One of the questions I’m most often asked when I explain what I’m doing is “How are you going to make any money doing that?” Actually, it’s not usually phrased quite that way – more “it’s all right for you, but we’ve got bills to pay” or less family-friendly rewordings of the same sentiment. After I’ve ridden the virtual punches occasioned by my stock tongue-in-cheek-but-actually-serious answer that no one’s owed a living and in a market economy it’s up to me if I give my work away (and anyway, if it’s as bad as all that how’s it really a threat, free or not?), it’s worth mentioning I’m not actually barmy to think I might earn money from my exploits (or at least, even if I don’t see a bean, I think people who do what I do only better might).
It’s worth saying here this is a general post. I’m not going to tell you what innovation you should come up with. If I could do that then 1. it wouldn’t be innovation when you did it and 2. I’d do it myself. Instead I want to explain what I mean by innovation, and give some examples of successful, and not so successful, innovations to illustrate what I mean by money following innovation.
The reason is that generally speaking money follows innovation. I want to preface this with what’s probably the obvious observation. In the internet age, the real money flows to those with innovative software (Napster); and flows next to those who put existing software to innovative uses (selling goods in Second Life). I don’t have the technical expertise to do the former, or the start-up capital and time to give me access to technology to do the latter, although you may. Nonetheless, there IS a third rung of innovation – one that’s content-driven, that won’t make swathes of the population rich, but will make a few people a tidy living.
There are two ways to make money from innovation. It’s as true in traditional publishing as it is in technology. You can be first on the block – huge risk and huge return; or you can be second-up, the first of the “me too”s – lower risk, lower reward. In publishing terms, you can be the Da Vinci Code, or The Rule of Four. In tech terms, you can be IBM or Amstrad. Sometimes it pays to BE IBM and act like Amstrad – keeping your powder dry, waiting for someone else to take the risk and make the high investment, and content yourself with a lower yield sure thing. The obvious example from my youth where this paid in spades was the Betamax/VHS video recorder battle.
To return to the original distinctions, let’s take a look at how writing is open to innovation in each of the three categories I listed.
1. New software – if I knew what the next big software breakthrough was, I’d be looking for a business partner not writing a blog with a handful of partners. The person who devises it will be very rich. The most obvious example of this kind of innovation is the file-sharing software that made Napster’s founder first infamous, then rich. Wiki software and social networking software come into this category. I don’t know whether literature is liable to produce this kid of innovation (by nature I have a feeling it’s adaptive rather than creative, which is exactly the kind of statement designed to make me look an idiot when someone hits the jackpot – which is partly why I say it)
2. New applications – for me, this is where the big money lies, although I don’t know if it’s us writers who’ll cash in. The three obvious areas of what I’ll call (for want of any clue whatsoever what the real term is) adaptive innovation ripe for someone to come in and do an Amstrad are mobile phone subscription; wiki-novels; and POD machines. They shouldn’t need explanation. Each of them is clearly going to be central to the future of literature and publishing.
3. Content-drive innovation. By this I don’t mean looking for new ways to deliver the same kind of literature. I mean using existing technology to do something new. This is where writers’ big opportunity lies. It’s NOT big bucks. At least it will be for a couple of people, but most people, even the cutting edge innovators, won’t make a fortune. I think blogging IS an example of this kind of innovation – reluctantly, because formally speaking it’s not really that different from a diary – it’s just a diary/column that appears on a screen. It’s not a step forward for the literary form. Phone novels again for me are evolutions of the serial form, not phenotypic quantum shifts. I think they’re DIFFERENT because there’s the chance to be clever with the way phones display text, the way you write emoticons and text-speak in, but that’s not really innovation.
It goes without saying I’d LIKE to think of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes as a genuine literary innovation – the fact it exists on multiple platforms each of which forms a part of a whole story, for example, is something it excites me as a writer to play with. Interactivity and metatextual commenting is great as well, but I have a feeling it’s little more than an evolution from primitive gaming books. The big innovation will be the thing that drives the shape of the novel forward. It MAY have to do with wikis – I love wiki writing if it’s done collaboratively and iteratively and not just treated like a high tech game of consequences. It may have to do with Bulletin Board Sites (BBS) – All About Lily Chou-Chou, in fact, may already be THERE – I’m amazed more people aren’t playing with this.
I have two predictions that are, at the same time, challenges. First, the big, literature-changing innovation will work around the way we take information in – it will break down linearity in the way modernists would have done had they not been stuck between covers. It will make us click links, and it will make us active participants in the world that the author is creating – in this sense it will borrow from narrative-driven art and gaming. It will be the ultimate realisation of Derrida’s claim that the text is everything.
Second, the money will go the Amstrad route. The first people to do it will catch the imagination of someone with an entrepreneurial mind and a marketing savvy streak, and they will make the money. So my advice to you is keep your ear to the ground.
Oh, and for those of us who lack that degree of imagination but have a certain knack for mixing up a cocktail of analytics and chutzpah, the way to make money from innovation is to talk and write about what others are doing, have done, or might at some time in the future do.
Showing posts with label digital publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital publishing. Show all posts
Monday, 1 June 2009
Monday, 18 May 2009
Read the book, buy the T-shirt?
OK, I’m taking my 10 commandments out of turn, because I went off piste with my last post to talk about music. So this week we’ll deal with commandment number 10:
Writers need to think like musicians and artists; we need to be showmen and women, to work in the public eye, and to make our money from selling an experience rather than a piece of hardware.
This is the thing that sparks the most intense conversations with my fellow writers, with “we’re just different” being the standard answer, and the reason why my constant references to the music industry are taken as a sign the pressure’s finally got to me. And when I’m at a gig, surrounded on all sides by fans united by the sound and the experience, I can absolutely see the uniquely collective appeal of music. But…
Even during the most intense set I can’t get that “but” out of my head.
The fact is, I would happily pay £10 to sit in a hall and listen to Murakami reading from Kafka on the Shore (I DID fork out a fiver for this year’s Murakami diary even though the paper’s so shiny you can’t write your appointments on it). And look at flashmobbing; and those giant nude crowd photos set in department stores. Art’s clearly not so different from music. That’s the big “but” filling my thought screen – it’s not music that infects the collective consciousness. It’s culture. And culture is writing as much as it’s a rock concert.
I want to aside her, but I’m not going to because I’ll bore you stupid. Just let me know if you’d like me to talk about culture and collectivity in general and I’ll happily do so. For now, I’ll limit myself to the single observation that’s relevant to my argument. For most of the time we’ve had stories, they’ve been public and not private experiences, passed on by storytellers to a live audience.
All of which is jolly interesting but of no help in explaining how to make money from doing something other than selling books.
OK, I’m not writing a textbook, I’m writing a post for my blog and my thousand words are almost gone on my intro, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to look at three ways musicians use to make money and see if there’s any transferability.
Take it for read, please, that this post is to be read in conjunction with my earlier post on giving your work away for free. Because for me there’s a real synergy there. Give your story away, and make your money from selling something else. If you can do this you really are on to a winner – and you’re obeying last week’s commandment of putting the fans first. Of course there’s the question of whether writing creates fans like that. But for now I’m going to refer back to my own example. Either I’m unique (in which case I should have figured out a way of getting rich by selling myself to research by now, and my bank account is conclusive evidence to the contrary) or writing can produce real fans.
So here’s our packet of three:
The tour. In the free download age, we’re always hearing that bands rely more and more on making money from live performances. I want to make two points. First, the live tour is something writers can replicate perfectly well. Second, whatever their multitude of benefits, unless you ARE Murakami, or Oasis, they’re not really a way to get rich.
I paid (sorry, my wife paid) £7 to hear The Boxer Rebellion last Friday (as an aside, that’s ridiculous value [we got 3 and a half hours of which 2 hours was live music form 3 great bands, including the hottest property in the UK] – gigs are ridiculous value, even the humungous ones – but the humungous ones aren’t really what we’re looking at as a replicable business model). There can’t have been more than 150 people there. Even allowing for an average price of £8 to include those paying £9 on the door, that’s £1200 from door receipts. Split with the venue. Less the cut for main support (assuming first support are doing it for nothing but the kudos). Less manager’s cut. Less paying the road crew. Less transport, accommodation, food, kit maintenance. Then split four ways. Even my maths is good enough to tell me it pays better to sew the tour T-shirts in a sweatshop.
You don’t make your money on tour from playing. You get a kick from playing; you spread the word by playing; you delight the fans by playing. You make money on tour by selling merchandise. And that can include selling something you’ve already given away. We went to see The Charlatans at The Astoria last November. They got a vast amount of publicity by giving away free downloads of last year’s album You Cross My Path. CDs of the same album were on sale with the other merchandise, and within an hour they were sold out – bought by people who already had the free download. The point is, get a group of fans together and they’re not just PREPARED to pay for something they’ve already got for free. They’ll WANT to. But those who missed out on the night probably won’t all go to HMV the next day – that’s the importance of the gig.
So can writers do this? Well, yes. Book tours, with readings and signings, don’t have to be impossible to arrange. And they don’t have to be dull, dry, reverential affairs (although they can be – what form they actually take probably depends on your genre). Nor do they have to take place in bookstores. Chains will probably baulk because if you’re self-publishing they won’t get a huge slice of the pie. Independent bookstores are more likely but not great venues. I’d take a leaf out of bands’ books. Start in small venues you can get on the cheap – why not ask pubs and coffee shops (these are great because people go there anyway). Give away free downloads to build publicity, put up flyers, then sell the book on the night and split the profits with the venue. Move on to town halls, leisure centres, other public amenities, when you think you can cover any cost (and why not find local bands and ask them where they play/rehearse?).
Merchandise. Yes, merchandise. This is where the money is made by bands on tour – those 50 T-shirts at £15 a pop will earn them as much as the door money. Then add the badges, hats, mugs, and lanyards. But how on earth can a writer sell merchandise? Well, I bought my Murakami diary…
As a writer you may not be able to do the whole traditional gamut straight off – chances are people won’t want a Joe Wannabe mug, for example. This DOES illustrate the importance of branding yourself, though – giving yourself a visual as well as a verbal identity (think about the font and layout of your covers). One of the most important parts of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, especially given the subject matter, iconic images and viral phenomena (although I obviously chose the subject matter for a reason) was the creation of a brand image to go with the website and novel. Agnieszka Kitty is an instantly recognisable, simple image that would look fine on anyone’s T-shirt.
Your audience might want different merchandise – I think Agnieszka Kitty eco bags would look rather nice. Then there’s the obvious – bookmarks. The other thing you can do is tie your merchandise in with your book – there’s a big tech element in The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, so I’m thinking mobile phone or iPod socks (but be careful, and I’d advise steering clear of the legal minefield of using proprietary brands). Does your book have a key theme? An orange chrysanthemum, for example. The masters at this are the Coen brothers – think Miller’s Crossing hats, Big Lebowski bowling balls, O Brother Where Art Thou hair wax (not to mention the Soggy Bottom Boys CD).
The special edition. Musicians and film studios are masters at this. The Smiths even wrote a song (Paint a Vulgar Picture) about it. When I was at university, bands would routinely bring out 5 or 6 versions of a single and fans wanted ALL of them. Needless to say eventually the fans got rather tired of “a slightly different cover” and “bonus tracks,” but the special edition has evolved.
The point of the special edition isn’t really getting fans to pay twice for the same thing. That’s what the bad old days turned it into. It’s about just what it says – giving them something special. Something that’s a badge, that marks them out as a “real fan” as well as satisfying the fans’ desire to know more about anything and everything to do with your work And the advantage to you is you can charge a premium, making more profit per unit. There are whole books to be written on getting the price right – my rule is simple: never take the p*** - it’s as much for them as it is for you. They may grudgingly pay £20 but wouldn’t you rather they willingly paid £15? But always charge more than the standard version (or if you’re giving the standard version away, more than the RRP of similar books) – otherwise it’s not special, it just looks like the different cover double profit trick.
So what goes into a special edition to make it special? In a way that’s up to you and will depend on what you write about. But make it something YOU’D want, and be prepared to pay for. And make it specific to your book (don’t just stick a generic pen on the cover, for example, or give them 20% off a MacDonald’s). Is there more information you could give on some of your characters? If you have a great cameo character you know people will love but can’t really expand for story reasons, why not write a short, or even a novella, and include it (The Man Who Panited Agnieszka’s Shoes is about a man’s search for his missing daughter. There’s nothing about her childhood, but from June 1st I’ll be tweeting her childhood story on the username dadpleasefindme – the collected tweets would be a perfect companion piece to a book)? Does your protagonist keep a journal? Why not give a customised blank journal of the kind you’ve described so readers can keep their own (would work perfectly if you’re writing a Bridget Jones type book)?
Writers need to think like musicians and artists; we need to be showmen and women, to work in the public eye, and to make our money from selling an experience rather than a piece of hardware.
This is the thing that sparks the most intense conversations with my fellow writers, with “we’re just different” being the standard answer, and the reason why my constant references to the music industry are taken as a sign the pressure’s finally got to me. And when I’m at a gig, surrounded on all sides by fans united by the sound and the experience, I can absolutely see the uniquely collective appeal of music. But…
Even during the most intense set I can’t get that “but” out of my head.
The fact is, I would happily pay £10 to sit in a hall and listen to Murakami reading from Kafka on the Shore (I DID fork out a fiver for this year’s Murakami diary even though the paper’s so shiny you can’t write your appointments on it). And look at flashmobbing; and those giant nude crowd photos set in department stores. Art’s clearly not so different from music. That’s the big “but” filling my thought screen – it’s not music that infects the collective consciousness. It’s culture. And culture is writing as much as it’s a rock concert.
I want to aside her, but I’m not going to because I’ll bore you stupid. Just let me know if you’d like me to talk about culture and collectivity in general and I’ll happily do so. For now, I’ll limit myself to the single observation that’s relevant to my argument. For most of the time we’ve had stories, they’ve been public and not private experiences, passed on by storytellers to a live audience.
All of which is jolly interesting but of no help in explaining how to make money from doing something other than selling books.
OK, I’m not writing a textbook, I’m writing a post for my blog and my thousand words are almost gone on my intro, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to look at three ways musicians use to make money and see if there’s any transferability.
Take it for read, please, that this post is to be read in conjunction with my earlier post on giving your work away for free. Because for me there’s a real synergy there. Give your story away, and make your money from selling something else. If you can do this you really are on to a winner – and you’re obeying last week’s commandment of putting the fans first. Of course there’s the question of whether writing creates fans like that. But for now I’m going to refer back to my own example. Either I’m unique (in which case I should have figured out a way of getting rich by selling myself to research by now, and my bank account is conclusive evidence to the contrary) or writing can produce real fans.
So here’s our packet of three:
The tour. In the free download age, we’re always hearing that bands rely more and more on making money from live performances. I want to make two points. First, the live tour is something writers can replicate perfectly well. Second, whatever their multitude of benefits, unless you ARE Murakami, or Oasis, they’re not really a way to get rich.
I paid (sorry, my wife paid) £7 to hear The Boxer Rebellion last Friday (as an aside, that’s ridiculous value [we got 3 and a half hours of which 2 hours was live music form 3 great bands, including the hottest property in the UK] – gigs are ridiculous value, even the humungous ones – but the humungous ones aren’t really what we’re looking at as a replicable business model). There can’t have been more than 150 people there. Even allowing for an average price of £8 to include those paying £9 on the door, that’s £1200 from door receipts. Split with the venue. Less the cut for main support (assuming first support are doing it for nothing but the kudos). Less manager’s cut. Less paying the road crew. Less transport, accommodation, food, kit maintenance. Then split four ways. Even my maths is good enough to tell me it pays better to sew the tour T-shirts in a sweatshop.
You don’t make your money on tour from playing. You get a kick from playing; you spread the word by playing; you delight the fans by playing. You make money on tour by selling merchandise. And that can include selling something you’ve already given away. We went to see The Charlatans at The Astoria last November. They got a vast amount of publicity by giving away free downloads of last year’s album You Cross My Path. CDs of the same album were on sale with the other merchandise, and within an hour they were sold out – bought by people who already had the free download. The point is, get a group of fans together and they’re not just PREPARED to pay for something they’ve already got for free. They’ll WANT to. But those who missed out on the night probably won’t all go to HMV the next day – that’s the importance of the gig.
So can writers do this? Well, yes. Book tours, with readings and signings, don’t have to be impossible to arrange. And they don’t have to be dull, dry, reverential affairs (although they can be – what form they actually take probably depends on your genre). Nor do they have to take place in bookstores. Chains will probably baulk because if you’re self-publishing they won’t get a huge slice of the pie. Independent bookstores are more likely but not great venues. I’d take a leaf out of bands’ books. Start in small venues you can get on the cheap – why not ask pubs and coffee shops (these are great because people go there anyway). Give away free downloads to build publicity, put up flyers, then sell the book on the night and split the profits with the venue. Move on to town halls, leisure centres, other public amenities, when you think you can cover any cost (and why not find local bands and ask them where they play/rehearse?).
Merchandise. Yes, merchandise. This is where the money is made by bands on tour – those 50 T-shirts at £15 a pop will earn them as much as the door money. Then add the badges, hats, mugs, and lanyards. But how on earth can a writer sell merchandise? Well, I bought my Murakami diary…
As a writer you may not be able to do the whole traditional gamut straight off – chances are people won’t want a Joe Wannabe mug, for example. This DOES illustrate the importance of branding yourself, though – giving yourself a visual as well as a verbal identity (think about the font and layout of your covers). One of the most important parts of The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, especially given the subject matter, iconic images and viral phenomena (although I obviously chose the subject matter for a reason) was the creation of a brand image to go with the website and novel. Agnieszka Kitty is an instantly recognisable, simple image that would look fine on anyone’s T-shirt.
Your audience might want different merchandise – I think Agnieszka Kitty eco bags would look rather nice. Then there’s the obvious – bookmarks. The other thing you can do is tie your merchandise in with your book – there’s a big tech element in The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes, so I’m thinking mobile phone or iPod socks (but be careful, and I’d advise steering clear of the legal minefield of using proprietary brands). Does your book have a key theme? An orange chrysanthemum, for example. The masters at this are the Coen brothers – think Miller’s Crossing hats, Big Lebowski bowling balls, O Brother Where Art Thou hair wax (not to mention the Soggy Bottom Boys CD).
The special edition. Musicians and film studios are masters at this. The Smiths even wrote a song (Paint a Vulgar Picture) about it. When I was at university, bands would routinely bring out 5 or 6 versions of a single and fans wanted ALL of them. Needless to say eventually the fans got rather tired of “a slightly different cover” and “bonus tracks,” but the special edition has evolved.
The point of the special edition isn’t really getting fans to pay twice for the same thing. That’s what the bad old days turned it into. It’s about just what it says – giving them something special. Something that’s a badge, that marks them out as a “real fan” as well as satisfying the fans’ desire to know more about anything and everything to do with your work And the advantage to you is you can charge a premium, making more profit per unit. There are whole books to be written on getting the price right – my rule is simple: never take the p*** - it’s as much for them as it is for you. They may grudgingly pay £20 but wouldn’t you rather they willingly paid £15? But always charge more than the standard version (or if you’re giving the standard version away, more than the RRP of similar books) – otherwise it’s not special, it just looks like the different cover double profit trick.
So what goes into a special edition to make it special? In a way that’s up to you and will depend on what you write about. But make it something YOU’D want, and be prepared to pay for. And make it specific to your book (don’t just stick a generic pen on the cover, for example, or give them 20% off a MacDonald’s). Is there more information you could give on some of your characters? If you have a great cameo character you know people will love but can’t really expand for story reasons, why not write a short, or even a novella, and include it (The Man Who Panited Agnieszka’s Shoes is about a man’s search for his missing daughter. There’s nothing about her childhood, but from June 1st I’ll be tweeting her childhood story on the username dadpleasefindme – the collected tweets would be a perfect companion piece to a book)? Does your protagonist keep a journal? Why not give a customised blank journal of the kind you’ve described so readers can keep their own (would work perfectly if you’re writing a Bridget Jones type book)?
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Publishing's in BIG TROUBLE
OK, so publishing’s in a bad way. Victoria Barnsley was speaking at LBF on the future of publishing. She’s the industry’s chief insider futurologist. And the best she can manage is what a couple of amateur dingbats sitting on a chatroom managed to knock up months ago. Serialisation (like Dickens, in fact) – sounds remarkably like the project one of my good writing friends has been working on for a long time – G, sort out the software, flog it to HC, and set up a press fro the rest of us with the proceeds.
And as for making money out of new tech – well, it’s hardly news is it – where it IS big news, of course, is for all those “insiders” who’ve been saying the industry doesn’t need change – the news is the biggest insider of all says otherwise. And like film and music first, when she comes a looking she’s going to be seeing what the indie innovators are doing, and see how she can spin it off to make gazillions if you shove a marketing shunt behind it.
So this is my last warning to the debunkers – the industry itself is won over to what we’ve been saying. Some of those of us who do our indie thing properly and innovatively now will have our doors battered down by execs with cheques in 2010. I intend to do everything I can in 2009 to make sure I’m one of them. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll worry about that next year. It’s not too late for everyone else out there to give it a go. I told you in January this was land grab time and no one believed me. I’m telling you again now. Come share the spoils. Because if you stick to the old way because there’s time for innovation later, you’ll end up discovering what the dot.com destitutes found out –a bandwagon’s a hell of a bumpy ride unless you’re the person driving it.
And as for making money out of new tech – well, it’s hardly news is it – where it IS big news, of course, is for all those “insiders” who’ve been saying the industry doesn’t need change – the news is the biggest insider of all says otherwise. And like film and music first, when she comes a looking she’s going to be seeing what the indie innovators are doing, and see how she can spin it off to make gazillions if you shove a marketing shunt behind it.
So this is my last warning to the debunkers – the industry itself is won over to what we’ve been saying. Some of those of us who do our indie thing properly and innovatively now will have our doors battered down by execs with cheques in 2010. I intend to do everything I can in 2009 to make sure I’m one of them. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll worry about that next year. It’s not too late for everyone else out there to give it a go. I told you in January this was land grab time and no one believed me. I’m telling you again now. Come share the spoils. Because if you stick to the old way because there’s time for innovation later, you’ll end up discovering what the dot.com destitutes found out –a bandwagon’s a hell of a bumpy ride unless you’re the person driving it.
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