Thread: What The Hell Is "New Media": A Glossary

While Joseph is regrouping, what do you think, garza?
Given that the future will only bring higher and higher prices on materials (especially the gasoline used to transport heavy, bulky books from place to place about six times on their way to the consumer), the increased use of electronic reading devices, and the superior capabilities of ereading NOW, much less on better and cheaper future ereaders...doesn't it seem like ebooks will gradually supplant paper printing over the long haul? Kind of inevitably.
I would assume publishers will try to stay in control of the market. Who knows if they will? It's certainly one of the lamest, most inefficient business models anywhere. The ability of indie writers and musicians to compete on an equal footing will certainly be a big factor.

One thing I've always seen as a possibility is that fiction will slowly merge with video and games, that eventually all reading except "heritage" ebooks will be multi-media. (And even some of the classics... note this new "Alice In Wonderland" for the iPad http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_537122.html)

My friend, a genius who took a magna cum laude in econ at Columbia in three years, said, "Eventually the only people selling books will be amazon and WalMart."

Another is that the downward pressure on book prices ($30 at Borders, $7 at eReads, $1 at iPhone app store) will mean there's just no money in writing. Everybody will be a writer, but nobody will make a living at it.
Actually, that might not be a bad thing.

No doubt the future will see the fading out of the traditional book publishing business. All the points that you mention point in that direction.

My initial reaction was, what has any of that to do with me? Then I followed your suggestion and went to Smashwords.

Let me see if I have this right. I could write a book on, say, the present-day cultural after effects of the Caste Wars in the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts of Belize and the States of Quintana Roo and Yucatan in Mexico. I would have complete editorial control. I could put it up on Smashwords at say, five U.S. dollars a pop, and if it sold I would get 4.25 per sale, Smashwords keeping a 15% agent's fee.

The only negative I see, if I have it right so far, is that there would be no big publishing house doing the marketing. But such a book would have a limited geographic appeal, and I could get around to all the radio stations, like the two a-m stations I listen to in Chetumal and the local stations in Belize and sell the book directly to the obvious market.

Do I understand correctly how this can work?

Sounds like you got a grasp for a self-declared decrepit codger.

If you have a local niche with interest (and don't forget pushing it to academics in other countries) you're sitting good for an SP book. Naturally you're not going to make much on it, but anything you make would be better than having it in your drawer.

Something I've done, and suggested to other people who are in a very good position to to it is uncommon but has potential.
A drawback of a download ebook is that it can't be handed over as a gift, sold on the side table at a conference, placed in stores, etc.

I handled that recently by placing ebooks on CD's. You could have all the versions on there (since a CD has vastly more space than you need) along with all sorts of "bonus tracks" like videos, pictures, bio, whatever you want to toss in. You could even have your text version!

I organize it all with a HTML page so they can click to stuff (although of course they can just copy to their own drive or device)
You can either burn a few yourself or get them duped in runs of 50 or 100 or whatever.

You can author the CD with files to make autorun if you want.
At a writing conference I was selling them in a paper sleeve with a nice gold adhesive label (pain to print on foil, next time I'll use clear background) My cost was around $2. Since the CD was a "pack" of three ebooks at $10 a copy, I made out okay.

To sell a different one in stores I packaged it in a DVD box with a wraparound color cover. That one cost me about $3 and wholesaled for $7.50. It has SCADS of stuff on it, five videos, promo samples for other books, yada yada.

My guess is you could download all the versions created by Smashwords and use them on your CD. I haven't looked into it but that might be unethical depending on the contract since they wouldn't get any cut.

You'd be, essentially, pirating yourself. Which is kind of cool, in a way.

But you can also whip out your own versions at home. Mobipocket has a free converter and there a jillion others.

Lin - You've given me a lot to think about.

The CD idea is something I should already have thought about doing locally, because I've already done one, in a manner of speaking. A few years ago a local media house got the contract to produce a new Social Security Handbook. I was hired to do the actual writing. Well, I ended up producing the entire book -- text, photos, tables, glossary, summary of the SSB act, everything. I put it all on a CD, camera ready, and delivered it to the printer myself.

Everyone was happy with it except some of the middle level bureaucrats who complained that that language I used was too simple. It wasn't 'official' enough. In other words, anyone who picked up the book was able to read it and understand all about Belize Social Security, and they didn't forgive me for that. But it was too late. It was printed and out the door and delivered into the hands of the people where it belonged.

So I could put together an ebook on my own, package it, sell it myself, and make a few bucks. While I am comfortably well off, none of us will turn down a way to make even a few dollars more.

What format do you use for that sort of project? I like the Smashwords idea, and the CD idea as well. This all opens up possibilities I'd not thought of before.

The conference CD's I mentioned has 3 pdf ebooks on publishing. Also six videos which illustrate points made in the ebook on making your own book trailers.
I also included two programs, to make sure the reader could access everything. I didn't use links to free downloads because an ebook isn't a website--the reader might not be connected to the internet. So I have the actual exe files to install VLC for both Mac and Windows (a "will show anything" video viewer) and Foxit reader (a very slim, elegant, pdf reader).

The is also an html page (using frames, which I love but are untrustworthy online) and the autorun.inf file and logo.
You can read tutorials online about making a CD auto open on both Windows and Mac, but I didn't bother. It opens on Windows. Mac users can figure out how to click the index.html file if they're so damned hip.
You see these $80 programs that will generate autorun.inf files for you. Technically known as "rip-offs". Here's my autorun file.
All you really need is the first two lines. But the others are pretty nifty. The CD drive will appear to the reader not as "Drive D", but as Make Your Own Videos -- FOR FREE with a little icon beside it.
How cool is THAT?

[AutoRun]
OPEN=index.html
label=Make Your Own Videos -- FOR FREE
icon=logo.ico




There are other enhancements possible for autorun. Open a readme file, for instance, or run a program.

BTW, you can also have the CD's printed. Full color or black lazer burn. I just used a simple black design on these to save money, but the other one, in the DVD case has a beautiful full color design on it.
Most bulk copiers offer this.
Where I got mine done was a video shop. It's all pirates up here, and they have the burners and printers to make copies of DVD's.

If you're selling them in a paper sleeve, you can get them with transparent circular windows to show your design and not have to worry about labeling he sleeve.

I've never thought of self-publishing as respectable, but what you are describing takes self-publishing to a whole new level made possible by technology. The possibilities are endless. The variations are infinite.

This is something I'm going to pursue. I'll not yet give up my traditional ties to traditional publishers turning out traditional material, that would be foolish, but online and CD publishing opens up new worlds for any writer, young or old.

Now if only I can figure out a way to be 25 again...

Well, vis a vis respectable, there was self-publishing before there were publishing companies.
And the question would be whether is gets more or less respect than non-published.

Thing is, readers really don't care one way or the other. And I doubt the media review structure (if any) in Belize gives a damn. About anything, really.

So who is there to view any given book with degrees of respectability?

Media review structure in Belize? Ah, let me think... There are attempts at such, but everything here is politically coloured so it's hard to tell whether a reviewer is giving an honest opinion or reflecting what the agenda of the party he belongs to.

I see it as a world populace entering the same information stream the rich have ever accessed. I don't think paper books will ever be obsolete, but I think the potential for humans to use the higher faculties of their minds is just beginning to be realized, as a result of new media.

The consequences of this will plainly be cultural revolutions in societies which have previously relied solely in tradition and custom, "New Media" means a few hundred years of rapid cultural change, I think.