The Internet Reformation: cheap mass publishing, no more gate keepers, almost unlimited freedom of expression
Everyone is familiar with the term, the internet revolution. Another way of looking at is to compare the internet to the Reformation. The Reformation of Christendom came about partly because of the new technology, the Guttenburg printing press. Without getting into to details, the idea of an internet reformation is the notion that the new technology, the internet, will reform society. I do not wish to get into all that because this is not a political/philosophical forum. However, it is clear that the internet is refroming the publishing industry. MOS useres have already commented on the impact of the internet on dead wood news papers and broadcast news versus the internet and I have no desire to rehash that here. I have recently taken the plunge to publish a novel I'm writing in serial form on Amazon Kindle Direct, The CFR Collusion, an adtion-adventure space opera. I took this action because of my frustration with the publishing industry, the so called "gate keepers" in general and those corrupt internet "agencies" which exist merely to part unpublished writers from their money. I was spurred to do this by a chance Tweet I saw today re-Tweeted by Felicia Day on Twitter. That led to a link that mentioned a writer who has made over a million dollars selling her book for 99 cents. Here is the link~http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/03/why-some-e-books-cost-more-than.html This guy explains it a lot better then I could so I suggest people chech this out.
If any of you hopeful writers have any comments please add your two cents worth as you like.
Getting the readers into the desired "mind space", that is the crux of it. I suppose that is what we writers are here on MOS for, as well as learning from on another. I promise after I finish writing my serial novel, and I have no clue how long that will take, I will tackle this problem much more seriously and share all my findings here. Mean while, I'm open to suggestions.
If the world only has carpenters and no buyers-of-chairs to buy and say "hey, I like Chair X by Carpenter Y", then everybody starves. Same for us. Writers need to support each other in getting the word out there to readers - and get readers into the mind-space of using their social media to promote their favorite "independent" authors as well. Sometimes that means cross-work - your newest reader may blog about cars or something - why not mention them?
Here's one of my short-short fiction blogs:
http://earthboundwhimsy.blogspot.com/
Here is mine:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_at_ep_srch?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Steven Vandervelde
Here is Roger's:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?rh=i:stripbooks,n:283155,k:roger+venk&keywords=roger+venk&ie=UTF8&qid=1318926009&ajr=0
The above works are for sale, cheep. Some people like to give their hard work away, post a link to freebies as well. But, I suggest you put it up for sale on Amazon or some other venue if you thought it was worth writing and think it is worth reading!




