Are we doing it all wrong...?

Oh or podcasts/vlogs to serialise stuff like in magazines! I love serial stories on podcast. Something fun to look forward to. Some 10/15 mins an episode, some 90mins so plenty of variety!
 
Right now I'd say I use Youtube a lot - I have subscribed currently to about 60 channels - essentially it's replaced my traditional television viewing. However it's not replaced my reading time, as both offer different pleasures that the other one can't really compete with. I honestly think they can be complimentary.

Yes, there could be a worry that competition from such a source is 'stopping' new blood from getting into books, as we only have a limited amount of time to pay attention to something, and that is true (but then we also have to add in other activities such as Facebook, Gaming etc...) however, hasn't there always been other activities that got in the way? Sport, cinema going, Scouts/Girl guides etc. Even in the 1970's not everyone read books!

I think Peat, above, got it right, Youtube is a different medium and you have to think differently to do it well. So not only get your video and audio skills up to scratch, but, in my mind, the core of your 'offering' has to be unique and original content. Successful channels usually have a simple and distinct rationale that take advantage of the platform and the video medium. Also a great deal of it is sold on the personality of the presenter.

Yes, there are huge amounts of narrative's on the platform, but they are very different from book fiction - they are mostly spontaneous and visually rich i.e. 'Let's Plays' of computer games.

How an up-and-coming author might take advantage of this, I'm not so sure. There are plenty of channels dedicated to books of well known authors - huge demand for the lore and world-building of big novels or fantasy worlds, - so for example LotR, ASoIaF, Star Wars - not only because people get obsessive and look for all sorts of details, love theories and want a place to discuss them, but they of course have plenty of clips from movies and TV! But these are channels started by fans where the initial fan base is large.

For an unknown author to grow in Youtube, it feels to me it will be a massive amount of effort - even if you have a great idea - that'll mean you'd be neglecting your writing side. I have seen quite a few Vloggers talking about writing on their channels, some even tried to leverage a self-published book out of it (it did not appear to work). Bnt there's a limit to how many '10 things you should avoid as a writer' vids I can stomach. :)

Also IMHO, I'd be wary about using it as another form of advertising. Say in releasing 'audiobook' teasers of chapters - remember most people hover their mouse over the 'skip' button as soon as any advert appears!

I'm sure something should work that might benefit your writing, there surely are a great deal of possibilities, but it will probably be doubling your workload and branching out into something other than straight fiction writing.
 
Especially as many don't have the equivalent to read an excerpt to see if you like the reader or the production

But this is usually the case, at least if you buy or even look at books from Amazon. I can't think of a single exception where a book with an audio edition did not have a sample available on line. Also, the price does not have to be prohibitive, especially if you want to buy the book. In my experience you can always get the audio version for between $1.99 and $3.99 above the cost of the "regular book." --- As many of you know, I read a lot of Indy books and a lot of them I get as a part of my Kindle Unlimited Subscription. If I get a "free" book from KU, I can still buy the audio portion, usually for $1.99. I think teaming the two is a really good way to diversify. I would point to the "Bobiverse" as a book that went big time because the audio portion of it was such a winner.

----

I think that to compare books to movies or YouTube is comparing potatoes and grass. Both are really nice and serve important purposes but they are not really comparable. Speaking from a readers point of view, the best idea on this tread is the idea of click through on a book. It should be dead easy if the ebook is being read on a tablet. On a regular Kindle there might be a few issues but none that I would consider insolvable.
 
I've watched my Tween grow from "shouty" OMG YOU GOTTA TRY THIS videos to more instructive or informative as her appetite for knowledge grows, she's drifted away from YA that takes to long to set up (AND THERE'S WAY TO MANY OF THEM!) to Shakespeare (go figure that one out folks...)
I've written interactive games. I've developed narratives for Youtube with kids.
You're not doing it wrong. Every media has a different skill set/approach. Every media has a different audience.
You wanna write books... write books. It's not the same as writing a short story.
You wanna write games... totally different hooks. You wanna go script a screenplay, its nothing like YouTube.
That has its own rules and cycle of marketing.
 
I notice change in my own habits over time, I used to read 4-5 books a month as a kid in the 90's and early 2000's then youtube and piracy and computer games became more and more accessible. with the explosion of popularity of computer games, video and audio media. I think stories will gradually shift over to video and audio media.
Especially as the technology to create story driven work becomes more accessible and usable. people will adapt to change, and there will always be a place for written works. But if publishers and ebook sellers are not careful and make sure they stay ahead of the curb in terms of usability, effective use of technology and carefully manage how they reach the market with their product. then reading will slide even further amongst the kids of the next few generations.

If writers want to stay relevant as the audiences tastes evolve then it would be smart to start learning how far they can push the written word using technology.

With companies like graphic audio and audiable expanding their markets, there is still hope for writers, but people might not read so much as listen to books in the future.

I hope that ebook publishers take a page from the book of steam and create a social reading platform where you can have friends lists, chat and post about what you are reading as well as get books suggested for you and that kind of thing. now that would earn someone some money.
 
Amazon audio is now audible and I refuse to use audible for a few reasons so stuck a bit.
 
There's videos on there of people just opening stuff. Literally just opening stuff. Apparently all that's fascinating.

Yes. I've watched a lot of them, because it's helpful to know exactly what I'm getting when I order something sight-unseen.

Though I was a bit miffed that I didn't get the cool box that the Youtuber was showing off when I bought my last big boys' toy. But I got a carrying case that they didn't, which somewhat made up for it.

Back on the ebook front, I don't want too much in an ebook except the story. As I mentioned here before, publishers have done some innovative things with ebooks, like the animated illustrations in the Harry Potter books and the masses of background information in Game Of Thrones. But most books simply aren't profitable enough to justify that kind of investment by a publisher.
 
I think, just as video editing and production has become more open to the general public, so will ebooks, we are seeing that now with various self publishing platforms, as those platform compete with eachother, the range of technologies and features available to users of the platforms will increase.
Whether or not authors decide to pack the amount of content into an ebook that's possible is another matter.

I think if we reach the point that you simply cannot sell a book without animated illustrations or wiki style info links, inbuilt advertisments ect. then your average writer will start doing it too.

I like the standard book format myself although I think some fantasy epics or space opera books could do with a wiki style glossary. and theres some neat motion comic book stuff going on now too.
 
Weird things are happening in audiobooklandia. Amazon has introduced the Audible Romance package which is basically KU for audiobooks, and they have expressed their intent to create packages for other genres, with SF/F firmly in their sights.

The problem?

The Romance Package payout has been utterly abysmal and Amazon are showing no intention of releasing people from their 7-year contracts to remain in the package. For those unfamiliar with the problems here, they are basically:
  1. Amazon make up their mind how much they want to pay you
  2. They don't tell you up front how much they intend to pay you
  3. Grats you are now trapped in a contract that pays you $2.50 for an audiobook it cost you thousands of dollars to produce.
Worse, this has gutted sales for people who did not enrol their audiobooks in the program. Readers have signed up and are, of course, glutting themselves on the all-you-can-hear buffet so why would they buy anything that isn't included in Romance Unlimited? People whose sales have been steady for months on end have suddenly stopped selling at all.

And Amazon plan to roll this out into SFF.

There is your canary in the coal mine, and to disregard it as "yes well that's Romance *sniffs snobbishly*" is extremely dangerous.
 
Anyone in the ebook market who disregards trends in Romance isn't paying attention to their bottom line, frankly. I'm musing so much on all this now. I could apply for funding in the summer that might support an innovative approach to media - but it would have to tie in to Norn Iron so I think Inish Carraig would have to be the medium. But should that be something like tying up with a film maker (I have someone on board who is interested) or should it be linking with a graphic artist - I'd love that - or should it be developing the virtual world online.

Mostly, I find myself excited at possibilities.
 
Anyone in the ebook market who disregards trends in Romance isn't paying attention to their bottom line, frankly. I'm musing so much on all this now. I could apply for funding in the summer that might support an innovative approach to media - but it would have to tie in to Norn Iron so I think Inish Carraig would have to be the medium. But should that be something like tying up with a film maker (I have someone on board who is interested) or should it be linking with a graphic artist - I'd love that - or should it be developing the virtual world online.

Mostly, I find myself excited at possibilities.

I still say soundtracks would be the coolest thing :p Particularly if you could trigger certain parts of it to play when a certain page is reached.

(Getting it to sync up with someone's reading pace would be a nightmare beyond that though)
 
I still say soundtracks would be the coolest thing :p Particularly if you could trigger certain parts of it to play when a certain page is reached.

(Getting it to sync up with someone's reading pace would be a nightmare beyond that though)
Just have to tell Matt Bellamy to sell me all the rights to Muse's songs. Should be doable. :p :D
 
Gah! This would be my worst nightmare! I can't read or write with music in the background as it's far too distracting. If I hated the music, I'd hate the book. And if I loved the music, I'd never read the book.
Agreed re writing. But I do like to listen to soft classical when I'm reading.
 
Anyone in the ebook market who disregards trends in Romance isn't paying attention to their bottom line, frankly. I'm musing so much on all this now. I could apply for funding in the summer that might support an innovative approach to media - but it would have to tie in to Norn Iron so I think Inish Carraig would have to be the medium. But should that be something like tying up with a film maker (I have someone on board who is interested) or should it be linking with a graphic artist - I'd love that - or should it be developing the virtual world online.

Mostly, I find myself excited at possibilities.

I agree. In terms of trends and technology Romance is often 5-10 years ahead of other genres. It's big business and I learned a lot when I spent time in a chatroom with erotic romance writers as I learned to write my stories. Not least that a great erotic romance sex scene and a great fantasy fight scene have much in common ;)
 
man I reckon, if you tied music and sound effects to different pages, included the ability to disable and enable them, and included some minimal motion graphics <---- like animation but you just move images around a little to give the illusion of movement.
you could really end up with a neat product.

as for amazon... yeah... they are so big they have kind of almost stopped innovating, no competition.
 
I hope that ebook publishers take a page from the book of steam and create a social reading platform where you can have friends lists, chat and post about what you are reading as well as get books suggested for you and that kind of thing. now that would earn someone some money.

To me that sounds like Goodreads - and Amazon bought that about 5 years back - so it definitely makes money. :)
 
I would make it as easy as possible to access content on any system, synch books between all devices so you have your own reader/store combined into one, plus your social aspects.

Instead I have to travel to different sites to get books, I have to log into 10 different things and give each one my email adress and I have to hunt down books using clunky interfaces, sometimes the books you find are inexplicably listed and yet cannot be bought because they arent in print or ebook form making you wonder... why?

Why should I have to sign up to two or more services just to access book reviews and still buy books? its silly.

One system, click and buy. If you want customers you make it as easy as possible.
 
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I'm more optimistic than most. My sister's kids are avid readers, which doesn't fit the stereotype. They'll be buying books for decades.
I read a lot as a kid and early adulthood, took a long break from reading novels to reading news articles, and now I'm back to reading novels.
So, tastes and interests change over time.

I think readership will increase as more people become retired/phased out of the workplace, can't physically do anything else or don't want to anymore, and don't have the money for adventures or Netflix accounts. The computer and/or ebook reader will keep working for a long time, however.

Unfortunately, it means old people have more time to post stupid reich wing memes on FB instead of reading novels. Idle hands and whatnot...
 
Audio books is a growing market - people listening to novels while walking the dog or driving.
 

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