Comments on: Big Problems, Little Solutions: E-book Publishing Ideas Stolen from Gamers

By: kt literary » Blog Archive » On being Rexroth: Living with a Literary Agent

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:34:59 +0000

[...] agree. As some of the real veterans around here might know, I’ve got some pretty strong opinions about how publishing works today. It leads to some… wonderfully spirited [...]

By: Nick Ruffilo

Nick Ruffilo — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:53:48 +0000

Wow. I have to say this is well written (and kind of scary how I have had many of these ideas and would also have drawn parallels to the gaming industry). The Software industry has some interesting solutions as well. I am interested in speaking more about this. Please e-mail me at the address left in this post.

-Nick

By: Clifford Fryman

Clifford Fryman — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:34:04 +0000

Those are some pretty good ideas. I especially like the ransom model. I’ve already seen at least one indie author using this model and there’s no reason it couldn’t work for the big publishers.

I wrote a past a couple days ago th a few ideas of my own. Feel free to have a look and see what you think about them.
.-= Clifford Fryman´s last blog ..E-book Strategies for Traditional Publishers =-.

By: John H

John H — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:28:53 +0000

The other people who are “getting” digital publishing are the smaller tech publishers. Check out Pragmatic Bookshelf (http://www.pragprog.com/). The thing I love about their model is that if they publish a revised edition of a book, and you had bought the previous edition direct from them as a hardcopy + digital bundle, they will give you a serious discount on the price of the new edition. I’m sure that’s an idea that could be adapted to other types of book. How about if you buy the bundle now, you’ll get 20% off the next book in the series?

By: Daniel Solis

Daniel Solis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:51:06 +0000

Or here's another idea: Reserve spots for the *last* three donations. That might encourage more frequent, small donations that aggregate to meet the ransom more quickly. .-= Daniel Solis´s last blog ..[Do] The Naming =-.

By: Doyce

Doyce — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:40:36 +0000

Daniel,

That’s hot. I love it.

It’s like you’ve DONE this before.

By: Daniel Solis

Daniel Solis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:35:47 +0000

There’s one cool thing you can do for ransom: Include the names of top donors in the text itself. You could have three open spaces for names, which would be filled by the top three names of the top 3 donors.

For example, your text could be:

“___A___ moves the pawn two spaces forward, which flanks ___B’s___ bishop and captures ____C’s____ knight.”

Wherever ___A___ appears in the document, the top donor’s name would appear. ___B___ would be replaced by the second-place donor. ___C___ would be replaced by the third-place donor. Which would result in the following text:

“Doyce moves the pawn two spaces forward, which flanks Kelly’s bishop and captures Shannon’s knight.”

That works well for game books, but it might also work in fiction, by including donor’s names as characters in the story.
.-= Daniel Solis´s last blog ..[Do] The Naming =-.

By: ktbuffy

ktbuffy — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:17:28 +0000

Regarding digital subscriptions for ARCs, you raise an interesting point. I mean, most ARCs are still hard copies. Some pubs are trying to go digital and use e-ARCs, but it's a very close-minded system, where, for instance, I can't read an e-ARC on my Kindle, even though I have the code to download it. Sorry, but I don't want to sit at my computer and read a book. That's why I have a device like the Kindle in the first place. (Also, because my awesome husband bought it for me) .-= ktbuffy´s last blog ..Happy Halloween! =-.

By: Doyce

Doyce — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:24:21 +0000

Genius!

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:18:59 +0000

Subscriptions...also called Book of the Month club. .-= Michelle´s last blog ..Get Rich Quick vs. Following the Dream =-.