The problem with your value proposition ($10000 vs 10,000) is that writers inherently feel a need to profit from their work because it took them so long to do it. An average novel, for example, may take (from concept to binding) 18 months. That's a long time. Couple that with agents and publishing calendars and an author, if they are lucky, can see something in print years after they've finished with it.
The self-publishing industry solved some of that by enabling authors to bind their own works. So now you could be done with a novel in a fraction of the time. But it's more than that. What writers soon discovered is distribution is a pain when you have a physical book.
Devices like the iPad, Kindle, Nook, Sony PRS, and others have truly created a channel for the author to monetarily benefit from their works. Just do the operational math: no cost to distribute, no cost to produce. It's only time and materials (which, for the author, is a labor of love).
What the ebook now enables is the writer to quickly achieve monetization (i.e., I could write something much smaller and sell for something much less). They are still required to market their books as that is the only way to generate readership (and sales). Of course, free can provide a mechanism to monetization but it's still about generating some sort of dollar.
So that's why I founded Dime Novel Publishing (www.dimenovelpublishing.com). Our goal is to bring back the dime novel (popular from 1880 - 1940) for the e-book. They are publishing in 23-issues per volume with the first issue free. The content is focused on young-adult readers. And although we currently produce our own content the goal, long-term, is to develop a model that enables other authors to partake in the format. Writing novels is tough work. The writer has to keep so many details in line. With our format, writers can work on the visceral aspect of writing (developing storyline on a whim) as its the environment and characters that drive arcs within the series.
We hope that this is an example of an e-book-focused model that authors can take advantage of to both get the $10,000 and the 10,000 readers.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Jason Thibeault.
the correlation between mass distribution and content
The problem with your value proposition ($10000 vs 10,000) is that writers inherently feel a need to profit from their work because it took them so long to do it. An average novel, for example, may take (from concept to binding) 18 months. That's a long time. Couple that with agents and publishing calendars and an author, if they are lucky, can see something in print years after they've finished with it.
The self-publishing industry solved some of that by enabling authors to bind their own works. So now you could be done with a novel in a fraction of the time. But it's more than that. What writers soon discovered is distribution is a pain when you have a physical book.
Devices like the iPad, Kindle, Nook, Sony PRS, and others have truly created a channel for the author to monetarily benefit from their works. Just do the operational math: no cost to distribute, no cost to produce. It's only time and materials (which, for the author, is a labor of love).
What the ebook now enables is the writer to quickly achieve monetization (i.e., I could write something much smaller and sell for something much less). They are still required to market their books as that is the only way to generate readership (and sales). Of course, free can provide a mechanism to monetization but it's still about generating some sort of dollar.
So that's why I founded Dime Novel Publishing (www.dimenovelpublishing.com). Our goal is to bring back the dime novel (popular from 1880 - 1940) for the e-book. They are publishing in 23-issues per volume with the first issue free. The content is focused on young-adult readers. And although we currently produce our own content the goal, long-term, is to develop a model that enables other authors to partake in the format. Writing novels is tough work. The writer has to keep so many details in line. With our format, writers can work on the visceral aspect of writing (developing storyline on a whim) as its the environment and characters that drive arcs within the series.
We hope that this is an example of an e-book-focused model that authors can take advantage of to both get the $10,000 and the 10,000 readers.