Sunday, November 21, 2004
Writing Nov. 14 to Nov. 21
Steady work week. As part of the rewrite of the first third of the book, the aim at this point is to get all 70 days of the Japanese assault on Malaya and Singapore into one chapter. About 2500 words of the chapter done. I am concentrating on those units that later became part of F Force, so the chapter will be a mosaic snapshot.
Part of my post to Writer-L on November 18
the new networked and pass around culture and aren't going to go away, even if people have found ways to spam-link to Google. The whole situation is evolving.
Steve Rubel had some more comments on the Long Tail this week:
Sorting Out the Long Tail
How to Pitch into the Long News Curve
While this article is aimed at Rubel's target PR audience, it should be required reading for assignment editors, who need to understand how news will emerge from blogs and how corporations will use blogs to get their message out.
November 14, 2004 4:27 p.m.
The Long Tail and marketing your book
A slightly edited version of my posting to Writer-L on book marketing. I've changed specific references to other posts to more generic ones.
The three month rule is dead! Long live Amazon!
In my postings on Writer-L I have always been skeptical of the idea that a book has a shelf life of just three months.
Now there appears to be proof in an article called The Long Tail, that appeared in the October 2004 issue of Wired. For an author, I am going to say that "The Long Tail" is the most important article you will read this year.
Wired editor Chris Anderson tells the story of a book called Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival
that was published to little notice and was languishing in the Random House warehouse. Then Into Thin Air became a bestseller AND Touching the Void — a similar story from the Peruvian Andes, began appearing on two of Amazon's entries, the individual recommendations and the screen that comes up saying "people who bought this book also bought...."
According to Anderson, it was those links that rocketed Touching the Void on to the New York Times paperback bestseller list and forced Random House to do a fast reprint.
Anderson calls the article the long tail because he compares it with a comet, the tail has more mass than the head. The head is what Anderson calls "the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare...brain dead summer blockbusters."
According to Anderson half of Amazon's sales come from outside of the top 130,000 titles —probably the kind of books most people on Writer-L write — and read.
He quotes a music industry venture capitalist named Kevin Laws as saying: "The biggest money is in the smallest sales."
So how does this work? Part of the rest of this post is based on a talk that Clive Thompson, (who runs the "collision detection" blog) gave to our annual conference at CBC.ca and some of my own ideas.
As most people know, Google ranks sites by the number of links to a site. The more links to your site, the higher it appears on the Google page when you do a search. The same thing is happening with blogs, where sites or other blogs link to one blog, it appears higher on blog indexes.
For another view of what of this go to the blog search engine, Technorati and click on the Book Talk tab...to see what books bloggers are talking about. For example, within hours of the reports of the death of Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking (with links to Amazon from some blogs) appeared high on the Technorati Booktalk page. That is clearly the antidote to the refusal of publishers to react when an author is in the news--if, of course, the bloggers pick up on the interest in the author and the book. (Note Booktalk is in beta and sometimes disappears from the Technorati site).
You should also join Technorati. The news tab will tell you what news stories are being talked about right now (and as I write this on Friday night, it is not just Scott Peterson, it is actually quite serious, the Middle East and U.S. Supreme Court — another example of The Long Tail.) Use the Technorati search engine to keep up on the subjects you research and write about. And subscribe to blogs and RSS feeds (most major news organizations now have them) on your subjects.
The model is music. Remember Napster? And the fact that many of the people who used Napster and now use file sharing are not kids but older adults who couldn't get the music they wanted, old jazz, for example. Now, according to the Anderson article, the niche market accounts of significant amounts of the sales of the now-legitimate, paid download sites.
Anderson also predicts that in the 21st century, to be profitable, a media company will need both ends, the head, the blockbusters, and the tail, which for writers, could I believe, bring the rebirth of the mid-list book.
It appears to me that even though Random House had a hit in Touching the Void the publishers are still following the old model, stuck in the mode of the three-month shelf life.
Another, this time from Clive's talk, is the reason E-books failed. The publishers were using the old model, by restricting how the reader could use an E-book.
That means to me that the printed book, going back to Gutenberg, were the first examples of pass around culture. If you know you'll get them back you can lend books to friends. The publishers were thinking about the software model (which doesn't work very well anyway).
So if an author is going to promote his/her book, forget that useless ad in The New York Times book review and get yourself blogged and blog yourself (it doesn't have to be every day). After I heard Clive's talk, I have already made a start on this blog on my site. At the moment it's really an html diary but I will upgrade to full blog software once I have finished my current book.
The lesson is to do everything you can yourself, e-mail lists, your own website, your own blog. Link to sites and people you like and let them know, so they link back, if they wish. Then it all depends if your subject is of interest to enough people, then it will start appearing on Amazon's links.
And The Long Tail also proves one more thing, that the idea Jon and Lynn had a few years ago about micropayments was essentially correct, but before its time. Anderson's rule number two for the 21st century "Cut the price in half, now lower it." It is working for Apple's Itunes that sells single tracks for $.99.
Long Tail blogs
Steve Rubel's The Long Tail of Blogsphere on a site dedicated to news, public relations and blogging is well worth looking at.
The Long Tail A new blog inspired by the article.
Kathleen Gilgroy's comments on The Long Tail Note:her other posts on "mircrofinancing" are also worth reading.
Canadians: The Rape of Nanking from Amazon. ca
Touching the Void from Amazon. ca
4:45 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
Links to this post
Steady work week. As part of the rewrite of the first third of the book, the aim at this point is to get all 70 days of the Japanese assault on Malaya and Singapore into one chapter. About 2500 words of the chapter done. I am concentrating on those units that later became part of F Force, so the chapter will be a mosaic snapshot.
Part of my post to Writer-L on November 18
Technorati says it is currently tracking 4,653,516 blogs,
far too many for anyone to handle and most of them are likely not
all that interesting.
the new networked and pass around culture and aren't going to go away, even if people have found ways to spam-link to Google. The whole situation is evolving.
Steve Rubel had some more comments on the Long Tail this week:
Sorting Out the Long Tail
How to Pitch into the Long News Curve
While this article is aimed at Rubel's target PR audience, it should be required reading for assignment editors, who need to understand how news will emerge from blogs and how corporations will use blogs to get their message out.
November 14, 2004 4:27 p.m.
The Long Tail and marketing your book
A slightly edited version of my posting to Writer-L on book marketing. I've changed specific references to other posts to more generic ones.
The three month rule is dead! Long live Amazon!
In my postings on Writer-L I have always been skeptical of the idea that a book has a shelf life of just three months.
Now there appears to be proof in an article called The Long Tail, that appeared in the October 2004 issue of Wired. For an author, I am going to say that "The Long Tail" is the most important article you will read this year.
Wired editor Chris Anderson tells the story of a book called Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival
that was published to little notice and was languishing in the Random House warehouse. Then Into Thin Air became a bestseller AND Touching the Void — a similar story from the Peruvian Andes, began appearing on two of Amazon's entries, the individual recommendations and the screen that comes up saying "people who bought this book also bought...."
According to Anderson, it was those links that rocketed Touching the Void on to the New York Times paperback bestseller list and forced Random House to do a fast reprint.
Anderson calls the article the long tail because he compares it with a comet, the tail has more mass than the head. The head is what Anderson calls "the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare...brain dead summer blockbusters."
According to Anderson half of Amazon's sales come from outside of the top 130,000 titles —probably the kind of books most people on Writer-L write — and read.
He quotes a music industry venture capitalist named Kevin Laws as saying: "The biggest money is in the smallest sales."
So how does this work? Part of the rest of this post is based on a talk that Clive Thompson, (who runs the "collision detection" blog) gave to our annual conference at CBC.ca and some of my own ideas.
As most people know, Google ranks sites by the number of links to a site. The more links to your site, the higher it appears on the Google page when you do a search. The same thing is happening with blogs, where sites or other blogs link to one blog, it appears higher on blog indexes.
For another view of what of this go to the blog search engine, Technorati and click on the Book Talk tab...to see what books bloggers are talking about. For example, within hours of the reports of the death of Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking (with links to Amazon from some blogs) appeared high on the Technorati Booktalk page. That is clearly the antidote to the refusal of publishers to react when an author is in the news--if, of course, the bloggers pick up on the interest in the author and the book. (Note Booktalk is in beta and sometimes disappears from the Technorati site).
You should also join Technorati. The news tab will tell you what news stories are being talked about right now (and as I write this on Friday night, it is not just Scott Peterson, it is actually quite serious, the Middle East and U.S. Supreme Court — another example of The Long Tail.) Use the Technorati search engine to keep up on the subjects you research and write about. And subscribe to blogs and RSS feeds (most major news organizations now have them) on your subjects.
The model is music. Remember Napster? And the fact that many of the people who used Napster and now use file sharing are not kids but older adults who couldn't get the music they wanted, old jazz, for example. Now, according to the Anderson article, the niche market accounts of significant amounts of the sales of the now-legitimate, paid download sites.
Anderson also predicts that in the 21st century, to be profitable, a media company will need both ends, the head, the blockbusters, and the tail, which for writers, could I believe, bring the rebirth of the mid-list book.
It appears to me that even though Random House had a hit in Touching the Void the publishers are still following the old model, stuck in the mode of the three-month shelf life.
Another, this time from Clive's talk, is the reason E-books failed. The publishers were using the old model, by restricting how the reader could use an E-book.
That means to me that the printed book, going back to Gutenberg, were the first examples of pass around culture. If you know you'll get them back you can lend books to friends. The publishers were thinking about the software model (which doesn't work very well anyway).
So if an author is going to promote his/her book, forget that useless ad in The New York Times book review and get yourself blogged and blog yourself (it doesn't have to be every day). After I heard Clive's talk, I have already made a start on this blog on my site. At the moment it's really an html diary but I will upgrade to full blog software once I have finished my current book.
The lesson is to do everything you can yourself, e-mail lists, your own website, your own blog. Link to sites and people you like and let them know, so they link back, if they wish. Then it all depends if your subject is of interest to enough people, then it will start appearing on Amazon's links.
And The Long Tail also proves one more thing, that the idea Jon and Lynn had a few years ago about micropayments was essentially correct, but before its time. Anderson's rule number two for the 21st century "Cut the price in half, now lower it." It is working for Apple's Itunes that sells single tracks for $.99.
Long Tail blogs
Canadians:
4:45 PM posted by Robin Rowland
Permanent Link
