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Dear all,

SciFi and Fantasy Book Club is such a vibrant book club, so I thought I would tell you about "The Pigeonhole." They got shortlisted by London Book Fair for their innovation. What Pigeonhole does is they release all their projects in serialisations, much the same as an episode would be for a tv show if you are unfamiliar with serialisations. With the rise of self-publishing, I think we will only see more and more of serialisation as well in the future.

The Pigeonhole´s philosophy is to make reading social and interactive, and they coolest trait is the all the "extra" they put up. Attached to one project is a soundtrack so you get an instant feel for the tone in the book. Another offers the possibility to listen to the story in 5D. They have a story there were the main character repeatedly chops her boyfriend in half. So they are constantly trying to renew themselves. They also focus heavily on the author´s presence wile the book is "live" so as a reader you have the opportunity to interact in a discussion directly with the author.

The reason I tell you all this is because The Pigeonhole might do a fantasy project in the future. At the moment (starting 15th of May) they have a retelling of classic fairytales. I think such a platform as The Pigeonhole could offer a lot to fantasy. How about uploading your sketches, maps, favourite fantastical recipes, soundtracks, and videos, all to the same place? In fantasy it is never about just the story. We have a whole world we want to showcase.

But I need your help convincing the people at The Pigeonhole that this could be a cool platform for fantasy. And this is also an opportunity for you guys to shape how such a platform would be. If you follow the link;



you will get two free staves. With these staves you can subscribe to a project, and see how it is like. Usually the projects comes out once a week. Subscribing to The Pigeonhole is free, so I would really appreciate it if you took the time to sign up, and tell me what you think of the platform. All your feedback would be immensely appreciated.

I do not work at The Pigeonhole at the moment, but I am writing fantasy, and want to see if this platform is the right platform for me, (when I am ready to publish). Perhaps we can get a discussion going whether you think "traditional publishing" or self-publishing/digital publishing is best?

All the best of luck with your writing/reading.
(Find me if you want to talk about norse mythology and trolls)
- Jon -

I would never use something like that. First of all I wouldn't be interested in all the extras they're offering as "live" content because I like to experience a story on its own merit. Having someone else's thoughts on how I should feel about a story via soundtrack or video etc is of zero interest to me. It's one of the reasons I tend not to go in for adaptations until AFTER I've read the book.

Secondly, I don't watch TV because I lose interest in even the best episodic shows, so it would annoy me to constantly have to wait a week for the next 'episode' of the story, and I'd lose interest very quickly.

Finally, it seems to me that this would be a perfect kind of platform for authors who are still in the midst of writing a story to release bits and pieces of it at a time and continue writing it based on reaction to the previous parts. I'm not interested in a work-in-progress. I want to be able to trust that the author knows what they are doing with their story, not winging it based on reception of previous pieces. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of self-pub authors trying to do this, and it really turns me right off of ever reading anything they've written.

That's not to say it isn't an interesting idea - I'm sure many will like the extras. But I wouldn't. I just want the story, the whole story, and all at once. I'm not anti-self-pub... but I have certain expectations for the books I pay for, and completion is definitely one of them.

Yes, I agree that it is frustrating to be dictated how you are supposed to read a book. I tend to avoid TV myself, because of all the commercials, and to be honest - my own time schedule never seems to match up with what the TV thinks is the "ideal" time for me to watch the tv-show.

And true as you say. A lot of new writers uses today´s technology to publish while they write instead of after they have written. I think no matter what platform anyone is using, it is a matter of quality. And that quality is hard to come by in your first couple of drafts. Writing takes time, and I don´t think personally I would feel comfortable to release if the book was not finished. That is not to say that I think everything with serialisation is bad. Especially for new writers, it can be a crucial difference in "shelf life." If your book, (as a debut writer), were to be released at the same time as a well established author, a traditional publisher would rapidly allocate resources to the established author if your book was not selling. In reality you may only have 1-2 weeks for the readers to buy your book before it "vanishes." Releasing in serialisation in a way guarantees a longer shelf life. Say you divide the book into ten parts, and released once a week.

The challenge as I see it, will be to keep the attention as a reader, if you have to constantly wait for a week before next instalment.

It wouldn't appeal to me at all- I like becoming immersed in the books that I'm reading, and having to wait for the next ssegment would be a huge turn-off. I'm not happy with the emphasis on series rather than standalone books in SF right now.

I generally don't find that communing with other readers/TV series watchers adds to my enjoyment of a work. I don't want to hear fan theories, see fan art/maps/recipes etc., and I hate the endless nitpicking about how a series might end up, etc. I'd prefer that an author publish their work in a fairly timely fashion (although it took Stephen R. Donaldson almost 40 years to publish the last Thomas Covenant book, and I was fine with that as the entire series is so good).

>With the rise of self-publishing, I think we will only see more and more of serialisation as well in the future.

I don't think that there's any doubt about that. Especially in self-publishing, there is more money and more potential for success in shorter works, than in longer. But that doesn't always benefit the story or the experience of readers reading that story in the long run.

I'm also not a serial fan, too impatient. I dislike cliffhangers for the tension they cause, too.

I do like your idea of social interaction as an interactive group thing, but I would think there are other ways to promote that - maybe quizzes, contests, not sure.

A fair point. Quizzes and contests are great! But it seems we are only using more and more time online rather than offline. As a writer today, you are (almost) obliged to have an online profile to help promote your book. If I could choose I would rather lock myself up in a cabin. But I´m not sure I can afford that before I am an established author.

Cliffhangers yes... I have a love/hate relationship with them. After reading George R R Martins´ series "A song of ice and fire" I hated how he ended with a cliffhanger and then did not continue with that character before hundred pages later. Though.. I DID continue to read. So I guess I would rather crave the continuation of a cliffhanger than reading something I don´t feel emotionally connected to.

It feels like serialisation is still very new. And I find it daunting myself. But at the same time I am intrigued by the possibilities it offers.

I guess it depends on how willing someone is to be patient and try new authors using new publishing methods. My patience threshold is pretty low, because I've read more than I care to of ridiculously bad self-published work, and have seen still more examples of SPAs treating publishing like a free beta read service.

I personally don't see how it would benefit a new author to have their (presumably) finished work split into parts and released on a schedule as an ebook only, when at the same time a trad pub author's work is sitting on shelves and available as ebooks and can be purchased and read on the reader's schedule. It seems to me that if someone can only buy one book that week, they'd go for the one that offers the most to them - a full story and freedom to read it.

I looked at The Pigeonhole's site yesterday after you posted this and I feel like they are a little out of touch with readers. I see that they offer the option to wait through all the weekly staves to read the full book at your leisure, but if the book is available through other means, Amazon or B&N or any other bookstore, it seems to me that people would just buy the book rather than waiting weeks for it.

And I saw that they have a quote on there about cliffhangers. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like "After centuries of neglect, the art of the cliffhanger is making a comeback." Which... seems a little out of touch to me, considering that so many books are serialized already, and so many of them end in cliffhangers, that it's actually a thing that people are getting kind of tired of. I read all types of books and I see it a lot - a story will end in a cliffhanger and then the reader has to wait on the next book... which ends in a cliffhanger and another wait. Shortening the content between waits down from novel size to chapter size just seems odd to me.

And then there's the price consideration. How comparable would the price be for the content compared to traditional books? Or even more 'traditionally formatted' ebooks? I just looked at The Picture of Dorian Gray, and I see that they are offering a total of 6 staves, and each one is 59p (GBP) or $0.90 (USD). That's 3.54 (GBP) or $5.40 (USD) for the full 6 staves, and right now on Amazon the ebook is available for either 49p (GBP) or $0.99 (USD). Pigeonhole is charging 6x the cost... for a book that is technically available for free because it's in the public domain anyway. ()

Anyway... I don't mean to be super negative, but I don't see the benefit of this model. I think people would pass it by unless the book that they want is ONLY available there. I don't think that the extra content would be worth it considering that you'd have to pay more AND wait.

I wouldn't be interested, myself. I'm NOT a fan of serials at all. In fact, I'm more likely to never read your book if it is a serial and I would NEVER buy a serial in parts. The only serial I've ever read (willingly) was Ilona Andrews Innkeeper Chronicles. The story is free on her site while writing and then she has it professionally edited and puts it up for sale as a single book.

The rest of the stuff I can also do without. GR and its ilk are really all the social book interaction I need. And like Becky I am not a TV watcher so...

I want the book, the whole book and nothing but the book.

Jon wrote: "As a writer today, you are (almost) obliged to have an online profile to help promote your book."

I think that's one of the worst aspects of the whole online publishing world now. I find that author presence actually sours me on their books more often than not. If I was interested in reading them, it will turn me off, and if I had never heard of them, it will make me remember it - but only because I want to be sure that I never read it.

I have favorite authors on GR - but I don't actually "follow" them in the way that GR thinks that everyone should want to. I don't want their updates or their comments or their opinions... I want only to know if they are releasing a new book, or if they are touring. I don't want to "interact" with them - I want them to be the mysterious geniuses that I can adore from afar. The more public presence they have, the more human they become, and the more likely they are to shove a foot right in their mouth and ruin the great impression I had of them.

Now we have authors who use their fanbase as a platform for political commentary, and I will never read their books. I tried one time, with the vilest of them, and I could only see his hate in the book. I couldn't separate it out, and his book, by all accounts one of SF's best, is forever tainted by his public presence. *shrug*

Becky wrote: "I don't want their updates or their comments or their opinions... I want only to know if they are releasing a new book, or if they are touring. I don't want to "interact" with them - I want them to be the mysterious geniuses that I can adore from afar. The more public presence they have, the more human they become, and the more likely they are to shove a foot right in their mouth and ruin the great impression I had of them.

Now we have authors who use their fanbase as a platform for political commentary, and I will never read their books. I tried one time, with the vilest of them, and I could only see his hate in the book. I couldn't separate it out, and his book, by all accounts one of SF's best, is forever tainted by his public presence. *shrug* "

ALL OF THIS.

Becky wrote: "Jon wrote: "As a writer today, you are (almost) obliged to have an online profile to help promote your book."

I think that's one of the worst aspects of the whole online publishing world now."

Amen. I loved Ender's Game when it came out, but later found it difficult to give Orson Scott Card my money. Dan Simmons is one of the best science fiction authors I've ever read, so I stay away from his online life. I've always love the craft of Heinlein the author, Heinlein the person, not so much. Loved Michael Crichton's books, but if that was because they were fun, and action packed, and I could mostly ignore his 'science is bad' philosophy. And I love Neil Gaiman's social media, but none of his works have grabbed hold of me yet. The more exposure I have to authors on social media, the more that I pretty much want to just read their books without that knowledge.

Jen wrote: "The more exposure I have to authors on social media, the more that I pretty much want to just read their books without that knowledge."

Exactly!

Haha! A lot of good comments and a good discussion. (Sorry, I´m not good at GR and don´t know how to properly quote people; "x wrote..." Perhaps one of you could show me?)

"I want the book, the whole book and nothing but the book," by MrsJoseph - made me laugh.

First off, thanks to all of you for keeping this discussion going. Particularly since many of your opinions are different from mine and I can learn from that. Also thanks to Becky specially for taking the time to visit The Pigeonhole. They have a few tweeks to make before they have a solid product. And as I stated in the beginning, hearing people´s thoughts about that approach to releasing books (serialisation/digital platform) will help my own decision when (hopefully) I get my own story out there.

I can see that a an image of an author becomes tainted if you discover something you don´t like. The story should stand on its own legs. I think for an author it is impossible not to leave breadcrumbs of his/her own life/experiences in the book, in the same way as one can argue that humans can´t (really) see something from someone else´s viewpoint, and take oneself out of the equation. There is a "truth" that an author can never write the book the reader is reading. Personally I can´t say I disagree with what you guys are saying. I also have authors I follow here on GR, but I´m not a good stalker. And gossip about what the celebrities are wearing, or eating could not be more tedious. I would however suggest that there is a difference between your private side and personal side. If that line is more blurry for some can be a different discussion. But let´s say you wrote a book. Fantasy, SciFi, crime it does not really matter. And perhaps whoever did your cover could put up the design on the same site, or you could encourage a competition for people to draw a cover. Or it could be sketches of strange animals and such. I think for me, that would be to gather around an idea or interest, and not to indulge in personal affairs.

In terms of the "online publishing world" as Becky put it, I think there is no longer a clear line between online and offline. A lot of us still prefer the paperbacks, but more and more are going over to use digital devices and e-books. It is so much easier to just press a button and there you have the book. So as a publisher I don´t think any of them can "afford" to only focus on one area. The publishing houses must cover as many readers as possible. But when it comes down to promoting your book, if you are not JK Rowling but are just starting out, you the author, have to promote the book. The publishing company will only do so much. By the end of the day, writing books is a job like anything else. Having an online profile will most likely help you sell books. An necessary evil?

Ah... amazon.. And you were no fan of politics? :) But, amazon is a touchy subject, so I apologise in advance if this feels political. Around 70% of all online books are sold through amazon. These numbers are from the British market (UK) but I see no reason to doubt certain similarities with USA. What includes in those 70% is not only e-books, just books sold online. Amazon is so powerful that they can dictate the price. They have for a long time dictated the price for e-books to be $9.99. A price that looks good on the page, but does not relate to reality at all. The truth is that only amazon is making money on such deals. On the other hand, amazon has been generous for a long time to self published author taking 30% I think no matter what the book. If you study Amazon they have a really strange history in terms of random price droppings. The fact is, authors are not earning enough to make a living from writing. Why should we not pay for a good story, and support the authors, rather than support Amazon? If we only look at the price and not where the money are going, then by all means.. we will never be able to find a price cheap enough.

Self publishing.. I agree! Very much! The market is drowning in bad stories. I get bombarded every day on twitter by self published authors trying to market their book. I can´t count how many times I have seen a really bad cover layout. And I think people that are offering their stories for free are selling other authors short. By offering free stories, we as readers come to expect that stories are cheap. Why should we pay for something that is free? Or as other authors do, they offer a story for a penny, because if the story is cheap enough we as readers will probably download it anyway. So we begin to demand cheaper stories, and there will be less and less good stories for people are not willing to buy them.

Jon wrote: "I can see that a an image of an author becomes tainted if you discover something you don´t like. The story should stand on its own legs. I think for an author it is impossible not to leave breadcrumbs of his/her own life/experiences in the book, in the same way as one can argue that humans can´t (really) see something from someone else´s viewpoint, and take oneself out of the equation. There is a "truth" that an author can never write the book the reader is reading. Personally I can´t say I disagree with what you guys are saying. I also have authors I follow here on GR, but I´m not a good stalker. And gossip about what the celebrities are wearing, or eating could not be more tedious. I would however suggest that there is a difference between your private side and personal side. If that line is more blurry for some can be a different discussion. But let´s say you wrote a book. Fantasy, SciFi, crime it does not really matter. And perhaps whoever did your cover could put up the design on the same site, or you could encourage a competition for people to draw a cover. Or it could be sketches of strange animals and such. I think for me, that would be to gather around an idea or interest, and not to indulge in personal affairs. "

It's not just "something you don't like" that can turn me (and a lot of others) off an author: it's the way they are presented to us. There are authors who I can agree with 100% but I HATE they way they present themselves and/or dislike being force-fed their rhetoric and so I disengage.

Most of my favorite authors I have little to no personal information about. Ilona Andrews would be the ONLY exception and she tries to keep most of her personal commentary light and rare.

You can try to create a community around your brand (name) as an author...but I have to wonder why would an SPA do that. As an author your name is your brand - so building a community without the benefit of support staff seems to be a little...overwhelming and potentially (negatively) explosive. You don't have a PR person. You don't really have the betas, etc. Creating a community is WORK and that work can all go for naught if you have one bad moment on the internet.

Jon wrote: "Self publishing.. I agree! Very much! The market is drowning in bad stories. I get bombarded every day on twitter by self published authors trying to market their book. I can´t count how many times I have seen a really bad cover layout. And I think people that are offering their stories for free are selling other authors short. By offering free stories, we as readers come to expect that stories are cheap. Why should we pay for something that is free? Or as other authors do, they offer a story for a penny, because if the story is cheap enough we as readers will probably download it anyway. So we begin to demand cheaper stories, and there will be less and less good stories for people are not willing to buy them. "


Authors offering their stories for free aren't harming other authors. It's not a zero sum game.

There are (usually) two types of "free" book:

1 - It's free because the person who wrote it is not an "author" but an "uploader." They finish a few chapters and/or book and then upload. They know the work is unedited. They know the work needs work...but they really want people to tell them how great that is while still having a "way out." They also want unsuspecting readers to give them free editing/beta reading. Privately, of course.

"You can't say bad things about my book! It was FREE."


2 - This author has a lot of books already written and/or plans to write a series. They offer the first book of the series for free, hoping to grab a few new readers for the new(est) release. Normally this same book will be offered free every time a new book in the series is released.

If they are not writing a series then the free book is usually a backlist book that is being offered for free in hopes of catching a few new readers.




#2 is my favorite freebie. I normally avoid most free books because most of them are shitty. I also avoid most SPAs because most of them either are shitty writers and/or have shitty attitudes regarding consumer reviews. "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

I buy most of my books. I buy mostly DTBs and I buy them both new and used. I also have the library.

I think that a lot of the 'uploaders' have those kinds of reactions because they are set up for a hard reality check right off the bat. They HAVEN'T had to have their book go through a slush pile, and they haven't had someone tell the over and over that their book isn't good enough to publish, and they haven't had to examine their ego in regards to their masterpiece after receiving that feedback. Instead, they skip all of that, self-publish, and their friends and family prop them up on this cloud of positivity, setting up a false expectation that the book is great and will be well-received because who WOULDN'T love it??, and setting up the author to fall HARD when they get an unbiased critical review. They aren't prepared for the fall... and jump to their work's defense, and it just looks unprofessional. It's a vicious cycle. Trad publishing isn't perfect, but it does help in grounding authors in reality regarding the relative quality of the work they've submitted. If you are told right off the bat that your work isn't good enough, hopefully you'll try to improve.

I'm not an author, but I knit. And if I make something and all of my friends tell me it's great, it doesn't mean that what I made is actually any good... it could just be that they don't want to offend me. I would like to believe that they'd be honest and that I could take the criticism, but with everyone acting like criticism is "mean" it's no wonder that we've trained ourselves to be extra nice... especially to people we know and like so as not to hurt their feelings.

Becky wrote: " I think that a lot of the 'uploaders' have those kinds of reactions because they are set up for a hard reality check right off the bat. They HAVEN'T had to have their book go through a slush pile, and they haven't had someone tell the over and over that their book isn't good enough to publish, and they haven't had to examine their ego in regards to their masterpiece after receiving that feedback. Instead, they skip all of that, self-publish, and their friends and family prop them up on this cloud of positivity, setting up a false expectation that the book is great and will be well-received because who WOULDN'T love it??, and setting up the author to fall HARD when they get an unbiased critical review. They aren't prepared for the fall... and jump to their work's defense, and it just looks unprofessional. It's a vicious cycle. Trad publishing isn't perfect, but it does help in grounding authors in reality regarding the relative quality of the work they've submitted. If you are told right off the bat that your work isn't good enough, hopefully you'll try to improve.

I'm not an author, but I knit. And if I make something and all of my friends tell me it's great, it doesn't mean that what I made is actually any good... it could just be that they don't want to offend me. I would like to believe that they'd be honest and that I could take the criticism, but with everyone acting like criticism is "mean" it's no wonder that we've trained ourselves to be extra nice... especially to people we know and like so as not to hurt their feelings. "


QFT