Comments on critique.org/futurepub.ht

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from B.C. Hill on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:05:41 0000]

I was one who loved the smell of an old novel in my hands as I re-read some of my favorite series. But then half of my books were ruined when the basement flooded. I've slowly been replacing my favorite novels in the digital format and I'm a believer. I can carry THOUSANDS of books with me at a time. And better than that I can back them up on different computers and even an external harddrive. So I'm sold on ebooks.

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from B.C. Hill on Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:28:42 0000]

I've been a Critter for a almost six months now. I've critiqued some good stories and some bad stories. What I would like to see is a rating system for how much the other Critters liked the story (1-10). Then every six months, (or maybe once a year,) our honorable Critter Captain could re-post the 20 highest rated stories and have a contest. The winner of the contest, (maybe even the top three,) would be awarded a free ePublishing for that story from reAnimus. This would be a win-win situation. The best writers would actually get there work in the ether and reAnimus might just discover the next big name. This might also work for the novel submissions (but only annually of course.)

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from anonymous on Sun, 23 Jan 2011 01:01:03 0000]

I think my app would lock up and fry whatever device I was using it on if it tried to predict what I'd want out of books. I read just about every genre except erotica, but have extremely picky taste about the plotline/non-fiction topic and about the writer's style.

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from Chris Kubica on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:33:02 0000]

I have a new paradigm idea;

http://chriskubica.posterous.com/a-publ ... p-fbf09-to

Thoughts welcome.

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from Matt on Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:46:50 0000]

Well, then...

Writers want a paycheck, so they can pay the bills and move on to the next project. Online readers like free stuff, and are willing to put up with some on-screen advertising to get it. Right now (right here) some writers are capable of and willing to manage the mess of microdonations, clickcounts, etc. Over at another publisher they've taken the next step of paying the writer and handling the headaches of epublishing a pay-for magazine. What's next? Connecting 'paycheck' to 'free.'

I imagine a suite of apps, from submission through presentation.

Customers would read free, using the proprietary presentation manager. The presentation manager would display targetted ads, force a brief windowed ad between chapters, run an extended presentation at mid-book, and every other trick we can think of to attract advertiser cash. On the other hand, customers could earn black-out tags to drop on least-liked ads, ad-free minutes, chapters, even entire sessions by participating in pre-reading surveys and presentations.

Submitting authors would face a similar system, participating in ads and rating other submissions to earn permission to submit. Volunteer Assistant Online Editors would earn value by rating submissions and ads. Highest rating submissions would get an editorial read, the rest 'returned unconsidered' after a reasonable period.

Print publishers, TV networks, and film producers could pay a fee to view and opt on the highest rated submissions. Even competitor publications could pay to search unconsidered or rejected submissions and opt on those that 'fit' their publishing profile.

And all this would be automated, allowing the editor/publisher to go about the business of choosing and buying content that attracts more customers. Sounds like a quite a bit of work building the system, and no guarantee it would work, but who knows?

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from Jeff on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:23:58 0000]

I agree that evolution is coming. I've toyed with the idea of teaming up with a filmmaker friend of mine and doing a hyper-linked story. I am thinking about doing the backstory with audio and video files, allowing the reader to learn more about the characters' history (and some flashbacks relating to the plot) through the multimedia. I don't have the foggiest idea, however, what market would be interested.

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from anonymous on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:23:33 0000]

Ebooks are here to stay - but it may take a while. Personally, until you can get a decent reader for under £100 I'm not going to even try them. And I hate reading long fiction on a normal VDU.

Another interesting question is how the change in media is going to affect the form itself. Novels co-evolved with the book; linearity, pages, chapter divisions, etc., are all products of the medium. Electronic novels need not be so linear, providing opportunities for random access and interactivity. Some people are already reporting their reading habits are changing due to internet exposure - see this article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from Jeff on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:00:14 0000]

There will be a generation lag for electronic reading. I love the smell of books in the stacks. There is something very satisfying about having a hefty (and sometimes musty) book in your hand. I also feel (irrationally) that there is a lack of permanence to an electronic book. I imagine my children discovering my collection in the same way I discovered my parents' collection, and their parents' collections. Perhaps the time of the book will pass us by. I hope not.

I say there will be a generation lag because my children are already reading electronically more than digitally. It's natural to them. It seems artificial to me. I don't think it will take long, however, for my breed to die out and be replaced by readers that demand instant electronic access to media tailored for them.

I worry about profiling of users. I forsee a future where your likes and dislikes are so well known by the media channels that they can predict, very accurately, what new books you will be predisposed to buy. There's something about that, however, that disquiets me. The fragmentation of our society into market niches, I fear, will have negative consequences we don't yet understand.

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from Jack Calverley on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:59:44 0000]

I agree with the aburt analysis.

I would paraphrase as create-distribute-select-and-render. And we are looking at ever more automation and ever wider dispersal.

What anyone wanting to earn a living in this picture needs is to maximise traffic to their portion of the production cycle. But that is to buck the trend of wider dispersal.

One question to consider is: How is the end-user (consumer of stories) going to get what they want - correctly filtered for their needs, taste, style and quality? That would be the killer app you want, sir?

Yes, and once upon a time it was main();

[CrittersMinion]

[Reposted from old comment system, from Benjamin on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:19:23 0000]

I only go to a bookstore to look a book over. If I like it, I go home and order it from Amazon.