Things I Have Noticed

I think it would be cool. Sounds alot like those Choose Your Own Adventure and Lone Wolf series.

On an author's site, it would be cool. Perhaps just using the setting and perhaps making an adventure based on a little known to the reader backstory for a character or organization/event. Maybe even get to play a bad guy setting up a situation in yet to be released book, the best ending being the one leading to where the book takes off from.

As for using from an already written book, I dunno. You'd have to add a whole lot of extra material you might be planning to use in future books just so a fan would actually have choices leading to different things. I think that would be like the games based on movies. Everyone wants to play it when the movie is fresh and new but the craze for it ends quickly when the movie leaves theaters.

Another idea you could use would be an interactive map. Since you luv all the graphics stuff, you could let the reader follow the path of a character in a book, showing close ups of key settings with a quick note of what happened here type thing. You could add humorous behind-the-scenes or deleted scenes here as well for flavor.
 
I think it's simpler for the author to just sell gamming rights or try to set up a game with some company. That's essentially what you are talking about and all the infrastructure for that already exists. In the SF forum, someone posted a link to Gaming Magazine for an article that talks about turning books directly into games. A game also gives the author a lot more copyright control.

Another option is the interactive online community/virtual community -- RPG without it necessarily being a quest, where fans pretend they are in the fictional locale, set up their own personnas, stores, etc. and interact with each other in the community. I believe Orson Scott Card has done this or did in the past with his Alvin Maker series -- there was some sort of "village" I remember, though I never checked it out because I didn't like that series.
 
KatG said:
I think it's simpler for the author to just sell gamming rights or try to set up a game with some company. That's essentially what you are talking about and all the infrastructure for that already exists. In the SF forum, someone posted a link to Gaming Magazine for an article that talks about turning books directly into games. A game also gives the author a lot more copyright control.

Another option is the interactive online community/virtual community -- RPG without it necessarily being a quest, where fans pretend they are in the fictional locale, set up their own personnas, stores, etc. and interact with each other in the community. I believe Orson Scott Card has done this or did in the past with his Alvin Maker series -- there was some sort of "village" I remember, though I never checked it out because I didn't like that series.
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Well, I'm not really thinking of a game. The whole interactive fiction thing, while a very tiny subset of the fiction market, is more along the lines of those "choose your own ending" kind of books that one saw briefly some years (decades) ago, but which were not well suited to paper books. It's perhaps a hybrid of book and game, but something that allows for multiple paths through the book the way you have choices in a game, but more oriented toward the storytelling aspect rather than the "user as participant" aspect. In this instance, I guess I was thinking closer to the model of the shared universe concept ("Thieves World," et al), where an author might make up one story line (not around their base storyline, but using elements of their world), and provide a framework for the fan-fic types to play in that's a bit more under the author's control.

Again, I'm trying to think outside the box here rather than re-hash anything already done. In this techno-marketing-hype age, "the shock of the new" may give you that 15 minutes of fame you need to get the buzz factor kick-started. It doesn't even necessarily have to have legs, if it accomplishes that goal.
 
That can be fun. Let them write the ending. I think fans would like it. Apparently, there's a massive petition to J.K. Rowling to keep writing Harry Potter books. People get very into a particular world view and they want to hang out in it. The communal "villages" on-line communities are kind of like that -- creating a virtual world from the book world. But what you are talking about is letting them write stuff, yes?
 
KatG said:
That can be fun. Let them write the ending. I think fans would like it. Apparently, there's a massive petition to J.K. Rowling to keep writing Harry Potter books. People get very into a particular world view and they want to hang out in it. The communal "villages" on-line communities are kind of like that -- creating a virtual world from the book world. But what you are talking about is letting them write stuff, yes?
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Yeah, trying to tap into the potentially rabid fan-fic folk. They tend to get very excited about writing their favorite worlds and characters. Giving them an outlet for that, while keeping a measure of control and boundaries around it, might end up being a win-win deal.

The other thing I'm following is the whole Second Life deal, where real world things (like book publishers, and authors doing virtual signings) are cropping up more often. Fad? Maybe so, but again, we're not talking about necessarily long-term marketing strategies here, we're considering how to leverage the immediate power of the Internet. A virtual book signing is still somewhat newsy today, and might be the sort of thing someone trying to make a splash could consider.
 
Het, Rad, have you read The Tale of Genji? Just discovered its existence today. If you haven't, check it out here: http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Genji/00000010.htm
The first chapter pulled me in even though the translator seems to be not be aware of Haiku.

Am now off to check out Second Life having read Wikipedia's description.
 
Hereford Eye said:
Het, Rad, have you read The Tale of Genji? Just discovered its existence today. If you haven't, check it out here: http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Genji/00000010.htm
The first chapter pulled me in even though the translator seems to be not be aware of Haiku.

Am now off to check out Second Life having read Wikipedia's description.
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Have not read The Tale of Genji, although I am aware of it. It's a very large read... I have, however, read portions of Musashi, the other iconic and massive historical Japanese tome.

Let me know what you think of Second Life. It has the potential to become a massive time sink hole, where you can literally maintain a second, virtual life (much like we did in more primitive terms in SFFWorld's own Fun Zone in years past). Quite apart from that aspect, as it continues to increase as a cultural phenomena (again, whether it lasts any measure of time or not), while it's "hot" it has the potential to reach tech-savvy and/or "in-tune with the Internet culture" individuals. Given that the paradigms of this sort of community are still in flux, it provides opporutnity, I think, for people to experiment with "reach." Many things might fail, but again you only need one thing to break out and you can achieve a small measure of 'noteriety,' if you will. And as Paris H. has demonstrated, you can parlay that into a lot...
 
My system is not bad enough to run Second Life. Need to add RAM and a better video card. That constitutes an internal debate which will take a while to resolve.
 
Hereford Eye said:
My system is not bad enough to run Second Life. Need to add RAM and a better video card. That constitutes an internal debate which will take a while to resolve.
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Which raises an interesting point - to fully participate in such new phenomena, one must also be reasonably "current" with hardware, which presupposes the economic wherewithal to do so (or at least choices made with regard to where financial assets are directed). For the public at large, does that skew the available universe of participants?

It also calls to mind the other recent trend raised by KatG, about promo videos on places like YouTube. If such things were to become standard fare for author marketing efforts, where does one obtain the funds and expertise for such things? Does that again skew the playing field as to who can play such marketing games, limiting it to those with an aptitude for handling Internet permutations? If one is an author without tech savvy, will you be at a disadvantage? (One already is if you happen to be a wall-flower versus a gregarious go-getter; but if you are tech-savvy, does that then give you something back if you're also a quiet mouse? Hmmm). All just speculation, of course...
 
There's a definite technological advantage. There's also a definite money advantage, but that's always been there. Authors with financial means can hire publicists, take out ads, and do other things that other authors cannot, and that publishers can't afford and seldom will attempt.

However, that doesn't ensure much. I have an author pal who is well-off and a major figure in the media industry whose publisher is still unhappy with how sales are going for that author's books. There's a lot of nasty stuff happening out there at the moment.

"The Manny" is getting attention because the author is a mega-rich girl, using a newly popular term -- "manny" for male nanny -- and above all for dishing about the corrupt, sleazy world of the mega-rich and actually using real rich people as the basis for the story, ala "The Devil Wears Prada" and numerous glitz novels before that. Against that, the music video for the book isn't very important. But it can get the author some attention on the Internet, and more importantly, media interviews with folks looking for new trends, such as male nannies.

Second Life seems to be mainly a combination of on-line stores and a fantasy baseball league/Sims game. On one level, you have the "virtual" community where people make up avatars and stores that sell imaginary goods for the avatars -- goods that are already getting pirated. This is just like games my daughter has done at General Mills' site and with this line of stuffed animals she bought where she can play virtual pets with her friends, and things like people playing on-line Doom, and so on.

But it's also another venue to sell stuff, to advertise. So Barnes and Noble does an off-shoot of their on-line store and have a "virtual" store in Second Life and puts George Martin on a podcast and "virtual" signing. The idea is to get people to buy Martin's books in the real world. So authors can get the advantage of this sort of thing if bookstores or their publishers or both are willing to do it. They may also be able to arrange these things themselves with sites like Second Life where the tech is already in place, just like doing a book signing.

Where it gets more interesting, I think, is in how broadcast the Net is getting -- the downloaded t.v. shows, viral videos and podcasts. That could work for fiction authors or against them. One of the biggest obstacles fiction writers have, again, is that the media -- radio, t.v., print -- have minimal interest in them. Being able to do a t.v. or radio-like interview with an author on the Net, or get a video related to a book passed around, bypasses the media so that an author doesn't have to woo media outlets to get that kind of promotion going. And it's easier and cheaper for publishers to do too, so they may do it more frequently.

The downside is that you have to be able to do that sort of thing on the Net. When it's the bookstore doing it, or a site that already has the tech set up, it's relatively easy. When an author has to do it all by his lonesome, it's more complicated. Which is why entertainment sites like Ain't It Cool News may get even more important, because they are already running podcasts, videos and doing their own ones for their interviews with people. These sites have slightly more interest in fiction than regular media, and if they think people are interested, can be the new broadcast promotional outlets for a lot of authors (giving sff a slight advantage because most computer folks are fans.)

I don't think authors will be shut out right now because it's too easy to get tech assistance. The Web is still pretty wide open. But what's going to be demanded as web content promotionally -- that I'm not sure what's going to develop. Podcasts seem to be the big thing right now.
 
And the penalty for hubris is......
Went to add RAM and a new video card to my pc assuming I was aware of everything that was required. Naturally, the PC crashed requiring a trip to the pc mechanics who claim they will need a few days to fix it. This because I was interested in learning about
..mainly a combination of on-line stores and a fantasy baseball league/Sims game...
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Am now using TLWSHLWM's computer. She isn't happy about that, either. People do tend to get attached to their stuff, don't they?
Obtained a NotePad in January; used it for some consulting for a month or two then hadn't touched it for 4 months. Forgot the damned password. Am still thinking that puzzle through.
Computer literacy, as with the any other kind of literacy, comes in degrees of prowess. On a scale of 1-10, my computer literacy must rank somewhere around 4,
 
My literacy may be a notch or two higher, but it doesn't prevent one from still feeling like a complete dolt when attempting something one has not tried before. I am in the process of trying to assemble my new backup PC (having not enjoyed my brief outage when the Big Box was briefly on the fritz). Just started last night, and was immediately confronted with the thought, "Now why did I think this was a good idea?" Well, I've partially assembled some PC's before, so this will cap the experience. Assuming I don't completely fry the thing... I have the hard drives and CD drive in place; next up is installing the motherboard and trying to connect about 5,000 wires to their proper locations. That zapping sound you hear is me... :rolleyes:
 
Yes, but AI's are going to take over the world, don't you know, and fix themselves and reproduce and so on. I find it hard to believe myself.

The big thing is access. If a movie trailer online is in QuickFlash or whatever it is, I can't watch it. Apparently, my computer doesn't run it and I'm certainly not going to buy software to do so. I just don't watch the trailer, which rather defeats the purpose of having it on-line, doesn't it? Usually, at some later point, the trailer is available in other formats or I see it in the theaters.

You have the pioneers -- the people who line up for the first gen IPhone, the people who got us PC's in the first place because they were willing to buy microcomputer kits (I'm reading about the beginnings of Microsoft and it's fascinating,) and who initially build things like Second Life. But it has limited application if you can't get that technology to the point where the majority of people can just point and click and access the info.

The sad thing is that I used to be very computer literate, back in California, where there were all these helpful computer mags and I needed to put together a system. Now, I'm probably around a 4 too. I don't have time to read manuals. My daughter, though, can use Power Point.
 
Okay, now it's getting freaky on the book video front. While researching a bit of news, I stumbled on something called the Book Video Awards 2006. Now, this surprised me. Surely, we hadn't already gotten to the point where there are so many promotional book videos that we have an award going, I thought. And we haven't.

What's happened is that the Book Standard, which is a division of mega-tyrant Nielsen -- a company that scares me with how much power it has and that apparently tracks books sales with Nielsen BookScan but only coughs up the info to the publishers who pay them I guess -- that does sales and marketing research, and apparently advertising for hire, staged a contest for Random House/Bantam. They approached film schools and let film students take a shot at designing book videos for three titles RH wanted to promote that way -- two thrillers and one inspirational memoir.

So the winners of the awards are the videos that were selected to be the promotional video for those three books -- the winners of the video contest for Random House books. They then deciminated the winning videos all over places like YouTube, where you can see them, and made them available for purchase on ITunes and Sprint cellular. I couldn't see any mention of the filmmakers' names -- just the book, author and publisher, though I'm sure the winning filmmaker got paid.

This worked so well that Random House did it again for three teen titles in November and held a screening party, inviting media such as Kirkus Reviews, which I guess has a partnership with or is owned by Nielsen. And then Houghton Mifflin, a different publisher, teamed up with Book Standard to do another video contest for picture book "Flotsam" by David Wiesner, which had won the Caldicott Medal. Was this contest called the Flotsam Video Award, as it should have been? No, it's deliberately left ambiguous by calling it the Picture Book Video Award 2006, just like the others, as if the book Flotsam had won an award for having a really great video.

This represents a significant investment by Random House to do this, though it's probably cheaper than making them by themselves. And it obviously works for retailers like ITunes to hook up on it. But what it's going to develop into, I have no idea. That Nielsen is getting involved not just with recording sales figures but as a marketing operation akin to the sort of things used in film, music, etc. is also rather interesting.

Also, publishers like Orion Books are putting up videos of author interviews, though it's not clear whether they made the videos or not. I think, from what I saw, that they probably did not, but have instead asked the authors to do it and then put them up or took ones authors already had.
 
deciminated
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= v., to arrange for showing every ten minutes;) :D
sorry, your greatness, but that is so unlike you I couldn't resist.
Am curious as to measured effect on sales. Commercials generally turn me off unless the sales price is $19.95U.S. A book video is no more than a commercial. I never read the trailers playing on sffworld at the top of the page although I did buy one book advertised in a sidebar hereon. One book in 6 years is not a very decent return on investment. Well, I bought Kevin and Alison's books based on interacting with them here at sffworld so make it 8 books in 6 years. Suppose I may be typical; is that a decent ROI?
 
Depends on the goal, I think. If you're talking direct sales, which would be hard to measure from anything short of direct mail or telephone sales, it would be difficult to justify the cost. But if you're talking about kick-starting buzz, it could very well be a reasonable investment. George RR Martin doesn't need to do this; but for mid-list authors, or promising new authors, it might make sense to "make noise" in whatever capacity you can.

I'm becoming more convinced that the buzz factor happens (assuming the book in question is of good quality) in part due to sufficient exposure - you are seen (and read) by just enough opinion leaders that the word of mouth machine gets kick-started into gear. Not fool proof, by any means, but if you are invisible then that word of mouth isn't going to happen no matter how good your book might be. I'm not completely invisible (witness your own experience), but I'm pretty darn faint on the big picture scene. If Oprah called up and asked to show my book, what do you think would happen? Probably a lot (at least for a brief period...). So at what level of marketing activity in-between does it make sense to invest? That's the question everyone would like answered.
 
It doesn't get people to buy the book, but it does attract people's attention to the book. They then may check it out and if interested, buy it as you did with the book in the sidebar ad. They may talk about the video if it was funny or funky to other people who check out the book and then may buy it if they find it interesting.

Collectively, videos and podcasts make fiction authors appear more relevant maybe -- creatures of interest to websites and bloggers and companies and bookstores trying to create an on-line presence, rather than them just being focused on movies, t.v., and music as they usually are. This increases media opportunities for authors in general.

George R.R. Martin may be a bestselling author, but regular readers forget that most of the world is not aware who the bestselling authors are. They don't look at bestseller lists, they don't read newspapers and they don't go into bookstores. They may have heard of an author who is getting really huge sales, having movies made of their works and stirring up controversy, because then the media pays attention to those authors. (This is also one of the reasons Oprah's blessing helps the novels she choses -- the media then is much more interested in interviewing and reviewing those authors.)

But the rank and file bestsellers don't get that much media attention and only get a soupcon of advertising more than the junior bestsellers. So even though they are better known than most, they still have to worry about promotion and building word of mouth.

And so Martin does podcast interviews. He does them, I would think, also for his fans, who are interested in hearing him talk about the books, but it is a form of promotion, of generating attention similar to being interviewed in a newspaper or going on a radio show. It will not convince people to buy his books, but it may convince them to check out the books to see if they are interested, and it increases recognition of his name.

So it can have a high rate of return, not just for an individual author, but for fiction in general. But what forms this is going to take, what authors will feel obligated to do, how it's all going to work, that seems to be still up in the air.

For a truly mind-blowing experience that has nothing to do with books but offers material for an inspirational or possibly creepy prison movie, check out the video put up on YouTube, link below (I'm working on my linking skills.) These are prisoners in the Phillipines participating in an unique rehabilitation experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o
 
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I think if you want to compete against the digital world for attention, your going to have to do something digital. A YouTube commercial might not be such a bad idea. You would have to come up with a script, though. Perhaps even use community actors. Maybe even call the local TV station and see if they will film it. This way, you could at least run a local TV ad and a YouTube ad, two mediums at once.

Also, since your so compu art savy, have you ever thought of doing a really cool action pic and making it a full color newspaper ad for the Sunday paper? You know which ones, the glossy flyers stuffed in the middle. Put it in the local Sunday paper, and if that gets results, then to a bigger paper, etc. maybe you could spark a retro-trend LOL.
 
Dazzlinkat said:
I think if you want to compete against the digital world for attention, your going to have to do something digital. A YouTube commercial might not be such a bad idea. You would have to come up with a script, though. Perhaps even use community actors. Maybe even call the local TV station and see if they will film it. This way, you could at least run a local TV ad and a YouTube ad, two mediums at once.

Also, since your so compu art savy, have you ever thought of doing a really cool action pic and making it a full color newspaper ad for the Sunday paper? You know which ones, the glossy flyers stuffed in the middle. Put it in the local Sunday paper, and if that gets results, then to a bigger paper, etc. maybe you could spark a retro-trend LOL.
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Unfortunately, Dazz, that gets pretty pricey. Even just for a color ad printed in the paper itself, for the Sunday edition, it costs $4,365 for the main paper in my city. Printing up an insert and having it stuffed in would cost even more. So while it would certainly get a lot of attention, it would have to be Oprah-level in its response in order to pay for itself.
 
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