Today Peter and author / new media expert Paul Malmont consider book publicity – obtaining reviews in traditional media is getting harder (some papers have completely axed their books coverage) but the net – and indeed shows such as LITOPIA DAILY – may be stepping up to fill the void – “the readers is the network”, says Paul.
In today’s Write Report, Donna looks at the latest fads in publishing – Podiobooks (like self-publishing, only in audio) labelled “webscabs” by Howard Hendrix, vice-president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. And HarperCollins tries video books. That’s like books – without words – with pictures – that you watch and listen to – but don’t read. Who knows, maybe they’ll even sell one.
In Eve’s Salmagundi Club, she asks – where does Neil Gaiman get his ideas? And Neil tells us…
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Donna Ballman failed to research her piece about Podiobooks properly. Podiobooks.com is not a vanity publisher; authors do not pay to have their pieces distributed on podiobooks.com.
Rather, the site is supported by the donations of readers, of which 75% is passed on to the authors and producers that upload their work to the site. While I have not made a fortune from these donations, money is flowing TO me rather than FROM me.
It sounds to me like Donna got all of her information from the Time article, and misread critical facts through the lens of a personal bias against podcast novels. I believe this error is egregious enough to warrant a retraction in tomorrow’s podcast. I’m sure Evo Terra, the primary person behind Podiobooks, would be happy to discuss the site in whatever level of detail you care to pursue.
I think Donna misunderstood something about PB. The authors don’t have to contribute any money and for that matter neither do the listeners. It’s all free though listeners are encouraged to donate and the authors get the majority of the donations (70-75% I believe). So it’s not at all like most self publishing outfits. It is self publishing, of course me producing my own podcast is self publishing for that matter.
Also I think it’s inaccurate to describe podcasting as a fad. Not all podcasters are out to get published through the traditional publishers. And some authors also “continue to sell the book on [their] own” so it’s not an “alternative”. It’s usually in addition to whatever else the author is doing. Some who use podiobooks (or podcast in general) have been published by small (and lately some major) houses, as you do point out.
Podcasting is DEFINITELY not less time consuming than any other form of self publishing. And your last sentence doesn’t make sense because again it assumes that most podcasters who want to be published traditionally aren’t pursuing or haven’t pursued those routes. Many either have tried and “failed” before they started podcasting (Scott SIgler, JC Hutchins, and PG Holyfield who thanks to their podcasts actually are going to get published or already have been). Others haven’t tried yet but will once their podcast is done. I fall into that latter category. I podcast, not to draw a publisher’s attention, but as a tool to hone my fiction. If I draw an audience (and I have) then great. If that audience helps me get published also great. That’s not why I started podcasting though.
If the traditional publishers don’t start taking their cues form Doctorow and Sigler and others who are getting their content out to readers in non-traditional way and succeeding then they will fall by the wayside imo. I do agree with you that this business of video books seems silly, not that making a video based on a book is a bad idea, but selling what amounts to a summary is. They should release the videos and hope they’re good enough to go viral. That would help book sales far more.
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