Publishing in the 21st Century (Part 1)

(The following is the first installment of a three part article that I wrote some time ago, but which has been gathering dust in my files. As always, I encourage feedback from my readers).



I can't take his money.
I can't print my own money.
I have to work for my money.
Why don't I just lie down and die?
--Homer Simpson


Want to be a published writer? No problem. Just get a free web page from some enterprise such as Yahoo, put your story, article or book into digital form, and post it on the Worldwide Web. Ta-daa. You're a published writer. Simple, huh?

Of course, there are a few problems with this approach. For instance, how will you make any money from your writing efforts? Will people actually pay for something they can get for free?

But these difficulties aside (don't worry, we'll return to them later) there's no doubt that the world of publishing has changed. No longer do writers - some of them, very good writers - need to live out their lives unpublished, with, at best, their families and friends enjoying their works. That's the way it was only a few short years ago; most writings never saw the light of day and most writers went to their grave without their work ever appearing in print. In all likelihood, many good, great, or even history-changing works were lost because editors and publishers couldn't, or wouldn't, see the potential of an author and his writings.

The 21st century author need never succumb to that fate. Today, in addition to the traditional publishing houses, there are also ebooks and print-on-demand publishing houses - both of which have allowed millions of writers to have their works read. We live in very exciting, and potentially profitable, times for creative people. Books, music and even movies are becoming democratized as the old priesthood (editors, publishers, movie and music producers) lose their grip on their industries. The person who creates can now be the same person who presents his work to the world. The gatekeepers are still guarding the gate, but the fence itself has disappeared.

Although a new phenomena, this is actually a variation on a very old paradigm. Back in the days of Benjamin Franklin, a master printer not only printed his own materials, but also interviewed, researched, edited and wrote. And now that day has come again.


YOU DON'T NEED TO BE FAMOUS TO LEAVE YOUR MARK

Indulge me for a moment, while I offer my philosophy on modern creative writing. I'll use an analogy from the music world, specifically, the Blues. In my opinion, most modern Rock guitarists learned their style from one or both of two schools that emerged in the 60s. These schools can most easily be categorized by their premiere practitioners: Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, both of whom quite openly owed their style to Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry, that well-known early R&R man from the 50s, in turn, owed his style to fabled Blues guitarist Robert Johnson. Now, placing aside folklore that maintains Johnson owed his musical skills to a deal he made with the Devil, most people believe that Johnson largely learned his guitar style from Bluesman Sun House. But who taught House his chords and notes? That name has been lost to music history, or at least to me. But that nameless person (or persons) ultimately influenced Blues and Rock, as did all those other nameless people whose works and style Johnson, Berry, Hendrix and Clapton heard and tried to imitate.

Writing is a bit like that. A few famous writers - such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald -reach the top. But they are influenced and at times even set on a new and different path by a multitude of other, less known (I hesitate to use the term "minor") writers. Ernest Hemingway didn't just emerge from World War I and start writing the Nick Adams stories without ever having read a war story. Doubtlessly, his desire to write was lit much earlier - probably in school - when he read stories, books and plays by other authors and playwrights. If you were to look at a list of authors who influenced Hemingway, you'd probably recognize many names (I'm sure William Shakespeare and probably Edgar Allen Poe would be in there somewhere), but there would also be several names that you wouldn't recognize. Either the authors were well known at one time and have since gone out of style or perhaps they never were very well known; they just simply - at one time or another - created a masterpiece of writing. So, to sum up my philosophy, you don't need to be a famous writer to influence the literary world. If you are one of the fortunate ones who find wealth and fame with your writings, great. I salute you. But if not, you can still leave your mark on the world. However, to leave that mark, you do need to have someone read your work and that usually means being published. And "being published" today can mean something very different than it did in Hemingway's time.

Now, let me be the first to say: if you can get your work published by a traditional publisher, by all means, do so. Let's face it, for those lucky enough to have a major house print their books, there is still some serious money to be made and exposure to be earned from these old mainstays of the literary world. But, for the rest of us mortals, there are thankfully other avenues.

PAY PER VIEW FOR WRITERS

If you choose to go the online, self-publishing route, you are immediately faced with the timeless question, "Can I made some money from this?" The answer, of course, is "Maybe, but probably not much." You can, of course, simply ask your readers for a contribution. I've seen author web sites that ask for a donation and there's no reason you can't too. Once again, there is nothing new about this. The troubadours of old visited the castles and ale houses of the countryside, played their songs and told their tales and then did the medieval equivalent of passing the hat. You can simply ask the reader of your web site masterpiece to send his or her check, cash or money order to your address or post office box. If you want to go a little more "high tec," you can utilize a service such as PayPal, which will allow your readers to contribute via their credit card. (If there are any online writers reading this who have experimented with this process, I would appreciate some input from them, since I've personally had no experience with asking my readers for contributions).

If the contribution plate method of payment doesn't appeal to you, you might try a slightly more sophisticated method that involves your readers making a payment before they see the work. You can do this on a individual basis, emailing your stories or articles to individuals after they've sent in their money. You can also simply parcel out your work to your website, a chapter at a time, holding each captive until sufficient funds have arrived and then displaying the next segment of your work for all the world to see, sinner and saint alike.

Well known horror author Stephen King experimented with a variant of this process. He reportedly got the idea when one of his earlier ebooks, Riding the Bullet, was downloaded by more than 500,000 readers from various sources, some of which were unauthorized. King reportedly got the idea for a "pay per view" type of online publishing when a reader who had viewed the book from an unauthorized web site sent King $2.50 out of guilt. So, in late July, 2000, King began placing his new book, a work in progress entitled The Plant, on his website as an experiment in Internet publishing. The book was available to anyone with an online computer. However, readers were asked to send in $1, on the honor system, for the first installment. He also charged $1 each for chapters two and three, and $2 each for chapters four and five. King maintained that, as long as 75 percent of the readers paid up, he would continue to offer future installments of the novel. At first, the experiment went very well. After one week, payments had been received or promised for 76.4 percent of the 152,132 downloads. At the time, King stated that those payments would bring him close to meeting his $124,150 in promotional expenses. So, it appeared things were progressing well and profitable for King. But, by late 2001, King had stopped publication. According to an article by Gwendolyn Mariano, in News.Com, paid readership had fallen to 46 percent with the fourth installation of The Plant and King - after a $2 fifth installation and a freebie sixth - stopped work on the serial to devote more time to "other projects."

So, was this a failure? Well, yes it was. But it was largely a failure of King's own making. King had covered his expenses and shown a profit. A sizable portion of his readers (though no longer a majority) continued to send in money, even after he raised the rates. But, King simply stopped publishing.

Let us "Monday morning quarterback" this endeavor. How could King's experiment in online, pay per view publishing have been more successful? First of all, we need to ask, "were his expectations too high?" Apparently not. He expected (or at least hoped)that 75 percent of readers would pay up. The reality, at least initially, exceeded that number. Did he spend too much of his own money? Well, again apparently not. He recouped his loses and then some. But, I can't help but wonder if he didn't spend too much money on advertising. After all, he was a well know author trying an experiment in online publishing. It would seem that the media would pick up the story, which they did. And where did he advertise? Primarily in "Publisher's Weekly" and "USA Today." Would Internet sources, such as online magazines, have been better as well as less expensive? After all, he was striving for an online, tech-savy audience. Wouldn't an online magazine have been the place to advertise? Likewise, wouldn't ads purchased on selected websites have better reached the desired audience? Also, did King charge too much? Granted, The Plant online was cheaper than it would have been in book form. But $7! That seems a bit high, especially for a novel that was never completed. Finally, King serialized a novel that he had not actually finished writing. I would advise fledgling writers against following this portion of King's example. Instead, you should make sure you have a work completed before putting it, or even a portion of it, online if you are charging for the service.

(In my next installment, I will get into the Nuts and Bolts of online publishing, namely, how do you obtain, and maintain, a web presence. I will also venture into another method of alternative publishing: "print on demand," a process with which I have some personal experience.

In my third and final installment, I will travel briefly into the world of script writing with a quick side trip into the world of pornography, a business that is currently flourishing on the Worldwide Web, but one that is being changed rapidly by the recent phenomena of "crowd-sourcing.")