There are pretty tried and true methods of getting a publisher to look at your book manuscript. There are only so many pathways. You write a manuscript and either take your chances in the slush, find yourself an agent, or more rarely, leverage a contact or referral that gets your manuscript in front of someone who can do something with it. Regardless of which pathway you find yourself on, the method of presentation doesn’t change much. A pitch or synopsis and some sample chapters for a novel. A proposal or outline for non-fiction.
What about digital? If you’re a savvy author with a great pitch for a digital publishing project, how do you talk to a publisher about it? Who’s even listening? Can innovative digital projects only be conceived and driven by publishers or specialist companies like 4th Story Media which is doing The Amanda Project, or are publishers interested in hearing ideas from authors themselves?
Quite a few authors I talk to these days are already thinking ahead to digital channels as they develop their manuscripts. For some, this is marketing oriented and they make plans for promoting the book in various online platforms. But for others, their story is digital native and the online channels are integral to the telling of the narrative.
We need new protocols that assist authors to start the conversation with foreward-thinking publishers who are interested in input from all kinds of places.
Kate Eltham is a writer and creative industries professional based in Brisbane, Australia. She is Chief Executive Officer of 
kate.eltham {at} gmail.com
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Kate,
In my experience the digital conversation begins and ends with the marketing and P&R groups after a project has been acquired, but the timing needs to be just so in order that the cost of the digital initiative is included in original P&L.
The acquiring editor has the power, but the marketing group can make things happen.
Hopefully overtime, conversations about digital will happen higher up in the acquisition funnel but for that shift to occur industry wide, publishers need to motivate editors (with bonus incentives) to broker digital initiatives. Right now, the more books they sign, the happier the publisher. Need to move to fewer books per editor with more time spent across more platforms. That is not going to happen until digital becomes profitable and predictable enough to tie bonus $$ to it. A cozy catch 22.
Best advice to authors, projects that treat digital as a platform extension can stay with an existing publisher’s marketing department. Anything more ambitious should go to a third party.
best
Hi Kate,
If we’re talking about cross-platform then I can’t see book publishers having the skills or experience to even begin this journey. The people who are doing this now are games manufacturers, movie makers, and multi-media IT shops, and I expect that’s where the running will be made.
To position themselves, publishers probably need to be looking at alliances and acquisitions with companies like these. And I hope they start doing this soon because book publishers bring a set of values to the party that will not be found in games houses or movie studios, nor in other third parties who might see themselves as horizontal integrators (like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon).
Hi Mark, all change takes time and, even with the urgency about digital that seems to be pervading publishing houses at the moment, I wouldn’t expect those kinds of changes to happen quickly.
But if that’s the case, how can authors hold back some of their rights should they want to either attempt cross-platform initiatives themselves or take their proposal to a third party? Perhaps it’s about the order – contract the third party first and then approach the publishers for the book deal. All this sounds like agents too will have to change to be able to broker these kinds of relationships.
It’s not like this is something every author wants to do right now, but I’m curious about how the conversations will change, and how quickly.
Hi Graham, you’re right about alliances with media companies. My sense is that this has already happened or is happening in the US and to a lesser extent the UK. And some US publishers now have quite extensive inhouse capabailities. However I think in Australia publishers are still very separate from the digital media industry and aren’t thinking about it much even at the marketing stage.
Mark, just another thought/question… some of the publishers, like Pan Macmillan, for example, seem to have a whole division of the company devoted to digital. Is this just an extension of their marketing departments? Because I would think having editors/publishers whose brief is to focus on making cross-platform acquisitions would be one way to speed up that change.