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The Royal Flush of Content: The Writer as Queen—Part 1

November 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

Went to three conferences last week, which is why you haven’t heard from me.  Storyworld which was about transmedia–telling the same story across different media platforms; the PublishersLaunch conference about E-books; and the New Media Festival. They were all excellent, and I will tell you more about them. But in this post and the next two, my overall
impressions and takeaways with great news for writers.

The accelerating revolution in communication made possible by technology in the hands of the growing number of people around the world is transforming the world. Intel CEO Paul Otellini says that “Computing is undergoing the most remarkable transformation since the inventions of the PC. The innovation of the next decade is going to outstrip the innovation of the last three combined.” By 2020, there will be 15 billion mobile Web-enabled devices. Anywhere, anytime access to all information and entertainment, along with the ability to communicate about content and collaborate on it are a writer’s dream.

Mike Shatzkin, the visionary co-founder of Publishers Launch, writes “The Shatzkin File,” a blog that’s essential reading. Mike believes that the age of top-down broadcasting, whether
it’s four television networks or six publishing conglomerates, is dying. The creation and success of content will be bottom up. Audiences will help create content and share what they love. Content will be Queen.

But because of word of mouse that can go viral, community will be King. Crowdsourcing ideas and responses to your work will help ensure you write what your fans want to read. You will still have to trust your instincts and common sense, and use what works and forget the rest. But your success will depend on your readers’ fingertips and the tips of their tongues. Engaging your community by connecting with them as often and in as many ways as you can will be essential to building your career. Writing helps build community; maintaining your community helps builds a career.

Are you ready for an easy-to-use smart TV that has all of the stations in the world? It was Steve Jobs’ vision, and it’s in the works. Theater attendance is declining, in part because we’re already starting to live with three screens: a computer/tablet, a smart phone, and a television. MTV viewers watch all three simultaneously, so MTV is providing three screens with different content about the same show. Viewers can use split screens if they wish and will soon able to move what’s on one screen to another.

Adapting stories you can tell in movies and on television, computers/tablets, and smartphones as well as in books, games, and three-minute webisodes is the promise of transmedia, and it’s starting to happen. Audiences want great stories, but they use different media to enjoy them. The challenge is to create scalable stories that can be repurposed in as many ways as possible. But you can still write that first draft with a No. 2 Ticonderoga, so have at it!

The rest of the Royal Flush of Information: Marketing will be the Jack, and passion will be the Ten. The Ace? Control of Content. More about that and why all you need is an audience of one in the next post. I’m thinking about the rest of the deck, but the cards are stacked in your favor.

[Formatting anomalies not in draft. Suggestions welcome.]

I write the blog to help us both understand what we need to know about writing, publishing, promotion, and agents. I hope you find it worth reading and sharing. Rants, comments, questions, corrections, and ideas for posts greatly appreciated.

The 9th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 16-20, 2012 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com / http://sfwriters.org/blog / @SFWC / www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference / 415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109 / San
Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn / Laurie McLean, Dean / free classes / www.sfwritersu.com / sfwritersu@gmail.com / @SFWritersU

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Filed Under: Book Publishing, Technology and Writers, Writing Fiction, Writing for Change, Writing Nonfiction Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Learning to Kiss Change on the Lips

April 9, 2010 By 11 Comments

We owe a lot to Thomas Edison. Were it not for him, we’d all be watching television by candlelight.

–Comedian Milton Berle

A high-tech innovation can transform two guys in a garage into billionaires. The irony is that the big companies they build can’t innovate. No matter how profitable they are or how smart and creative their employees are.

Fear, size, jealousy, competition, how companies work, and the creative destruction of existing products and services help explain why innovation is hard for technocracies. So they buy innovation instead.

Thanks to techno-auteur Steve Jobs, Apple is an exception.  It’s driven by the vision of one demanding, relentless, irreplaceable man. Google understands the need to innovate or die, but its string of innovations have less impact and alienate companies whose territories they invade. Both companies also buy new technologies.

Technology used to advance in stages. There would be an innovation in trains, planes, and automobiles, and then they would remain at that level until the next innovation came along.

Today, we’re living on the vertical slope of technology trying to thrive during a time of accelerating change. The torrent of high-tech innovations is transforming publishing just as it’s transforming other media. But the larger any business, organization, or institution is, the harder it is to adapt.

In the eighties, writers were early adopters of computers. It took far longer for publishers to computerize. They had to create systems that were capable of both running a large business and carrying out the unique, complicated tasks involved in publishing every book. Publishers also had to integrate their systems so they could function together, a huge challenge that took years to accomplish and continues as technology evolves.

Paul Otellini, the CEO of Intel observed that: “It’s a lot easier to change when you can than when you have to.” As a multimedia, multinational conglomerate of one, you can innovate by changing what you write about to whatever

* most excites you

* is most salable

* you can most effectively connect with your readers about

You can change directions faster than publishers can, and you have more ways than ever to test-market your work to make sure you’re on the right track.

You have to balance building your visibility and credibility on subjects that you enjoy writing about and promoting with the need to be ready to take advantage of the next big thing.

You also have to balance change with stability, a growing challenge on the fun, scary, bewildering, exhilarating, accelerating ride during history’s most exciting century.

If you hang on tight, you can experience the thrills and spills as they happen and perhaps make a living writing about them.

Changes and innovations threaten the status quo, but they can also be an opportunity for

* changing how you work

* finding new ways to reach readers

* generating new sources of income

The future of writers who best communicate the perils and promise of life on Spaceship Earth is assured. I hope you’ll be one of them.

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