Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 197

One of My Biggest Life-Changing Moments

Halloween at the Indiana Academy (1992) -- I'm standing up against the ghost

Two of the best years of my life were spent at the Indiana Academy, which is a public residential high school for juniors and seniors (at Ball State University campus in Muncie, Indiana).

I wrote a brief personal essay about why it was a life-changing moment to attend.

My story kicks off a series on life-changing moments from Robert Brewer—my dear friend and colleague, editor of Writer's Market, plus phenomenal blogger at TWO blogs, Poetic Asides and My Name Is Not Bob. If you're a poet (or a soulful human being), you don't want to miss his posts.

Read my story, and check out the series.

Why You Should Add E-mail Subscription Service to Your Blog

If you have a blog, you should offer visitors a way to subscribe to new posts via e-mail. This means they can receive new posts via e-mail without having to visit your blog.

You should offer this whether your blog is frequently updated or rarely updated—but especially if it's rarely updated. Why?

It's a good and valuable service to provide for readers who don't want to miss your posts.
It's a free service you can provide.
The services are automated and hands-off; you don't have to manually subscribe or unsubscribe readers. It happens all by itself. (Each e-mail comes with instructions in the footer on how to unsubscribe.)
You're keeping ahold of readers in a more personal way. A high number of e-mail subscribers can be just as important and impressive as your monthly visits—plus it shows a dedicated and involved readership.

Implementing an e-mail subscription form or widget is easy if you use a popular blogging service. It's a little more complicated if you host your own site, but still easy. Here's how to do it.

WordPress.com

Go to the "widgets" area of your WordPress.com dashboard and look for the "Follow Blog Via Email" widget (shown above). Customize it and add the widget to your sidebars, footers, or wherever else you think it makes sense to display it on your site. I recommend you display it alongside every individual blog post.

Blogger

Go the "Design" tab, where you can add and arrange your page elements. You want to "add a gadget," and look for the "Follow by email" option. Blogger will automatically set up a Feedburner account for you to handle the e-mail subscription service (which is awesome).

Self-hosted WordPress sites (and others)

To get started, set up a Feedburner account. This is a free Google service, and you needn't know anything technical to get started. (Feedburner also covers you on RSS feeds if needed, but that's a different post.)

If you're running a self-hosted WordPress site, your WordPress theme may have a specific place for you to input Feedburner information as part of the design and setup. If not, and you're unsure how to integrate Feedburner, read these helpful instructions.

After that point, it's mostly an issue of making people aware, on your site, that an e-mail subscription is available. Here's how to grab the code you can place on your site (from your Feedburner dashboard):

Go to your Publicize tab, click on "E-mail Subscriptions," then look for Subscription Form Code and Subscription Link Code. For my site, I use only a subscription link (look to my righthand sidebar, on the right).

Once you've publicized the form or link to subscribe via e-mail, you're done.

Then you get to watch people sign up! Feedburner offers analytics on how things are going.

One final suggestion for your e-mail delivery:

If using Feedburner, customize the subject line. I recommend each e-mail show your new blog post title, not just your site name. This option is under Publicize > E-mail Subscriptions > E-mail Branding.

Here's the code you can copy and paste. Just use your site name, not my name!

Jane Friedman | ${latestItemTitle}

There are many other ways you can customize the e-mails sent from Feedburner. Unfortunately, the Feedburner system isn't the most intuitive or easy to use. The persistent, however, are rewarded. For more step-by-step information on setting up Feedburner and customizing it, here's a helpful series from Eli Rose.

Do you have tips for using Feedburner? Or overall tips for e-mail subscriptions? I hope you'll share in the comments.

 

How Do You Know If Your Agent Is Any Good?

I recently received the following question from a writer who wishes to remain anonymous:

Every new writer wants to know how to get an agent and everyone seems to write about that topic.

But I want to know how to assess my agent. How do I know if I have a good one?

I know there are no guarantees in this game of publishing. I'm trying to publish a nonfiction popular history and snagged an agent at a boutique agency in NY on my 40th query.

Like any first-time writer (though I have published one book, but to a different audience), I was thrilled. That was 16 months ago. He has sent the proposal to some big publishers who have all been complimentary of my writing and my passion for my subject. But none have made an offer. My agent thinks they are confused as to whether it's history or memoir.

I sense his overall frustration with the transition in the publishing industry. He says that five years ago he could have easily sold it. He says he has a few other places to send it, but also offered me an out if I want to look for another agent. He maintains that he still believes in the project, but I'm wondering if his plate is too full to give my project the attention it deserves or if his creative energy is exhausted.

Does a good agent keep his clients informed about which publishers he has contacted about their books? Does a good agent offer continuous advice based on incoming feedback from publishers who turned down the proposal? How would you define the factors that describe a good literary agent?

This is a fabulous question! As I often like to say, writers shouldn't ask "How can I find an agent?" but "How can I find the right agent?"

Side note: For those of you looking for practical advice on how to begin an agent search, see this post. It focuses on evaluating the agents you've identified as being (at least on the surface) appropriate for your work.

Before I answer the specific questions posed above, I'll offer some broad criteria for evaluating an agent:

1. Track record of sales.

This is usually the No. 1 sign of whether you have a "good" agent: the characteristics of their client list and the publishers they have recently sold to. Are the publishers they sell to the types of publishers you consider appropriate for your work? Are the advances their clients command in the "good" range for you? These factors can be somewhat subjective, and are also based on your genre/category and your own sense of author identity.

Bottom line, ensure that your agent has experience and success in representing the type of work you're trying to sell. Most agents will list current clients on their site, or you can find records of agent-publisher deals at PublishersMarketplace (subscription required).

If the agent doesn't have the experience or connections you would expect, then ask them about it (respectfully, of course). Publishing tends to be driven by relationships and reputation, and if your agent is trying to break into new business territory with your book, you might regret it later.

A note about new agents: Sometimes it's easier to get represented by a new agent who is trying to build a roster of clients. If you're a new author with a potentially small deal that wouldn't interest an established agent, then a new and "hungry" agent can work out just as well.

Even if an agent's track record is still developing, take a look at their previous experience in publishing (for example, were they formerly an editor?) and the experience and reputation of the agency they are associated with. If they're working at a solid agency with a track record, and/or have a long work history with the New York houses, these are good signs. Just make sure they haven't been trying to develop their list for a very long time.

2. Industry professionalism and respect.

This can be tough for an outsider to gauge, but if they're treating you professionally, then it's a good sign. Timeless signs of professionalism: They get back to you in a timely manner, they communicate clearly and respectfully, their business operations aren't cloaked in secrecy, they treat you as an equal.

However: I have observed some unpublished writers who seem to be very demanding and have expectations outside the norm. What does demanding look like? Expecting to call your agent at any time and have a discussion, expecting daily contact, or expecting near-instant response. Remember: Most agents work for free until your book is sold. Their most immediate responses go to their established clients (who are bringing in revenue).

3. Enthusiasm.

Do you get the feeling that the agent genuinely believes in you and your work? While agents are certainly interested in a sale, they're also interested in projects that excite them and clients they are proud to represent.

While it's not possible to put a quantitative measure on "enthusiasm," think of it this way: Your agent is going to be handling your publisher contracts, negotiations, and other financial matters (including payment to you) for the life of your work. You need to trust them completely. They champion your cause to the publisher throughout the life of the book's publication and resolve conflicts. You're entering into a meaningful business partnership, and fit is important.

Just as you wouldn't marry anyone, don't partner with just any agent.

Now, to address some specific questions:

It's now very common for agents to say, "I could have sold it 5 years ago." That's probably because it's true. I hope the agent is giving you more specifics about why this is the case. Is the market oversaturated on your topic? Are publishers demanding authors have bigger platforms? Have publishers cut back on their list? Are they unwilling to take even the smallest risk? Are bookstores not buying this category like they were before? Etc.
Is your agent's plate too full? This probably isn't a factor if the agent took you on in the first place. I'm going to assume that he's representing you in good faith and thought he could find an editor to buy the project. It sounds like he's hearing the same kind of rejection again and again (related to category/genre confusion?). Perhaps the industry won't support the type of book you're trying to sell.
He should advise you what would make your book more marketable. If there is consistent publisher confusion about whether your project is memoir or history (a deadly problem, in my opinion), there is likely a problem in the book concept or proposal itself. You and your agent should be having a conversation about how to address this reaction that publishers are having—unless you really are trying to sell a hybrid history-memoir (which is probably unmarketable, but that's another blog post)! Editors should be offering enough feedback so that your agent can discuss with you how your book or the proposal could be repositioned to sell. However, his creative energy might be exhausted if he believes the project would take far more work and retooling to make a sale that's not worth his time. Or, he might not believe you're willing to reposition the book.
He should let you know what imprints/publishers he has contacted and has been rejected by. It's your right to know this information, especially after a long period of time has passed. You may also ask for the rejection letters, though your agent is under no obligation to provide you with specific contact information of editors and publishers.

While there are many well-meaning agents out there, it's true that some of them are amateurish, incompetent, or bad. Here are some issues to consider.

Did the agent help you improve your query, pitch, and/or proposal? A good agent will not take an author's query/proposal package without going through a revision process. There might be a handful of authors who can put together a crackerjack proposal, but they are few. An agent should be ensuring the pitch or proposal is primed for success, and this almost always requires at least one round of feedback and revision.
Your agent should not have to advertise for clients. Do not respond to advertisements from agents seeking clients. Also, if an agent contacts you, a red flag should go up. While agents do seek out clients, it's usually because an author has received recent publicity or attention (e.g., a personal essay or story of yours just appeared in a prestigious publication, or your blog was just ranked in the Top 10 by a major media outlet). A red flag should also go up if the agent makes all kinds of promises to you, praises you beyond reasonability, etc (and especially if these promises are followed up by a request for a fee).
People in the industry should recognize the name of your agent. Again, publishing is relationship driven, so editors and publishers should know who your agent is. If you can't find any online mention or reference to your agent, and they're not a member of AAR, that's a red flag. Check their track record carefully. See who they've sold to and how recently.

For more excellent information on how to tell a good agent from a not-so-good agent, check these in-depth articles.

When You Should Be Cautious by Victoria Strauss (Writer Beware)
Writer Beware on Literary Agents (or, go straight to the section on "Amateur Agents")
Bad Agent by Jessica Faust, a literary agent at BookEnds

If you have advice on how to tell a good agent from a not-so-good agent, please share in the comments!

7 Ways Meditation Increases Creativity

Flickr / Mark Chadwick

Today's guest post is from Orna Ross, a bestselling Irish author.

Our creative intelligence is not accessed by effort in the conventional sense that you learned at school or work. We cannot try or strive or strain for it, any more than we can strive to have fingers or feet. It's more about dissolving the internal barriers that come between us and our innate creative potential, so we can align with it and allow it to flow more freely.

Meditation is a doorway between our inner and outer worlds. Between "reality" (the seemingly solid world that we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch) and an elusive "something else" we sense beneath, between and beyond what those five senses can grasp.

Meditation offers enormous benefits for everyone, and a set of particular benefits for those who are engaged in a creative activity like writing.

1. Creates Conditions for Insight

Insight, perception, revelation: these are the qualities that mark out the good writer from the mediocre, the great writer from the good. Meditation creates the mental and emotional conditions in which they are most likely to flourish. For centuries, it was thought that such qualities were the innate gifts of a special elite—born not made. Now brain mapping shows them to be available to all who meditate.

2. Eases Artistic Anxiety

It's not easy putting yourself out there, day after day, in words. It makes us a little crazy—vulnerable, edgy, raw sometimes. Meditation soothes those edges and creates a place of safety from where we can take risks.

Brain scans show that meditation reduces activity in the amygdala, where the brain processes fear. It allows us to become, as Flaubert suggested we should, steady and well-ordered in our life so we can be fierce and original in our work.

3. Claims the Essential Self

"Be yourself," Oscar Wilde once said. "Everyone else is taken." But it's not always easy, especially if you're trying to do it in words.

By consciously quieting the chatter of our surface mind, we claim our authentic and essential self—the indefinable essence that makes us unique, different from everyone else whoever lived. And as we claim this self more fully, we become more open to expressing it.

4. Connects Us to Creative, Imaginative, Artistic Space

The human mind operates at three levels: Surface (Intellectual/Ego) Mind, Deep (Emotional/Intuitive) Mind, and Beyond (Imaginative/Inspirational) Mind. Meditation has benefits with regard to all three, most particularly in how it allows us to tap the deeper, wiser dimensions of our minds, which tend to speak in whispers.

Neuroscience is showing, through brain mapping, how meditation affects brain wave activity. The most striking difference is a shift, in the meditator, from the stress-prone right frontal cortex to the calmer left frontal cortex. Regular meditation also shows increased brain activity in areas associated with the creative and the mystical.

This is the shift that Albert Einstein described as "the most beautiful emotion we can experience … the [underlying] power of all true art and science." What it means for the writer is experiencing more ideas, insights and connections.

5. Quiets the Critics and Enjoys the Ride

Meditation makes us very much less vulnerable to critics, and to the pressures and persuasions of others. It also muzzles the meanest critic of 'em all: the great fault-finder within. By freeing us from the surface chatter of our everyday mind and the sticky grasp of emotion, meditation allows us to observe ourselves and others more clearly.

Because it awakens us to the present moment, meditation allows us to see, and appreciate, what we are making as we do it—to enjoy process as much as product.

6. Improves Attention and Concentration

Essentially, meditation is focus. Practicing it daily helps us to have it and to be able to draw on it when needed—an essential when negotiating the distracted and distracting online world.

Writing is a never-ending game. As soon as we finish one post, we're thinking of the next. Regular meditation develops our ability to appreciate what we're achieving and getting right, as well as what still has to be done. To enjoy what we are making in the moment of its making. To value process as much as product.

7. Fosters Flow

For writers, flow is that delectable condition where words seem to appear of their own volition, where all we have to do is turn up and take dictation. Analyzed in depth by creativity theorist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and others, flow has been found to induce similar brain states as meditation.

Final Note

Writers regularly cite one problem with meditation: they don't have time. For all the reasons outlined above, it's clear that for writers, meditation doesn't take time, it makes time.

What's your experience? Have you ever meditated? What effect did it have on your writing? Would you like to try? What's stopping you?

Orna Ross is a bestselling Irish author, living in London. She writes novels, poems and nonfiction and her Go Creative blog teaches methods of applying the creative process to all aspects of life. Orna has enjoyed independent self-publishing and publication by Attic Press and Penguin. Read Orna's e-book, Inspiration Meditation: A Guide For Writers Artists & Everyone.

So, How Do I Find The Time To Do All This?

It's the most common question I get:

How do you find the time to do everything you do?

Until now, I've never had a ready answer, except that I have few obligations and responsibilities outside of my own career. But after pondering the reasons, I've written this post over at Writer Unboxed: The Secret to Finding the Time to Write, Market, Promote, and Still Have a Life.

I offer up 5 ways YOU can find the time in the coming year to be as productive as you want:

Decide what you'll stop doing—and I'm not talking about turning off the TV.
Pay someone to do stuff you don't like.
Say good-bye to guilt and obligation.
Be good at what you do.
Spend the most time on what matters most to you.

Lots more elaboration at the post. Go read.

My Best Advice for Writers From 2011

Speaking at SXSW PubCamp 2011

Last week I shared 12 Must-Read Articles From 2011. Now I'm going to share a list of the best advice I gave in 2011 as a handy reference.

My Absolute Favorites

You Hate Your Writing? That's a Good Sign! This was one of the most tweeted articles I wrote in 2011.
The Persistent and Damaging Myth About Introverts and Marketing. One of my favorite posts from 2011.
4 Steps to Useful Critiques: The Lerman Method. This was a guest post by Wolf Pascoe (@JustAddFather)
Don't Write a Memoir to Get Revenge. This is an excerpt from a book by Marion Roach Smith (@mroachsmith)
A Tugboat Arrived. A major milestone in the journey of Darrelyn Saloom in seeking a publisher for the memoir she has co-authored with Deirdre Gogarty.

General Advice

Everyone Wants to "Help" Writers. But Whose Help Do You Really Need? I get on my high horse.
5 Things More Important Than Talent. They include remarkability, community, risk-taking, ability to handle failure, and adaptability.
How to Avoid Being Fooled by Bad Writing Advice. This is where I advocate you seek out advice that offers thoughtful nuance rather than extreme perspectives for the sake of garnering attention.
Back to Basics: Writing and Publishing Memoir. A link round-up of my favorite resources and blog posts (from me and others).
My Secret for Battling Procrastination. I include screenshots (and a worksheet download) of my 2-step method.
3 Questions Every Creative Person Must Ask. This post was brewing in me for a period of months. Huge discussion in the comments.

Getting Published

The Basic Pitch Formula for Novelists. Short, sweet, and powerful.
Where to Find Free Marketing Listings. A resource guide on how to find agents and publishers for your work.
Back to Basics: Writing a Novel Synopsis. Includes a list of great resources.
Are You Worried Your Ideas or Work Will Be Stolen. I wish this were the first thing every aspiring writer read, based on the number of questions I get about it.

New Media

How to Meaningfully Grow Traffic to Your Site or Blog. I share five tools, as well as broad strategies.
What Digital Natives Can Teach Us About Publishing. I tend to cringe when writers gasp, "Oh, finally! I can focus on WRITING A BOOK." Here's why.
Get Started Guide: Blogging for Writers. This is one of those posts I'll be referencing for years to come. Everything but the kitchen sink.

Marketing and Promotion

A Checklist for Marketing Your E-Book. Based on some of the oldest principles of marketing, the 4Ps.
A Critical Marketing Secret: Don't Go It Alone. The importance of relationships in any marketing effort.
Draft Your Platform Action Plan: 5 Worksheets. Some of my best hands-on tools are right here.
How Much Has Book Marketing Changed Since 2005? One of my favorite Q&As this year with author Amy Stolls.
How Should You Spend Your Book Marketing Budget? Assuming you had a few thousand dollars lying around, here's what I think you should do with it.
I Hate Press Releases. My most helpful rant of the year.

Social Media

You Don't Have to Blog, Tweet, or Be on Facebook. Be interesting or have something interesting to say (a purpose!) before tackling social media.
The Secret to Twitter That Can't Be Taught. Inspired by Christina Katz.
The Evolution of How I Use Twitter. I still refer people to this post when they ask why I'm not following them on Twitter (or why I unfollowed).

Self-Publishing & E-Publishing

5 Things Beginners Should Know About E-Book Publishing. I review the basics.
Should You Self-Publish After a Near-Miss? Self-publishing does NOT kill your chances at a traditional deal later. BUT: Do not spend any significant money on self-publishing—whether print or digital—until you're certain of two things.
4 Key Categories of Self-Publishing. The four categories I discuss are print-on-demand free service, print-on-demand paid service, e-book single channel, and e-book multiple channel.
3 Barriers You Must Eliminate to Maximize E-Book Sales. What I learned from firsthand experience.
10 Tips for Effective Book Covers. This generated considerable discussion in the comments.

Best Guest Posts

Two Rules for Successful Freelance Pricing by Laurie Lewis. A phenomenal post.
What Is a Story? by Philip Martin. Sometimes we need a reminder, and this is one of the best.
3 Important Privacy Issues in Memoir by Tracy Seeley (@tracy_seeley). Will so-and-so ever speak to me again? What are your ethical obligations? What your legal obligations (defamation, invasion of privacy)?
7 Don't-Miss Sites for Online Marketing by Meg Waite Clayton (@MegWClayton). A great list that still holds up.
How to Get Reviews for Self-Published Books by Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman). Lots of great resources mentioned here, in addition to a solid step-by-step process.
Cliches for Aspiring Writers by Rafael Yglesias (@rafaelyglesias). Know your audience, write what you know, etc … Yglesias discusses why to ignore such cliches.
Writing Memoir: Art vs. Confessional by Susan Cushman (@susancushman). We write to reclaim our life, but it has to be about art if it's going to be published.

Looking for more?

Here are my best posts from 2010. Unfortunately, the links in this post no longer work because of the Writer's Digest site redesign, but if you Google the post titles, you can find the correct link.

Serial Fiction: An Old Form Made New

Yesterday, my feature article for Publishing Perspectives went live:

Experimenting With Serials for Fun and Profit

Here's a little excerpt:

Debate continues about whether the reader really prefers [serials] for long-form narratives. Shya Scanlon, a literary author who experimented with serialization in 2009 with The Forecast 42 Project says, "It would have been much better had I had the full print edition available during the serialization, so that people who wanted to read in full could do so. Though the feedback I received from readers during the serialization was positive, there was ambivalence about the reading process. It was either too slow or too quick for readers."

On the other hand, Scanlon pointed out that the process of serialization, which spanned over 21 weeks, helped with buzz and in developing relationships with many editors and bloggers in his community. Ultimately, the process found him a publisher for the print book.

Go read the full article, which also discusses:

Why serial fiction is the A-game of writing
Selling serials vs. selling completed or compiled works
Companies experimenting with serials
Why you shouldn't use serialization as a marketing gimmick

The Design of Authorship

Ball State professor Brad King

Today's guest post is by Brad King, a professor at Ball State with a brilliant mind for emerging media and tech. He will be a regular guest here for a while, writing a series on how people read (in general) and how people read within the tablet/eReader environment. (Read the first installment, "How We May Read.") It's a great honor and privilege for me to present his work here.

I.

The role of reading in American society is changing. We need look no further for evidence than research studies aggregated in books such as The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) and Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses that examine the Millennial generation who neither read nor understand the fundamental cognitive structures developed by reading.

It is terrifying to read studies about the negative views of both students and professors in regards to reading. It's even more harrowing when combined with my own experience teaching writing and storytelling.

There are days, it seems, that literate Western Culture is destined for the scrap heap, replaced by a visual, interactive world that requires less cognitive interaction and creates less educated people. (I say this summarizing the research and not as an editorial statement.)

But what if the reading problem isn't as simple as forcing students to read and write more (which we should also do)? What if the problem is that authorship has changed in the digital, interactive age and writers — the keeper of words — have failed to understand their role within this environment?

After all, we know that learning and memorabilty are enhanced when words, images, and audio are combined in very specific ways. Shouldn't an author creating stories for digital, interactive environments (e.g. the Nook Color) have the skill set to tell a story native to that environment?

And if authors aren't creating stories native to the reading environment, it seems disingenuous and a bit anti-intellectual to blame the reader who abandons the simplistic word for more potentially complex, interactive environments.

In other words, as a writer and a technologist I have to consider the increasingly illiterate-ness of our culture from another point of view: What does it mean to be an author in the digital age?

II.

For Prof. Jennifer George-Palilonis and me, the answer to the question of what does it mean to be an author is more than "someone who tells a story" although that's a pretty good place to start.

It turns out that figuring out what it means to author a story in a digital, interactive environment requires writers to think about writing in a very new way.

This past November at F+W's StoryWorld conference in San Francisco, I moderated a conversation entitled "Look What Tech Can Do! How Will Technical Innovation Change the Business and Nature of Storytelling." It was the kind of panel that angered traditionalist writers simply because of its name.

True to form, an audience member walked to the microphone and asked one of those leading questions (conveniently disguised as a statement) that writers in particular love to deploy as a form of pseudo-intellectualism.

"The story must come before the technology," he said defiantly. "Without story," he continued, "the technology is irrelevant."

"Wrong", I replied. "Look no further than the film or television industry."

In the visual realm, story and technology are intricately tied together. Ask any screenplay writer about the story development process and they will tell you there are three stories: the one the writer creates, the one the director shoots, and the one the editor puts together. Each story is different and each is intimately changed by the technology used to tell that story.*

For writers in the digital, interactive world, technology and authorship are intricately tied together.

Of course, in the film or television industry, the three storytellers each have very defined roles with very specific skill sets:

Writers create the written text of the story;
Directors create the visuals of the story; and
Editors create the pared down version of the story.

In the digital, interactive age, it's less clear what skills are required and what the role is for authors.

III.

It's odd to say that it's unclear what the role of an author is in the digital, interactive age. On the surface, in fact, that notion seems absurd. After all, somebody has to write the story and whoever that person is surely must be the author.

In many cases, the author will continue to be the single person who writes the story. But what happens when the technology becomes intertwined with the story process? What happens when constructing the story turns into collaboration between a writer and designer? And what happens when cinematic elements become primary to the story?

What is the role of the author when the story, the technology, and the design are intertwined?

Last week, and I spent three hours locked in a conference room discussing two ideas for our book Making Transmedia:

What would the design framework and the interface look like for our interactive book, which included prototyping navigation, fly-ins, and a handful of other elements; and
How would we create a functional index for a "book environment" that contains no pages, no particular linearity, and no simple way to display multiple forms of media without removing the reader from a particular point in the book?

In the analog, printed world, these two questions wouldn't even warrant a face-to-face meeting. Any photographs would be given a label within the written text by an author (e.g. Picture1) and then digital copies would be labeled, zipped, and sent along to a designer who may never speak to the author; and the index would be auto-generated and then checked by the author and copy editor.

In the digital, interactive world, we spent hours developing design metaphors for understanding how the book's layout might work and creating low-fi paper prototypes of the display screen and interactivity in the book.

We tweaked the narrative elements of our story, we replaced large chunks of written text with graphics or video, and we developed a series of interactive frameworks that have profoundly changed the way the story will be told.

In a traditional world, I would be called the writer and Jenn would be the designer. This, however, seems antiquated. My storytelling and media creation is profoundly influenced by her design, and her design and graphics are intricately tied to how I am telling the story.

In this world, we can't operate without a functional knowledge of both interaction design and multi-media storytelling. The more we explore each other's world, the better we get at understanding how the story should be told and how the story should be delivered.

And the less we understand arbitrary distinctions of authorship because neither the content nor the design can exist alone.

IV.

When writers start talking about writing it's easy to get lost in academic-think, falling down the intellectual rabbit hole and never quite finding the way back. With that in mind, I want to circle back to questions I posed at the beginning of this essay: What does it mean to be an author, and how might that change the way we read?

As for the first question, what does it mean to be an author, the answer is that we're not quite sure just yet.

In the world Jenn and I have constructed, technology and authorship are intricately tied together. Each of our processes contributes, changes, and shapes both the story we are telling and the way we are telling it.

(You can see our description of the Making Transmedia book here.)

But we aren't just spending our time learning how to work together. We're also exploring what the technology palette allows us to do because we will never be master authors if we don't understand the tools of the trade. For us that means getting our hands dirty with prototypes and testing. It means creating really bad work so that we can create really good work.

To be an author in the digital, interactive age means more than simply understanding words. It means understanding story, design, and technology. When we do that, authors — however they are defined — will have the opportunity to create grand narratives delivered in ways never before available (a phrase I am normally loathe to throw around).

Once we begin to create grand narratives, then, we may start to address our second question: How that may change the way we read?

For now, we don't have an answer. What we do know is that younger people read less these days (in some measure because of interactive environments), and as I wrote in my first post "How We May Read," we know when people do read in digital, interactive environments engage more with content but don't necessarily remember the content with which they engaged.

It's much easier to lay the blame on the lazy reader whose attention span we can no longer keep because it's very hard to master the trade skills necessary to become an author in a digital, interactive world.

Once we do master those skills, however, we will see just how profound the digital, interactive environment can be for both authors and readers.

That future is up to us.

* I excluded in my argument the Game Studies' blood sport between narratologists and ludologists (Murray, 2005), who can't even agree if stories exist within game environments even though companies now routinely hire writers to create stories.

Works Cited

Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press.

Bauerlein, M. (2008). The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes our Future (or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30). Jeremy P. Tarcher.

Murray, J. H. (2005). The last word on ludology v narratology in game studies. DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing views of worlds in play.

This Weekend: Site Design & Maintenance

This site is being overhauled this weekend, and you'll notice some significant design changes. Hope you'll stay patient and stick with me as all the bugs get sorted out! New posts will continue as usual this Monday.

12 Must-Read Articles From 2011

Here are the most brilliant online articles I read this past year. You may not agree with the arguments you'll find, but you have to give them credit for being original and thought-provoking. They will enrich your thinking about writing and publishing, and give you a more nuanced perspective of the industry.

Also, you probably ought to follow each of these writers in 2012.

 

[1]

Accessibility vs. Access: How the Rhetoric of "Rare" Is Changing in the Age of Information Abundance by Maria Popova (@brainpicker) at Nieman Journalism Lab

Curators for the win!

Information curators are that necessary cross-pollinator between accessibility and access, between availability and actionability, guiding people to smart, interesting, culturally relevant content that "rots away" in some digital archive, just like its analog versions used to in basement of some library or museum or university.

Because here's the thing: Knowledge is not a lean-back process; it's a lean-forward activity. Just because public domain content is online and indexed, doesn't mean that those outside the small self-selected group of scholars already interested in it will ever discover it and engage in it.

 

[2]

Wikipedia and The Death of the Expert by Maria Bustillos (@mariabustillos) at The Awl

I feel like quoting this article every time I hear someone bash Wikipedia. But this article is far more complex than just that.

It's been over five years since the landmark study in Nature that showed "few differences in accuracy" between Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Though the honchos at Britannica threw a big hissy at the surprising results of that study, Nature stood by its methods and results, and a number of subsequent studies have confirmed its findings; so far as general accuracy of content is concerned, Wikipedia is comparable to conventionally compiled encyclopedias, including Britannica.

 

[3]

Advice for Young Journalists in the Digital Age by Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) at Columbia Journalism School

This is actually a PDF of a speech given to journalism grads. Great for all kinds of writers.

What you're looking for, ultimately, are stories. Statistics, to anyone who knows anything about them, aren't factoids—4 out of 5 dentists agree that Colgate is the best toothpaste, Uganda is the 118th most populous country—but instead quanta of information that can be pieced together, just like all the other information that you collect as a journalist, to help you write stories and inform others about the world.

 

[4]

There Are Some People Who Don't Wait: Robert Krulwich on the Future of Journalism

Here's another graduation speech worth a read. Ed Jong at Not Exactly Rocket Science (Discover Magazine) introduces the full text of Krulwich's talk.

Think about NOT waiting for a company to call you up. Think about not giving your heart to a bunch of adults you don't know. Think about horizontal loyalty. Think about turning to people you already know, who are your friends, or friends of their friends and making something that makes sense to you together, that is as beautiful or as true as you can make it.

 

[5]

Is the Future of Physical Book Publishing the Same as the Future of Reading and Writing? by Daniel Nester (@DanielNester) at We Who Are About to Die

This one is so good I keep pulling it out during arguments on Facebook & Twitter, or mentioning it during conference talks.

It never ceases to amaze me how ebooks, the one truly positive sales story in publishing, is also the one topic that is brought up to point out that The Sky is Falling in publishing. The economic models that make an ebook and produce a book are largely the same–people read, edit, then publish. After that, it gets really cheap and efficient for the ebook, and really dumb and slow for the physical book.  But books, physical ones, continue to serve as the measuring stick.  This has a lot to do with aesthetics and fetishizing what a book's job is, of course, which is to provide text for a person to read. It's an important time and takes a significant chunk of one's time, reading. Never mind that much of what we do reading-wise and practically all of our writing occurs on-screen.  The book as object for many remains sacrosanct.

 

[6]

The Web is a Customer Service Medium by Paul Ford at Ftrain (@ftrain)

Powerful.

That's what I tell my Gutenbourgeois friends, if they'll listen. I say: Create a service experience around what you publish and sell. Whatever "customer service" means when it comes to books and authors, figure it out and do it. Do it in partnership with your readers. Turn your readers into members. Not visitors, not subscribers; you want members. And then don't just consult them, but give them tools to consult amongst themselves. These things are cheap and easy now if you hire one or two smart people instead of a large consultancy. Define what the boundaries are in your community and punish transgressors without fear of losing a sale. Then, if your product is good, you'll sell things. (Don't count on your fellow Gutenbourgeois to buy things. They're clicking the little thumb icon on YouTube like everyone else.) If you don't want to do that then just find niche communities who might conceivably care about your products and buy great ad placements. It's a better online spend.

 

[7]

The Resume Is Dead, The Bio Is King by Michael Margolis (@getstoried) in The 99 Percent

I find this so important I teach bio writing to all my e-media students.

Gone are the days of "Just the facts, M'am." Instead we're all trying to suss each other out in the relationship economy. Do I share something in common with you? How do we relate to each other? Are you relevant to my work?

That's why the resume is on the out, and the bio is on the rise. People work with people they can relate to and identify with. Trust comes from personal disclosure. And that kind of sharing is hard to convey in a resume. Your bio needs to tell the bigger story. Especially, when you're in business for yourself, or in the business of relationships. It's your bio that's read first.

 

[8]

The Ultimate Crowdfunding To-Do List: Before You Launch by Nathaniel Hansen (@nathanielhansen) at his own site

Don't even think about launching a Kickstarter (or crowdfunding effort) without reading this first.

I get A LOT of requests to help with kickstarter campaigns. Through trial and error on over a dozen kickstarter projects, hours of lectures at Emerson College, and countless meet ups, phone calls and emails with artists and innovators, I've refined a "best practices" list that I share when I decide to get involved with a project. I've been fortunate to run my own successful campaigns, but also have helped out on over a dozen innovative artistic endeavors all of which have been successful in some way. What you'll read here, and hopefully in the future, is what I've found to work (to the tune of almost $350k and counting).

 

[9]

The 7 Biggest Fan Page Marketing Mistakes by Brian Carter (@briancarter) at All Facebook

Facebook is changing constantly, so this article will eventually become out of date, but not quite yet.

Fan Page Mistake #1: Assuming People Go To Your Fan Page (Versus Seeing Your Posts In Their News Feed). Most people, if they ever go to a fan page, only go there once. Some highly interactive pages get more visitors, and you can bring fans back to the page or to specific tabs with posts or ads, but usually fans see your page's posts via their news feed.

 

[10]

Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings? by Paul Ford (@ftrain) in New York magazine

Another fabulous piece by Paul Ford.

We'll still need professionals to organize the events of the world into narratives, and our story-craving brains will still need the narrative hooks, the cold opens, the dramatic climaxes, and that all-important "■" to help us make sense of the great glut of recent history that is dumped over us every morning. No matter what comes along streams, feeds, and walls, we will still have need of an ending.

 

[11]

What Books Will Become by Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly)

Kevin Kelly is one of my favorite futurists to read. The best book I read this year was by Kelly, What Technology Wants. (You can see my Kindle highlights on this book, and others.)

For a taste of his thinking, this is one his great posts on the future of books.

The current custodians of ebooks—Amazon, Google and the publishers—have agreed to cripple the liquidity of ebooks by preventing readers from cut-and-pasting text easily, or to copy large sections of a book, or to otherwise seriously manipulate the text. But eventually the text of ebooks will be liberated, and the true nature of books will blossom. We will find out that books never really wanted to be telephone directories, or hardware catalogs, or gargantuan lists. These are jobs that websites are much superior at — all that updating and searching — tasks that paper is not suited for. What books have always wanted was to be annotated, marked up, underlined, dog-eared, summarized, cross-referenced, hyperlinked, shared, and talked-to. Being digital allows them to do all that and more.

 

[12]

Monoculture: How Our Era's Dominant Story Shapes Our Lives, a book review by Maria Popova (@brainpicker) at Brain Pickings

This is unrelated to writing and publishing (at least specifically) but you should read it anyway. It's a review of a new book, Monoculture. When you're done, subscribe to Brain Pickings, Popova's e-newsletter.

"The universe is made of stories, not atoms," poet Muriel Rukeyser famously proclaimed. The stories we tell ourselves and each other are how we make sense of the world and our place in it. Some stories become so sticky, so pervasive that we internalize them to a point where we no longer see their storiness — they become not one of many lenses on reality, but reality itself. And breaking through them becomes exponentially difficult because part of our shared human downfall is our ego's blind conviction that we're autonomous agents acting solely on our own volition, rolling our eyes at any insinuation we might be influenced by something external to our selves. Yet we are — we're infinitely influenced by these stories we've come to internalize, stories we've heard and repeated so many times they've become the invisible underpinning of our entire lived experience.

 

What did you read this year that you found indispensable or pure genius?