Are we doing it all wrong...?

[Jo Zebedee]

This needs a subforum all of its own as it applies to all types of publishing!

Some things feeding into my thoughts:

The head of Hachette saying it’s sad how little innovation appears in ebook formats
The ease of uploading videos
Being the mother of two teens

The last first. I brought up two readers (and writers). Both will curl up with a book, both will talk about a book, one tells me to come back from a book event on Thurs night with Peadar O’Guilin’s new book or not at all... but they spend most of their leisure time on You Tube. They watch funny things and clips - most around 5 mins long.

Now I’m not a Mum who looks down on the next generation. I think it's mostly harmless (provided it's kept an eye on) and no worse than us watching telly back to back 20 years ago.

But I am a businesswomen who knows the young market is the established one in a decade. And they don’t read like our generation did. Which isn’t to say they don’t like clever language and moving stories - just not in 200000 word book format.

I wonder where we writers go with that? Do we embrace it or fight it? I have a good SM platform and I talk well. I have the tech. Should I - and you! - say: to hell with my kindle and paperback format: if you want my next book come to YouTube and I’ll read it to you myself? Or... whatever.

Come on. We’re the speculative genre. Let’s speculate. What now?

 

[Abernovo]

I prefer my e-reader to paper books these days. I can multi-task, holding a light e-reader in one hand while making tea, or prop it up and read while getting on with life, without needing something to keep the book open.

On the subject of YouTube, I know of a couple of book reviewers do an awesome job there. And they have a really good following. I don't think, from observing some of my younger work colleagues (18 - 34 year-olds, a lot of them), that reading is massively on the decline. Many of them read quite a bit, but only in what interests them -- that's the same for me, though. I think the way of communicating information has changed, to a global word-of-mouth.

So, the reviewers are on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media platforms perhaps still to rise.
E-reading may change to a different format. I'd love to see colour e-ink books, moving-picture picture books for little kids (not for adults, of course...we're much to grown-up ), and more artwork in e-book format. Increase the definition without turning it into a tablet format which is not as easy on your eye for reading.

The head of Hachette? Sorry, old dude (compared to teenagers), stuck in the past, thinking e-book business model should follow the traditional book model. In fact, e-books give the opportunity for more direct sales, from publishers and authors direct to readers: you could buy off their sites and have it emailed to you. Mr Pietsch (Hachette CEO) could lead the way, if he wanted to, or had the vision, by innovating what was on offer from Hachette.

As you know, Jo, the younger generations are no less intelligent, or passionate about stories, than older ones. It's business which is slow to respond. Stick with e-books (I think the Amazon/Kindle monopoly will ultimately be a dead end) and, to a lesser extent, paper books, but work with different media.

That includes your readings, as well. You could do a book promo vid with you reading the first chapter; artwork/graphics as the backdrop if you don't want to go in front of a camera yourself.

Sorry for the long response.

 

[CTRandall]

I'm really happy you brought this up!

I've already planned a couple of videos for my blog and considered putting them on YouTube, as well. (Now I just have to learn the tech side but--famous jast words--that can't be too tricky.) And when I'm finally ready to publish my first novel, your post has already got me thinking about making a video trailer for it. I wonder how hard it'd be to do a video/gif cover for digital copies, as well? Maybe as a special offer?

Audiobooks obviously have a market but I'm not sure anyone would sit and watch me read a whole book. A scene or two, however, with some basic acting and/or animation could be a great hook, though. That could quickly get work and money intensive but still worth considering.

Lots to think about here.

 

[The Big Peat]

Well, we know that audiobooks are becoming big business.

But... you're gonna have to get a *LOT* of eyeballs to make more from having it free on YouTube than you would just selling it, as far as I can see. I've seen recording artist breakdowns and returns from YouTube are pathetic.

Maybe the answer is to have the first chapter being read for free on YouTube?

BUT

The videos your kids, my nieces, and so on are watching... they're not just someone reading are they? They're actual videos. I remember phyreBrat put together a wee trailer type video for Sour Ground that was super cool, maybe things like that. But that's time consuming.

And sooner or later, we're saying, don't write books, write cartoons, write skits, write short films...

I'd love to see book illustrations return. I'd love to see books that used graphic novel sequences - or even short cartoons - for battle scenes. Hell, you could create books with soundtracks, which sounds kinda awesome to me.

But its a hell of a lot of work - or a hell of a lot of money to someone else - and ultimately, you're trying to beat visual/audio media at its own game. And I suspect they're innately better at it.

Chase it too far and you end up with a book that appeals less to people who do like books too.


I think trailer vids would be sensible. I can see serial fiction returning in a big way, stories for a world that consumes in bite-sized chunks. Ditto spoken storytelling.

Beyond that... stop being an author, start being a screenplay writer? If we wanted that, wouldn't we be doing it already?


Also... how many generations read the same way and the same things at 22 as they did when 12?

 

[Abernovo]

how many generations read the same way and the same things at 22 as they did when 12?

This is very true. Reading habits and preferences can change over time. Which is where marketing to the potential audience(s) becomes important.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I put me reading ch 1 of IC2 up on my Facebook page yesterday - it’s doing okay for views. I might upload it to my YouTube channel (yes I have one, promo obsessed me) later and share to Twitter I think it’s a little long at 6 mins though - all the more reason to go with short chapters maybe?

 

[The Big Peat]

Jo, are you looking at this more as publicity, or as a better revenue stream - or is it equally both?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Good timing, as I've spent the past few weeks researching setting up a YouTube channel - and this morning I started buying the equipment I'd need.

The big caveat is that I don't see much traffic on YouTube for anything about writing, books, or authors - unless it's the bestsellers. So I suspect YouTube won't work well as a direct sales channel, but might as a brand development one.

However, I'm seeing it as a long-term commitment that will require regular uploads, and I'm not sure yet how well that will work out in terms of time management. Definitely requires a lot of planning and testing IMO.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Jo, are you looking at this more as publicity, or as a better revenue stream - or is it equally both?

I think that’s a really good question. I think for a long time it would be promo - the question would be if it would grow into the other or leave an author better placed to adapt to a market if it does change.

 

[HareBrain]

The head of Hachette? Sorry, old dude (compared to teenagers), stuck in the past, thinking e-book business model should follow the traditional book model. In fact, e-books give the opportunity for more direct sales, from publishers and authors direct to readers: you could buy off their sites and have it emailed to you. Mr Pietsch (Hachette CEO) could lead the way, if he wanted to, or had the vision, by innovating what was on offer from Hachette

Isn't that what he did say (unless you're referring to another interview), that the ebook format isn't being innovative enough, and it's stuck as being just electronic versions of the standard text? (And then everyone piled in and said that's exactly what they wanted thank you very much.)

 

[Danny McG]

just electronic versions of the standard text?i

Yep! That's all we want from ebooks.

 

[Mouse]

Having to "read" a book by watching multiple YouTube videos of the author reading the book would seem like an awful lot of effort to me to just, well, read a book.

My partner's big into YouTube, subscribes to god knows how many channels and keeps saying we should do videos. There's videos on there of people just opening stuff. Literally just opening stuff. Apparently all that's fascinating.

 

[HareBrain]

To get my views on pretty much any innovation, just imagine what Grampa Simpson would say on that subject.

Even as recently as 2003 I was dubious about my need for the internet, given that it was only email and shopping and I already had a phone and lived in a town.

 

[tinkerdan]

There are a number of things I find wrong, as both an avid reader and a self published writer, with this thought.:

I think the plateau, or rather slight decline, that we’re seeing in the US and UK is not going to reverse. It’s the limit of the ebook format. The ebook is a stupid product. It is exactly the same as print, except it’s electronic. There is no creativity, no enhancement, no real digital experience. We, as publishers, have not done a great job going digital. We’ve tried. We’ve tried enhanced or enriched ebooks – didn’t work. We’ve tried apps, websites with our content – we have one or two successes among a hundred failures. I’m talking about the entire industry. We’ve not done very well.

:The first question might be; what does he think e-Books are supposed to be?

I think that the real problem Traditional publishers such as this have with e-Books is that they can't in any way justify the pricing structure they have come up with and this person's solution is that they are stupid because they are the same product and goes on to obfuscates by talking about creativity and enhancement and digital experience. (In the article I took this from there is no explanation of what needs to be done.) Then there is a mention of having tried to enhance and enrich eBooks--that didn't work. (I'm not sure what that was exactly.) However the bottom line is that if we created some sort of new experience then we could justify a high price for the final product. Obviously the effort to do that failed to create something that was marketable.

The thing is that(as a reader)eBooks are okay being the same thing as paper books and the same thing as being Hardbound books--because they are trying to pass the same experience that the reader already has--through the digital format. If they were any thing else they wouldn't be books.

The You Tube suggest, sounds more like marketing rather than enhancement and enrichment that are being suggested by those who call eBooks stupid.

If you make a You Tube of you or someone reading your entire book--that might constitute an enhancement--except then you'd want to ask what it has over the audio book. Anything more to enhance that and you might be making a movie. However the larger question is that if you go beyond marketing and making a sample of the book and make the entire book--how do you sell that when You Tube is mostly a give away culture.

However--backing up to the notion of traditional publishing and eBooks being stupid.

In traditional publishing there is a whole lot of work(editors(several passes of various levels of editing), agents, contracts,book design, marketing) put into creating the final product(to make the best customer experience and make the author look like a genius)and the pricing of Hardbound and Softbound books evolved as the means of making that all work. These days adding eBooks causes a wrinkle that doesn't fully fit the paradigm.

Traditionally they can hide the above costs by looking at the manufacturing(printing)cost and author royalties and the distribution channel markups to determine the necessary price of Hardbound an Softbound. These prices and the sales of the book help cover both the editing and marketing costs.

An eBook--with Today's technologies--(based on my own personal experience with self publishing), when things are done correctly, has no real extra costs to manufacturer, since once you finish the digital part for the Hardbook the only work for the eBook is to create the correct format and pass that on to the digital bookstores and as with Amazon that can be fairly easy after gaining a full understanding of the format need to upload.

There is less apparent justification for pricing the eBook so high other than the reality that if the eBook takes sales away from the hard formats then they have to rely on the eBook to pay the bills and in order to give the author his reasonable portion the book has to have a price almost consistent with the price of a softback or trade paperback edition. (Or they could do away with editing, marketing, agents, and book design, and just save all that money.)

eBooks are not stupid--they just don't work well for traditional publishing and that means that taking part in the digital market will involve some creativity on their end.(What they have tried so far has failed.)The scary part might be that if they don't turn that around, there might come a time when it will cut into their margin and begin to hurt.

So they should keep eBooks where they are and then see if they can invent something new--not to replace eBooks--that will give them a fresh market to tap into.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I think there is a balance. The same generation don't like books that treat them like idiots either.

We don't need to be as flowery as Dickens but there is nothing wrong with including metaphor, simile and a wide vocabulary. I think the change is making our writing more visual, than linguistic. More than one of my stories I think would be a good fit to be told using a VR headset. However, my experience with people who produce VR software has been they are not interested in the idea of an immersive book. They complain about lack of writers but when a writer approaches them they are dismissive and a bit up themselves to be honest. I'm going back to a boring old ebook format as a result .

 

[Cathbad]

Well, of course we're doing it wrong!

Fortunately, many fortunes have been made by "Doing It Wrong".

 

[BAYLOR]

Well, of course we're doing it wrong!

Fortunately, many fortunes have been made by "Doing It Wrong".

That would make a great book title.

 

[tinkerdan]

For the record.

I'm not doing anything wrong and anyone complaining must have some agenda and don't even start with that paranoia stuff.

 

[Kylara]

I think more effort should go into audiobooks. Lots of places it's easier to listen than to read/watch. I like to have them in the car, when I'm riding, working (mucking out etc) or doing things that mean holding a book is difficult - cooking, exercise, having a bath/shower etc. It's hard to find good audiobooks. Especially as many don't have the equivalent to read an excerpt to see if you like the reader or the production - some are more theatrical, some have music, some are bland, some are wonderful. There's an online free library (libravox) but they are only books out of US copyright, and all done by volunteers. Some are one reader, some are multiple readers, some are semi theatre (each character a different person plus narrator). Some are fabulous, some less so. More audiobooks is my thought. And good ones or a variety of different versions.


I love watching things - maybe a reading with drawings - like some of the D&D podcast/YouTubes. Those are fun as not quite cartoon, but not just static either, sort of a series of drawings following the story being drawn as the reader reads.

I think audio is under utilised. Also I am against digital only audiobooks - I feel robbed paying £15 for a digital file - I want the cd for that please as the digital are often DRM locked (which I can get around but peel bad/angry about doing that). Then I have a copy regardless of what happens to my computer. You can put beautiful art in there - my hobbit and LOTR box set is very very beautiful

 

[The Big Peat]

Here's something cool and useful you can do with ebooks - and that's add links. Links to wikipedia for locations, links to your own wiki for characters, links to pictures... relatively unobtrusive, but a easy way to add a lot of background info.

And I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface.