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Happy New Year!

This year brought the release of the CyberKill enhanced mobile eBook app. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, please do. It’s FREE. And ask your friends and family to do so, too. I’d appreciate it very much.

So what’s the skinny on these new enhanced ebooks? Do a search on Google for enhanced ebooks and you will find that there’s a divergence of opinion on them. The main critique falls into three areas.

The first opinion states that enhanced ebooks with embedded video, sound and graphics, takes away from the enjoyment of the book because the enhanced ebook intrudes on the reader’s ability to imagine the story in his mind. The very popular Harry Potter books loved by children are used as a prime example.

This opinion states that any attempt to add greater dimensions to the Harry Potter story telling like the movies takes away from the imagination of the children. But that’s a false argument.

Sure, when a child reads a Harry Potter book, he or she congers up a vivid picture in their mind of the characters and environment in the book. Those critics hold that the movies made from those books somehow take away from that imagination process.

But if that were true, how do you account for the hundreds of millions of dollars each book in the series has generated as a movie? And most of the audience for these movies are the children that read the Harry Potter book.  The children enjoyed both versions of the story telling and it did little to take way their imagination of the story.

Of course, the professional handling of the book material by the movie studio did the story justice. As in anything creative – it has bee done well.

The second critique of enhanced ebooks comes from those that say the imbedded multimedia and extended material interrupts the reading experience. They claim, rightfully so, that the embedded video, audio and links to the Internet within the text interrupts the reading of the book. But Trapdoor Books has recognized this problem and placed its multimedia and outside links in what is called the ‘marginalia’ that sits along the outside column of the text. This marginalia can be totally turned off and the reader can read just text.

The third critique has nothing to do with the reading experience. It has to do with economics — the cost of producing enhanced ebooks. This is a valid critique. It does cost more to produce an enhanced book. Thus the retail cost of the ebook is higher than the traditional ebook.

But Trapdoor Books has found a solution to that. Their enhanced books are FREE. They are advertising supported and that revenue pays for the production of the ebook.

So, Trapdoor Books has found the way to meet the objections of the enhanced book skeptics.

As a reminder, Cyberkill is available as an Enhanced digital mobile app on the iPhone®, iPad® and Android™ mobile devices including the Kindle Fire and the NOOK™. So if you have portable devices that run on those two platforms you can download the entire advertising-supported Cyberkill enhanced digital mobile app for free.

You can get the FAQs on the CyberKill app here.

If you enjoyed this new form of publishing, please rate my app in the Apple iTunes and App Store and the Android Market.

And Remember: You can still purchase the dead tree version of Cyberkill or the traditional e-book version for your Kindle, or Sony Reader.

OK. On to this month’s features.

First up, digital books continue to grow in numbers and traditionally published print books decline.

David Farland keeps a pretty much tab on the publishing industry. His comments here add to the belief that ebooks will be king of the hill in a few years.

Right now, the e-book market is growing at over 10% per year. Meanwhile, the sale of paperbacks and hardcovers is dropping disproportionately. In fact, sales last month on hardcover books were down more than 40% from just the month before!
Now, there are reasons for this. Part of the problem has to do with the collapse of the Borders bookstore chain here in America. That might account for a drop of 25%. Another drop of 10% might be claimed because of the rise in sales of e-readers that people got for Christmas. But that means that there is still a substantial drop that doesn’t make sense—another 8%, more or less. What’s going on? I think that there may be people who are delaying hardback purchases in anticipation of buying e-readers. After all, why pay $25 for a hardcover when I plan to buy a Kindle and then get the electronic copy for $15 on Mother’s Day?

He may be right. What do you think?

Then again, are print books really going away? Or will we soon be neck deep in them?

In the latest issue of WIRED Magazine, Clive Thompson took on the challenge of ebooks vs print books.

His conclusion?

Print books are NOT going away. As a matter of fact, we’ll soon be neck deep in them.

Why? How? Three little letters – POD (print-on-demand).

Did you know that the percent increase of POD and self-published books from 2009 to 2010 boomed to 169% – hitting a stunning 2.8 million unique titles! No wonder a new author has an almost impossible task of breaking through the clutter.

Anyway, back to Thompson.

Print-on-demand devices, like the Espresso Book Machine, do just what their name implies: You feed them a digital file and in minutes you have a good-looking paperback with a color cover. (Print-on-demand companies like Lulu or Blurb even produce hardcover and photo books.)

Mass publishers doing “big” books will continue to shift to the Kindle and its peers, while smaller outlets will use print-on-demand for formats that privilege physicality, like mementos, visually lush books, and custom-designed, limited-edition copies of novels. This trend will accelerate in 15 or 20 years, when, as some observers predict, your average home printer will be able to spit out paperbacks. “I see this fundamentally as a tabletop medium. It’s the photocopier of the future,” says Rick Anderson, a librarian who runs an Espresso machine at the University of Utah.

The fate of print books? We may soon be neck deep in them.

And by the way, if you like to read out of the ordinary fiction, sign up for Trapdoor Books newsletter and stay on top of the best of ‘geek’ fiction. If this interests you, join the Trapdoor community.

If you would like to be removed from my newsletter list and miss out on the news of the future of publishing, email me at frank@frankfiore.com with the words ‘Remove’ in the SUBJECT line.

That’s it. Cheers until next month – Frank

Hi again.
 
Great News !! The enhanced eBook version of Cyberkill is now released.
 
Cyberkill is available as an Enhanced digital mobile app on the iPhone®, iPad® and Android™ mobile devices including the Kindle Fire and the NOOK™. So if you have portable devices that run on those two platforms you can download the entire advertising-supported Cyberkill enhanced digital mobile app for FREE !!. That’s right, FREE !!
 
You can turn off the ads at any time via in-app purchase for $4.99.
 
For some background and info on CyberKill – the enhanced book – go here.
 
The new features available in the Enhanced digital app version of Cyberkill, many of which have never been seen in a digital book before, include seamless switching between the text version and a full audio version of the story, evolving synopsis, character lookup and biography, dynamic links to incorporate the power of the web into the book, sharing through social media and email, bookmarking, recorded annotations, author videos and commentaries, and author interaction.
 
Why did I want Cyberkill converted into a digital app? I wanted to share a story with as wide an audience as possible, using whatever narrative tools were at my disposal. I was really excited about releasing the Cyberkill Enhanced digital app because it allowed me to add elements to the story that would have been impossible in a traditional eBook. This new technology creates a new way for authors and readers to approach books that enrich and extend storytelling, and I’m hoping readers will like what we’ve created.”
 
In short, readers now can ‘experience’ a book and not just read it.
 
Download the app and experience the future of digital publishing. Please add a review in the Andoid market or Apple App Store after you you’ve experienced the book.
 

Before we start–some news.

Trapdoor Books tells me that the Android and Apple versions of CyberKill 3.0 – the enhanced book – will be in the Android Marketplace and Apple iTunes/App store by November. So if you have portable devices that run on those two platforms you can download the entire CyberKill 3.0 for FREE !!. That’s right, FREE !!

And experience the future of mobile publishing.

Now — Popular Fiction vs. Literary Fiction — Or ‘Show Me the Money’ 

“Few professors of English literature will ever admit to it, but the truth is that popular writers have had just as great an effect on the people of this nation as Dickens, Poe, or Melville and their classic works.”
Editor James L. Collins

According to Shelly Thacker, “There are two kinds of fiction in today’s market. Literary fiction and popular fiction.”

Literary fiction is the fiction of ideas. Its primary purpose is to evoke thought. The writer’s goal is self-expression. Any consideration of the reader—if one exists at all—is purely secondary.

Popular fiction is the fiction of emotion. Its primary purpose is to evoke feelings. The writer’s goal is to entertain the reader. Any consideration of self-expression—if one exists at all—is purely secondary.

 I agree with her definitions and I also agree with her explanation in defense of it.

 I’m not saying that you can’t express yourself in a romance or mystery or science-fiction novel, or that literary fiction can’t be entertaining, or that popular fiction can’t be thought-provoking. We can all name novels that do it all. My point is, before you sit down to write your book—and more importantly, before you try to market it—you had better be sure exactly which kind of fiction it is you’re writing.

And if you’re writing popular fiction, you must be aware that the marketplace is reader-driven. You can entertain, astonish, provoke, even manipulate the reader—but if you want to sell, you can’t ignore her. The reader is your whole reason for being. With every page you write and every choice you make, you need to ask yourself, “What affect will this have on the reader? Will she enjoy this? Will she rush out to her local Barnes & Noble and pay $7.50 to buy this?”

In other words, literary fiction is fine if you want to write for writers—ala: the New York Book Review and nominations for the Nobel Prize for Best Literature.

As for me, I’m a hack writer and just ‘show me the money!”

Shelly again.

If your particular genre or sub-genre is popular among huge numbers of readers, your manuscript has a better chance of selling. If your chosen genre is less popular, your chances decrease. Supply and demand. It’s a simple equation—and no amount of whining will change it.

Perhaps more difficult to understand is that this same concept applies not only to genres, but to every element in your book. If you’re trying to sell a novel with a less-popular setting or “risky” themes, you’re going to have a tough time. And it’s not the publishers’ fault that your manuscript isn’t selling (so stop whining); it’s simply that fewer readers want to buy books with those elements.

Shelly goes to say though, that after you’ve built up a successful following, you could try ‘riskier’ themes – themes that your readers are not expecting of you. That has a double edged sword.

You may surprise them with its success or they might surprise you with its failure.

I am fortunate that CyberKill was a success. It was a techno-thriller. A common genre. My next three books, the Chronicles of Jeremy Nash, are thrillers also—each with a different theme.

I am writing now, a novel that is unlike anything I have ever written. Different from the thrillers I hope will create a nice reader following for me. So I will be taking a risk on changing the formula of my writing, so to speak, with this next novel.

Let’s see if Shelly is right.

Finally, here are some writing palette cleansers for your enjoyment.

Every once in a while a writer needs to lighten up. So, here’s some palette cleansers on writing.

I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork – Peter De Vries

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them – Flannery O’Connor

Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure – Oliver Herford

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor – Ring Lardne

It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word – Andrew Jackson

A good novel tells us the truth about it’s hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose… anything goes – Frank Sinatra

I write to escape … to escape poverty – Edgar Rice Burroughs

If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing – Kingsley Amis

It’s a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check – Erle Stanley Gardner

Writing is a lonely job, unless you’re a drinker, in which case you always have a friend within reach – Emilio Estevez

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer – Isaac Bashevis Singer

The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes – Agatha Christie

After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity – George Ade

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment – Josh Billings

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying – Woody Allen

Smile. 

And Remember: You can still purchase the e-book version of CyberKill for your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPhone and iPad!

And by the way, if you like to read out of the ordinary fiction, sign up for Trapdoor Books newsletter and stay on top of the best of ‘geek’ fiction. If this interests you, join the Trapdoor community.

That’s it. Cheers until next month – Frank

Well, Trapdoor is still putting the finishing touches on CyberKill 3.0 – the enhanced transmedia version of my novel. Android platform release is projected for October and am Apple (iPhone and iPad) the month after that.

TrapDoor is still looking fro  people to check out this application before it’s released to the masses to add your comments and suggestions. We need beta testers for CyberKill 3.0. As a beta tester, you’ll get to check out a new application in exchange for gratitude, street cred, and the delightful smug feeling of having something first. 

Please click here to sign up 

And Now: Look Out Writers! – The Computers Are Coming!

Check out this article.

“WISCONSIN appears to be in the driver’s seat en route to a win, as it leads 51-10 after the third quarter. Wisconsin added to its lead when Russell Wilson found Jacob Pedersen for an eight-yard touchdown to make the score 44-3 …”

Those words began a news brief written within 60 seconds of the end of the third quarter of the Wisconsin-U.N.L.V. football game earlier this month. They may not seem like much — but they were written by a computer!

OK. So a lot of sports writing is formulaic (even romance novels for that matter). But does that mean that novels can be written someday by computers? Will a computerized monkey someday produce all of Shakespeare’s plays?

Silly, right?

The again, there’s something called FictionFixer.

FictionFixer™ tracks and analyzes more than 250 characteristics of current bestselling novels. The software combines this data with a consensus of expert advice and opinion to define a model representing what the public expects from such books.

They support their claim with their ‘Pineapple Upside-Down Cake’ recipe.

Published recipes have been around since the 1903. The recipe had changed over the years to reflect the ‘tastes’ of consumers.  As the recipes for the cake changed, the world ‘voted’ with their taste buds — i.e., the trends towards more natural ingredients and low carbs, salt or butter.

As FictionFixer™ sees it:

Just like the example above, while the unique ingredients are what makes (the cake) stand out, certain core ingredients must be present in a novel for it to be in the running. There is a model, and it too, evolves from year to year. Fortunately, the world continually votes on this matter; they vote with their pocketbooks, and these votes are recorded on bestseller lists. But what are the ingredients? What is the current model?

FictionFixer™ seeks to answer those questions with their software.

FictionFixer™ reveals how close to the mark your novel is in relation to the current model of what people are buying. And, the software tells you exactly what to change to come closer to the ideal. The more you know about what your readership expects, the easier it is to communicate a particular story or message.

Are programs like the one that wrote the sports story and FictionFixer™ firing the first competitive shot across the novelist’s bow?

Or is that just a lot of wishful thinking.

If novelists wrote for what came before them Tom Clancy, who created the new genre called the techno-thriller or J.K. Rowling who created Harry Potter, would still be slaving as unknowns over their typewriters.

No. The computer program that can imitate human intuition hasn’t been invented yet and those novelists who write what they like and not necessarily to the market will still be here and successful after the shine on the computer mouse has faded away.

News- News – News

Play the Trapdoor 2011 E-Reader Giveaway for your chance at free books and an Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook or Sony Reader Touch of your choice (loaded with Trapdoor Books, of course)!

Here’s how it works. Solve a Trapdoor Puzzle Challenge from The Griddle (see below for links to the puzzles so far), then email your solution to Chris at cmatney@trapdoorbooks.com. If your solution is correct, you’ll receive a reply with a one-use “secret code” back to you.

Check out the details here.

And Remember: You can still purchase the e-book version of CyberKill for your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPhone and iPad!

And by the way, if you like to read out of the ordinary fiction, sign up for Trapdoor Books newsletter and stay on top of the best of ‘geek’ fiction. If this interests you, join the Trapdoor community.

That’s it. Cheers until next month – Frank

News #1: My new author site is now up.  Check it out at www.frankfiore.com

While you’re there, see a sneak preview of my new book series The Chronicles of Jeremy Nash. You can read the first few chapters of each book in the series. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.

 News #2: Trapdoor Books tells me that we are OH SO CLOSE to releasing the coolest application ever created–CyberKill 3.0 on the Android platform (cell phones and tablet computers) this month and on the Apple platform (iPhone and iPad) in September.

What’s that? You’d like to check out this application before it’s released to the masses? You’d like to provide feedback and crash reports? Your wish is my command. In fact, we need beta testers for CyberKill 3.0! As a beta tester, you’ll get to check out a new application in exchange for gratitude, street cred, and the delightful smug feeling of having something first. 

Please click here to sign up 

Now — Books By the Numbers

According to the Google Book Project, throughout modern recorded history, nearly 130 million book titles have been published.

Wow!!

That includes all kinds of books.  Google counts books ranging from obscure doctoral theses in university libraries to the most popular fiction books of all time.

According to Bowker, the leading authority on book statistics, slightly more than 25,000 fiction books were published in the U.S. in 2002.  By 2008, this figure more than doubled to over 53,000 fiction books published.  In 2009, the recession’s impact reduced the number of fiction books published, but an impressive 45,181 titles were still published.  On average, fiction books represent about 16 percent of the total books published in the U.S. each year.

Half of all fiction books published in the U.S. in 2006 fit in the major fictional genres of romance, mystery, science fiction and fantasy.  In 2006, paperbacks were the major publishing format for fiction books, with 65 percent of romance books, 61 percent of science fiction and fantasy books, and 58 percent of mystery books published in mass-market (small) or trade (larger) paperback sizes.

Bowker’s 2006 study also analyzed the length of fiction titles and the suggested retail prices for new releases. In 2006, the average science fiction novel was 329 pages long, followed by romance at 324, and mystery at 292 pages. 

Pretty interesting stuff.

Hey, I’m no Hemingway!

No I’m not. But recently I figured out that I write a lot like his style.

Let me explain.

If you’ve spent any time on the different writing discussion boards on the different social networks, you’ll see that the majority of comments about writing style seem to fall into two groups. Those that believe the flowery prose of the literati is real writing and those that feel authors should write to be marketable and choose to eschew obfuscation and write simply and clearly.

One of my favorite authors, Michael Crichton claimed that medical writing is a “highly skilled, calculated attempt to confuse the reader”. Many of his novels did eschew obfuscation and wrote for purely entertainment. The story had to move.

Another way to say this is the old writing adage ‘show-don’t tell’.

Now there are those who believe that paragraphs and even pages of narrative are necessary for successful story telling.

I don’t.

I believe that the necessary information about a concept or a character should be brought out mostly through dialogue.  A rule of thumb here is think movie scenes and not chapters.  Write the story in such a way as how it would look as a screenplay.

Think about it. Except for a few short paragraphs before certain scenes to paint the environment and the mood of the characters, the vast majority of a screenplay is dialogue.  The dialogue tells the story.

I believe that’s how novels should be written. Even Crichton honed this in his later novels. His books were written is such a way that they could easily be turned into screenplays.

‘Show-Don’t Tell’ types of stories are looked down upon by the literati but I believe that today’s reader – the USA Today and Twitter generation – is not looking for tombs of literature but a quick and entertaining read.

Am I saying that the Nobel Prize winning novels that very few people read outside of the New York Times Book reviews will go away? Of course not.  Neither will the printed book disappear in this world of mobile publishing.

I just believe that writers should strive to make their writing economical and not have the prose get in the way of the story.

But that’s my opinion.

What I am saying is that we can lean something from Hemingway.

He had some tips for writing well learned from an editor when he was a reporter for the Kansas City Star.

• Use short sentences.
• Use short first paragraphs, I would add all your paragraphs should be short, sweet and to the point.
• Use vigorous language.
• Be positive and not negative. Basically, you should say what something is rather than what it isn’t.

After he finished “The Old Man and the Sea,” he wrote his brother, Leichester, telling him that he did not think there was single wasted word in the book. He may be right. It is a lean, powerful tale. So lean that it may well be the only book ever written to have very nearly every scene transposed into the film version.

“Nearly every scene transposed into the film version.” Hmm…Didn’t’ I say that?

More News- News – News

Play the Trapdoor 2011 E-Reader Giveaway for your chance at free books and an Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook or Sony Reader Touch of your choice (loaded with Trapdoor Books, of course)!

Here’s how it works. Solve a Trapdoor Puzzle Challenge from The Griddle (see below for links to the puzzles so far), then email your solution to Chris at cmatney@trapdoorbooks.com. If your solution is correct, you’ll receive a reply with a one-use “secret code” back to you.

Check out the details here.

And Remember: You can still purchase the e-book version of CyberKill for your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPhone and iPad!

And by the way, if you like to read out of the ordinary fiction, sign up for Trapdoor Books newsletter and stay on top of the best of ‘geek’ fiction. If this interests you, join the Trapdoor community.

That’s it. Cheers until next month – Frank

CyberKill 3.0 update. No news as of yet. TrapDoor Books still developing the technology for the future of digital publishing. When it does appear, I believe it will create a Digital Perfect Storm.

 But first, a little news from Amazon. They report that they are selling more Kindle books than printed books. The digital revolution continues! Check it out here.

 Onto the Digital Perfect Storm.

 There’s a squall front moving in with a set of weather systems that will create a perfect storm for electronic publishing and writers.

The weather systems that will create this perfect storm are:

• Tablet Computers
• Apps as Books
• Adverting Supported Novels
• Transmedia Books

So what’s the current state of books today?

The Survey Says …

Statistics from Parapub, a publishing industry research organization found:

1. Generally 80% of US households did not buy or read a book last year.

2. 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the past 5 years

3. 42% of college graduates never read another book after college

4. 1/3 of high school graduates never read a book for the rest of their lives

5. 57% of new books are not read to completion

Now we all know that, in general, US adults can read – the grade level is debatable. So why the lousy stats?  Could it be that the book as is no longer offers the immersive experience that interested readers in the past?

Even the Kindle, Nook and Sony reader, though good stand alone devices, can not give a rich media reading experience that can compete with the rich experience offered by the Internet.

Let’s look at it this way. In the words of Cody Brown:

If you, as an author, see the iPad as a place to ‘publish’ your next book, you are completely missing the point. What do you think would have happened if George Orwell had the iPad? Do you think he would have written for print then copy and pasted his story into the iBookstore? If this didn’t work out well, do you think he would have complained that there aren’t any serious-readers anymore? No. He would have looked at the medium, then blown our minds.

Tablet Computers Will Change Everything

The tablets are coming!

In January of 2011, Forrester Research predicted that by 2015, 82 million U.S. consumers (one-third of U.S. online consumers) will be using a tablet computer. That may be too conservative.

Right now, the Apple iPad owns the tablet market, but a slew of new competitors will hit the market by this Christmas shopping season.

Even Amazon is getting into the act. Seeing the handwriting on the tablet, they plan to release an Android-based PC in the Fall. If Amazon sees that tablets are as good if not a better choice than their Kindle – that tells you something about the future of books.

Tablets are bigger than the eReaders and offer more types of use and more immersive reading experience.

Tablets might just re-invigorate the publishing industry.

There’s An App For That Book

Tablet computers will usher in the use of books as apps.

Even B&N’s Nook sees the future of books as apps. Here’s a quote from a recent press release from Barnes & Noble. Notice how they refer to NOOK Color as a “tablet” and mention apps before books.

“Barnes & Noble continues to make its bestselling, critically acclaimed NOOK Color Reader’s Tablet even better, delivering customers a wide array of high-quality apps, books, interactive children’s books, magazines and more. The company announced it doubled its number of NOOK Apps since recently introducing a broad collection of popular apps.”

An LA Times article stated:

…tablets will offer not just text but also sound, images and video — which will all be commonplace in books someday, in a balance we can’t yet foresee. This may undermine the primacy of text, but the text in most books today is far from sacred, and a little multimedia can do a world of good in most genres — in how-to books, for example. Think back to the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages; even when text was sacred, people liked a little multimedia on the side.

And unlike books files, apps are upgradeable on the fly.  Back to the LA Times article:

When a book is produced as an app, rather than as a file to be read within an app, all the features that might need to appear in an ebook reader app, as listed above, need to be developed specific to that app. This has the advantage of flexibility – features such as navigation and styling can be customized to suit the actual content, and are not limited to the usual set of ebook features. Multimedia can be embedded in creative ways that are not limited by what an ebook reader app may or may not support. Genuine interactivity can be a part of your book app.

In this sense, a book app more closely resembles an edition of a book, with an upgraded version being a new edition – some publishers could view this as a nice source of revenue, persuading people to re-buy an app when they upgrade devices.

Consider this.

When TV first came out and Madison Avenue was creating ads for the new medium, creating an ad was basically the same as creating one for radio. There were still pictures of the product with a voice overlay like radio ads.

It didn’t take Madison Avenue long to discover that, with the new medium of TV, that ads could move!

The challenge is not just to adopt the technology but adapt it to do things differently. Merely taking today’s content and converting it into digital content follows the logic that digital is merely just another format or manifestation and that it will be read the same way.

Or to quote Cody Brown again,

There are literary techniques, (and) there will be iPad techniques. I’m 21, I can say with a lot of confidence that the ‘books’ that come to define my generation will be impossible to print.

Ouch !!

Freemium – Advertising Supported Books

The general consensus is that electronic books will continue to drop in price and that the eventual price for an electronic book will be zero.

If this is true, how will publishers and authors make money?

Get a free book – see and ad? Has it’s time come?

Too new idea of an idea? Nope. Not really.

If you want to see the future, you can go back in time: see Galleycat’s brief history shows that ads in books aren’t new.

Peter Lebensold explained that “the earliest Penguin paperbacks (published for British servicemen during WWII) also had ads — for the likes of Gillette.”

Reader Andrew Wheeler wrote that “paperbacks from the ’60s and ’70s routinely had bound-in advertisements,” and reminded us that author Fay Weldon pioneered the art of novel product placement with her book, The Bulgari Connection. As reported in 2001, Weldon was paid by the Bulgari jewelry company to include the brand in her story.

Quoted in M.J. Rose‘s an excellent Salon.com piece about the topic, Weldon defended the practice: “It always seemed to me that in advertising you were making up little stories and using language to sell products. And with novels you were making up little stories and using language to sell ideas. So for a while I sold products and then I moved on and sold ideas — like feminism. And now I’ve done a book that is mostly one but a little bit of the other.”

Amazon is already flirting with the idea but from the wrong direction. They are discounting the price of their platform – the Kindle eReader – instead of the actual content – the book.

But that will change when ads in electronic books become the norm and new economic model will be established.

The storm clouds are building on the publishing industry. If writers and publishers are smart, they will weather the storm by keeping in mind the weather systems discussed here and remember just what business-and it is a business-they are really in.

The failure to think about what job your product does for the customer, rather than the tools or approach you’ve used to do that job, is the reason why many established companies fail to make the transition when there is a technological change.

Hence the old saw, “If the railroads had realized they were transportation companies, they’d be airlines today.”

News- News – News

Play the Trapdoor 2011 E-Reader Giveaway for your chance at free books and an Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook or Sony Reader Touch of your choice (loaded with Trapdoor Books, of course)!

Here’s how it works. Solve a Trapdoor Puzzle Challenge from The Griddle (see below for links to the puzzles so far), then email your solution to Chris at cmatney@trapdoorbooks.com. If your solution is correct, you’ll receive a reply with a one-use “secret code” back to you.

Check out the details here.

And Remember: You can still purchase the e-book version of CyberKill for your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, iPhone and iPad!

And by the way, if you like to read out of the ordinary fiction, sign up for Trapdoor Books newsletter and stay on top of the best of ‘geek’ fiction. If this interests you, join the Trapdoor community.

Cheers until next month – Frank