Nick HarkawayNick Harkaway has one of the most attractive author websites I’ve ever seen. It is so pretty (and clever) it momentarily distracted me from the awesome post he has written calling on publishers to get their act together on eBooks.

It strikes me that from an industry point of view, you can’t just throw books-as-files at the world and let someone else take care of the rest. You need to innovate, to own the dialogue – and not because you have the power of a big corporation, but because people are hanging on your every utterance, the way they do with Apple. You need to be vertically integrated. You need multiple revenue streams. You know all this better than I do…

Check out eBooks II: The Epistle to the Publishers (via INDEX // mb)

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Big advances hurt authors and publishers

July 10, 2009

Author John Green, who wrote the seriously excellent YA novels Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska, has argued on his blog that higher royalties win over big advances. He breaks down the myths writers hold on to about big advances and explains why they are a liability for authors in the long run. Compelling.
Currently, publishers [...]

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The case for alternate reality games

July 8, 2009

First Monday has published a fantastic paper investigating the evolution and storytelling opportunities of alternate reality games (ARGs), Storytelling in new media: The case of alternate reality games, 2001-2009:
ARGs encourage players to participate in an emerging collective story to motivate particular types of behavior and encourage the formation of social groups. Players participate because they [...]

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Amanda is coming…

July 8, 2009

A while back I posted about The Amanda Project from Fourth Story Media, a cross-platform digital storytelling project aimed at teenage girls.
It looks like they’re gearing up to launch it soon and there’s a slick teaser on the official site to get you excited. Highly anticipating this one…
 

Here’s a question: If I was an author [...]

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“Shift!” Shatzkin tells publishers

July 8, 2009

I’m a little behind in posting this, and many of the readers of this blog who already follow conversations on publishing futures will be familiar with it. But if you haven’t already, you really must, MUST read the text of Mike Shatzkin’s address at BookExpo America: “Stay Ahead of the Shift: What Publishers Can Do [...]

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