Digital publishing query from Gordon Dryden:The Auckland author and publisher has posted this comment and query:
Good article but a follow-up personal issue and query. The world now has more than 5 billion mobile phones: 916 million in China alone, and almost 70% of their owners access the Internet from their mobiles. The world's population will reach 7 billion by the end of this month. Many countries already have more mobile phones than people. And smart-phones (multimedia computers in your pocket) are the fastest-rising market segment. So one publishing challenge is how to present non-fiction information online so it uses the features of multimedia publishing (mainly video, but also photo and animations) so that it can be viewed (in one format) on smartphones, (on another) on iPads and similar tablet digital-video/eBooks (touch a photo and it morphs into an action video)? I suspect the first publihsing genre to make a 100% change will be sporting biographies. Who wants merely to read printed biographies of leading sporting stars, with only a few photos, when his or her life story can be told in well-stored and edited video-clips, interspersed with real-life videos? Who has some model layouts that combine smartphone presentations with iPads? Especially as the video-interview with the retiring star can have a separate how-to segment, to be sold as a separate app? Is anyone else working on this concept? Or has anyone got Steve Job’s new email address in the Cloud?
1 comment:
Hey Gordon, good noticing re the proliferation of smart phones etc. I believe the thing you are seeking words for here is an 'app' also known as a book application - some publishers, a very FEW with the $$ are making cookery book apps with videos of the author cooking etc. And as you so rightly say, the biographies of sporting stars, adventurers, rock stars, opera singers, actors and others could be told well with accompanying media inserts.
New publishers like http://www.openroadmedia.com/ are taking on authors and making use of every part of the digital and media changes to present the media consumer with a total experience. Not only that but they are offering the author a 50/50 share deal in their contracts.
You do NOT need a publisher to create your app - digital book. Almost any computer/media organisation has the ability to create or show you how to create this app for yourself.
Then you can publish it yourself on-line. Simple, you make all the money and only have to do the kind of marketing you would have had to do unpaid for a publisher anyhow.
What have authors got to lose? A lot if we keep on giving away 95% of our income to publishers. That's what my last royalty statement tells me.
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