysis of this, but as I’m a bit contrarian, it’s not going to be that difficult.  Now, lest the title of the post make you think I’ve gone insane, let’s back up here.

Recently a Kindle book as been igniting the Amazon sales charts, likely due to its subject matter (Star Trek and sex), its title (“Wesley Crusher: Teenage F*** Machine,” only with less asterisks and more other letters), and the fact it’s free to users of Amazon Prime.  I’m not making this up, you can read the extremely NSFW recap here at io9.

(Again that is really NSFW.  You’ve been warned.)

If, of course you wish to read this, you can go here, download the book, and . . . well, hell if I know.  

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