I believe that the publishing industry has had even more time and more warning and they wanted to hold on to the traditional way of doing things in a world that changes every six weeks. Yet, we can’t help people who are unwilling to listen. I am no real fan of Amazon and I do feel traditional publishing has a lot to offer, but I feel the need to quote Jerry Maguire, “HELP ME, help YOU.

Thanks for the series.

Seth Godin has an excellent article in his Domino blog on lessons from the music industry. check it out here.

I’ve been watching this for some time now. I’m a Creative Director for the largest video game publisher in the world, and believe me, this has been a hot topic. For the last three years there has been a major shift happening in the video game world – but unlike Kodak, EA (my employer) is surviving. Thriving even.

Unfortunately, it took a small start up (Zynga- Farmville and the like) to really bring the big boy publishers to attention.

Innovation is the key. Innovation at every step along the path. Marketing, distribution, pricing, content, user engagement and retention, data mining – you name it.

I think the question “Do you know your consumer?” is the pinnacle. But I’d change it a bit. “Do you know your reader?”. I write MG – so my reader and consumer are not necessarily the same person – but I must target my reader first. Not an easy thing to do with that age group.

I have a list of innovations that make sense in the book world. Some of them are completely crazy – some of them are very obtainable.

I have a few questions of my own:

How does book length figure into this equation? I think it’s a HUGE issue and probably the easiest to address.

What would it take for an author to allow her reader base to get involved with the creative process? Are authors willing to take this type of input?

What does the YouTube for books look like? It ain’t the Amazon store – I’ll tell you that much.

How would an author/agent/publisher monetize a free book offering? Games are making a killing with this financial model (Farmville, Tap Pet Hotel,,,).

How does facebook fit into your book marketing and reader outreach plan? Will twitter ever appeal to kids under the age of 18 in numbers that justify its huge time sync? How can you get your book cover/content ‘Pinned’?

OMGoodness – I better stop.

Answering these questions will be paramount in the next wave – heck, the current wave of books. Agents/Publishers that don’t allow/encourage writers to participate in these conversations will be sorry.

Innovation is key.

Oh – and Hi Uncle Stevie. 🙂

LC,

“I don’t know a single civilian (non-writer) who admits to ever having read or looked for an author website. I think you far overestimate the impact that author-marketeers have on the general reading public.”

You might want to check out the following author sites. Their books are bestsellers and each author has a large fan base, all of whom seem pretty glad that their favorite author is also a blogger.

Beth Revis: http://bethrevis.blogspot.com/
Kiersten White: http://kierstenwrites.blogspot.com/
Maggie Stiefvater: http://maggiestiefvater.blogspot.com/
Amanda Hocking: http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/

Helen, MOBI or .prc is what Kindle uses. While there are some other formats in use such as Epub, MOBI is used by Amazon.
The idea of cross marketing a reader with ones books would be the same as the phone companies are doing with their phones. In order to get a special deal on a Blackberry, for example, you get their plan for web-based phone service.
Wouldn’t people buy a Thomas Nelson Kindle at a cheaper price that gave promos for their books? 🙂

What’s MOBI reader stand for? Is it an ereader that can handle all formats–Kindle, etc. etc.? thanks!

Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind, but I’ve now had a Kindle for two years. I’ve been absolutely amazed at how often a book with egregious errors has turned out to be published by a real label. Having a professional editor is a guarantee of nothing.