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Two authors, rejected by multiple publishers, make podcasts of their book and let people listen for free. The 'casts are so popular publishers now want to pick up the books...
Article here (Brought to you by my hometown rag! Well, sort of hometown...)
quote:And while Sigler still offers his novels as free podcasts, he is confident that the junkies will shell out $24.95 for a fix they might already have tried.
"How do I get them to buy a book they may have already listened to?" Sigler said. "I ask them to."
This turns conventional wisdom on its head.
And yet it makes an odd kind of sense. You can buy LOTR in a cheap paperback form, yet many buy the luxurious leather-bound copies. And just look at all those DVD box sets of TV sitcoms and crime thrillers that we've all seen so many times they're introduced as "the one about".
I guess if we fall in love with some characters and a millieu, we want to own a slice of it.
Definitely food for thought, thanks Anne.
Edited to add: I guess they're not selling first publication rights, but official souvenir rights?
Cheers, Pat
[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited April 07, 2008).]
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Well, I've upgraded various Lord of the Rings editions...started with paperbacks, then new paperbacks, then new trade paperbacks, then a series of one-volume editions. There's been a lot of "corrected text" editions, some of which add stuff left out of other editions. (My first paperback of The Fellowship of the Ring had a big white blotch on one page that completely obliterated a joke Sam Gamgee was making.)
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posted
I know of a couple books that were offered as shareware, where several chapters were available to read. If one liked the book, one could pay for registration and get the entire book from the archive you already had Or the rest of the book would be sent.
One might start by posting just the beginning chapter or three for free and see if anybody is interested in the rest of the book.
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I like this idea. Its hit a great nerve with me. I have 2 friends with Macs... we could all get together, hand out characters to each other, and have speaking parts, and do some novels as radio plays, or something.
Sound effects and soundtracks though... hmmm...
I love the lateral thinking of these guys. Determination to get IN to the market. Awesome
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There is something to be said about this. Podcasts are gaining popularity every day. We should start our own Podcast website, publishing our own stuff and marketing our novels on the site. We would then become self employed and maybe scratch out a decent living Posts: 1888 | Registered: Jan 2008
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Authors are self-employed anyway. We wouldn't "become" self-employed. It's pretty much the same self-publishing that's been out there forever--except with podcasts you give your work away.
There are plenty of places I can do that already including my own website.
[This message has been edited by JeanneT (edited April 08, 2008).]
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I keep saying this because I think it's really true: There are many paths to success. Define "success" how you will.
I don't think it hurts to think outside of the box. Media and the the publication industry is changing, and I think it pays to experiment and try different approaches. And again, different approaches will work for different people, and depends on what our definition of "success" is.
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I think that the publisher bought the "30,000 digital disciples", not the book per se, betting that (a) a proportion of them would buy the published work and (b) those 30,000 readers indicate that the work is sellable to a wider audience.
As we all know it's not hard to self-publish on a website. What is hard (i.e. time consuming, takes some know-how, but not impossible) is to attract people to the website.
Also, I think making it available as a podcast increases potential audience because you can easily take it on train or plane without having to buy an electronic book reader or carry a laptop. Also, frequent travellers generally carry both a book and an iPod, so with a podcast they can save the weight of the book ;-)
(It probably helps to have an attractive voice, too.)
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Yes to the attractive voice. I gave this ago last night, and besides stumbling over my work, reading it aloud... ugh.. when I played it back, it didnt sound great.
I know when you hear your own recorded voice it sounds different, I got over that. But, it just sounded.. ameteur? Yeah?
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It might just take practice, just like anything. I suggest listening to how other authors/ people read aloud. There's definitely a skill and technique that can be cultivated.
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And if anyone is interested in playing around with recording themselves I do have a program (I used it to record myself reading someone else's out of print work yesterday) (And yes it was George R.R. Martin) as the one that comes with Windows only records for 60 seconds, plus you can't edit out your mistakes as easily. If anyone does want a copy (of the program not my voice recording) just drop me an e-mail and I will try to send it.
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