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What goes around poll
There's been a sort of movable discussion wandering through a couple writer communities I'm part of, brought on in part by writers who are trying to figure out how best to grow their audience, make a living, and maybe even get a bigger piece of the action.
Not surprisingly, many of these conversations come 'round to web serialization for fun and profit, what works, what doesn't. Some folks are of the opinion that giving one's work away "for free" is always a bad deal for the writer, some folks think that giving work away "for free" is the wave of the future, whereupon we're all gonna starve, some folks think that asking readers to kick in a buck for downloading a novel direct from the author is tacky, some think it's OK, but that no one will pay.
In other words, it's a complicated subject and lots of bright people are struggling to make sense of it, and to figure out how to work current realities to their benefit while simultaneously trying to figure out where current realities are going to take us in one, three, six years.
Now, Steve and I did well with our web serializations. I honestly don't know if that's because of a Paradigm Shift, or because we have Incredibly Cool Fans(TM), or because we were writing a Liaden story -- or a combination of all those factors and a bunch that I haven't thought of.
In the spirit of trying to figure some stuff out myself, I offer the following poll, going from the general to the specific.
[Poll #1381306]
Not surprisingly, many of these conversations come 'round to web serialization for fun and profit, what works, what doesn't. Some folks are of the opinion that giving one's work away "for free" is always a bad deal for the writer, some folks think that giving work away "for free" is the wave of the future, whereupon we're all gonna starve, some folks think that asking readers to kick in a buck for downloading a novel direct from the author is tacky, some think it's OK, but that no one will pay.
In other words, it's a complicated subject and lots of bright people are struggling to make sense of it, and to figure out how to work current realities to their benefit while simultaneously trying to figure out where current realities are going to take us in one, three, six years.
Now, Steve and I did well with our web serializations. I honestly don't know if that's because of a Paradigm Shift, or because we have Incredibly Cool Fans(TM), or because we were writing a Liaden story -- or a combination of all those factors and a bunch that I haven't thought of.
In the spirit of trying to figure some stuff out myself, I offer the following poll, going from the general to the specific.
[Poll #1381306]
no subject
Stanza: http://www.lexcycle.com/
Bookworm: http://bookworm.oreilly.com/about/
http://blog.threepress.org/2009/04/06/bookworm-reading-mode/
I'm still working out best workflows for doing this type of conversion, but starting with a clean layout in InDesign is a big step in the right direction.
-- Brian out --
no subject
no subject
-- Brian out --
no subject
no subject
PDF can be significantly improved by allowing the text to reflow. That's my big objection - most PDFs are generated for either a computer screen or a printed page, and they're impossible to read on a hand-held platform. For e-books, turning on re-flow makes a HUGE difference in the usability.