This is very significant news in the publishing world. The American Booksellers Association — which represents independent bookstores — has struck a deal with Kobo, my ereader of choice ever since Amazon pulled my book.
What it means? Independent booksellers will now have a full (and fully integrated) competitor — from hardware to online bookstore — to Kindle and Nook, making it as easy to buy from them as it is to buy from the bigs.
At first blush, dialastar.com appears to be a crass scheme by a former porn star to leverage the shameless desperation of attention-starved D-listers and the lower impulses of celebrity-crazed American dimwits and/or ironic potheads. And it is all that. Users pay up to $25/minute to speak to future trivia questions like Michael Lohan, Chris Crocker, and Angie Everhart.
But might it also be more?
While credible literary lights like Emerson, Dickens, and Twain supported themselves — in their day — via public appearances, something has always struck me as not quite right about returning to that model. For one thing, it will mean we have arrived at a point where each pole of the marketing magnet — the book and the tour — is supposed to pay for the other, with the result that both are given away. Plus, the idea of supporting modern media with something so 19th-century as a speaking tour is just a little too steam-punky, if you know what I mean.
But this dialastar.com, this makes sense. What Emerson, Dickens, and Twain were really selling — after all — was access. Writing was their advertisement, but proximity was their product. And for many writers, who make livings as academics, it still is. The paid speaking tour hasn’t gone away. We’ve just jacked up the price, extended it to two years, and dratically limited enrollment (although probably still not by enough.) We sell maxi-access to writers, in the form of MFAs. But what about micro-access? Where’s the model for that? Maybe it’s dialastar.com.
Imagine dialanauthor.com, a site where you can talk to Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Egan or, gulp, David Patterson for $5/minute or $5/minute or $500/minute (respectively). Do you think people would call? Do you even doubt for a minute that they would? Can you imagine if Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon were on there?
Discuss.
Here is the first — and, I presume, last — installment in a photo series I’m calling “Vernacular Remixes of Publishing Logos Spotted on HVAC Repair Trucks in NYC.”
Who says publishers don’t have strong brands? Seriously, I think Penguin might have a case.
Webfiction has more in common with journalism than commercial fiction. Newspaper and magazines are less about creating great art and more about sharing news. Likewise, webfiction is less about creating a perfect literary specimen and more about sharing stories.
From the excellent blog post Never Rewrite on Cheap Ass Fiction. Go read it. (via webfictiondaily)
An interesting point that publishers should probably consider. -jim
This week’s Facebook Publishing Poll. Choose the best sequel to Akashic Books’ sleeper hit Go the F**k to Sleep. Register your vote here.
This week’s Facebook Publishing Poll. Please choose the least sympathetic literary protagonist. Register your vote here.
This week’s Facebook Publishing Poll is for the copy editors. Please register your answer here. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.
Time for my weekly Facebook publishing poll. Please answer as truthfully as possible.
Time for this week’s Facebook Publishing Poll. Cast your vote.
The Joyland eBooks spread from the ECW Press Fall 2011 catalog. Cheers to cover designer David Gee for the best looking e-book original short story collection series in North America (at least).
It’s time for my second official Facebook Publishing Poll, just in time for BEA. Go to my Facebook page to vote.
Come by my new Facebook page to vote in the inaugural Encyclopedia Hanasiana publishing poll.
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