SELF PUBLISHING: ON BEING THE NEXT ITUNES

It seems the decision is coming together in larger bits. Like DACHEUX says, "Little bit, little bit...BOOM!" Luckily, I am getting several BOOMS in such a short time frame, that I cannot stop myself from giggling or shoving my hand in my mouth like, "Can it be this easy?"

The answer is yes. DAVID ST LAWRENCE makes self-publishing sound like a joy and much more in-depth with the advent of blogs and THE LONG TAIL. His advice is simple:

1. Get your book made by a printer.

2. Get a 1800 number and business name.

3. Use your blog to create traffic with BlogAds or another group, or even get your friends to host some real estate space on their blogs with a pic of your work.

4. Make a partial download of the book available for free.

5. Sell the book directly to customers through paypal, and skip out on the whole Amazon experience.

If you click on his SELF PUBLISHING category, you'll get a more through look at these steps.
There is also SETH GODIN who is specifically trying to help nonfiction authors, but whose advice applies to all artists within this corporate mania. So does David's.

Are you trying to get some music out there? A photograph? A painting? It all becomes simple with these two. They are definitely delivering the goods, and giving my some very juicy ideas on the possibilities of book publishing. Isn't it possible to have downloads cost money? Couldn't you have downloads in multiple formats?

The possibilities are endless. JIM GOAR is looking to publish his new book. TE BALLARD and others in her community want to see their book in print. KYLE KAUFMAN and SARA LARSEN are working on EL POBRE. NIKKI WIDNER and DAVE GARDNER are rocking ONE LESS. MELISSA BENHAM kicking ARTIFACT funky fresh freestyle. DECHAUX is trying to get those paintings out there. THE STARVING ARTISTS are trying to release music. DOWNTOWN HARVEST is looking for a record company...

Well, maybe, we don't have to look any further. Maybe, it's pooling our resources together to create a host site, where all these items are linked, downloadable, interactive, etc. Maybe, it's time we created a format like ITUNES, that moves beyond music to include books and paintings. Maybe, we can create our own expanding roster of art available on the world wide web.

We could invite other artists to post with us. A rock band from Kansas, a string quartet from the Adirondacks, a poet in Schenectady, a children's book author from Rhode Island, even a novelist from Los Angeles.

How do we house something like this? All it takes is a blog. All it takes is traffic and word of mouth. Please, friends, hear me on this one. Talk to me. What have you got? Can anyone see it? JOHN SULLIVAN are you there? WSSIYG? What are your ideas? Is this possible? Is it easy?

8 comments:

Posatko said...

Let the revolution...begin.

Anonymous said...

Yes, we are always listening. Let us know what can be done.

I assume all we need is one person willing to set up and run a website to house such an endeavor, however, this can cost money...unless...we can find a like minded individual who treats the web page as their own form of art(then a fee for web hosting is all that's left).

There must be one programer out there who considers web design art; as opposed to a cash cow.

www.circley.net is an example of this same sort of collective. These are friends from Yardley PA who formed their own music community within their circle of friends. This website houses most of their information and such (I don't think it cost anything to build).

Those are some thoughts,

WYSIWYG PRODUCTIONS
Mike Bell

wysiwygproductions@gmail.com

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

Yes, but is amazon doing audio of those short stories? Maybe, that would separate the literature from other sites--make it available as an audio download, then after enough hits are generated, offer the product in a print format.

I hear you though. I don't know too much about Plone, but I did figure on something a bit larger to host something within this format.

It seems relatively easy to create. A warehouse of literature, art, and music; Links to the individual sites to create traffic...Mmmmmm.

I don't know if this is something I will use to release Strategies, but it is now sounding very appealing to me as an actual business.

A virtual Borders, Amazon, and Itunes in one. And with material that is far more extensive than any of these other companies have. We will in a sense be the very end of the long tail.

Where blog users come to find material, links, etc.

Tell me more about PLone, and the ideas you have.

What about the rest of you? Any other ideas? Bloggers out there? Party people?

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

Yes, Mike. I hear you. Maybe, John S. can be this person for us. Yes, a collective. I will check out this www.circley.net now.

Anonymous said...

faith?

Faith is believing in something when there is no proof of it's exsistance.

It doesn't apply here.

Moral support and
cooperation are pretty much all that's required to help pirooz help us. I'm probably in this for a longer haul than I can imagine but I have nothing to lose. VIVA

jwg said...

Been a bit of a long night, but this is what I am seeing. yes, we could self publish, and put it on this community site. but, as is the case of subday or effing (etc), we could publish through them, and be able to buy books through this (as of yet unmade) site too. Seems to be a way to introduce books that can only be bought here with other books that can be bought at other sites/publishers (with a link to the publisher’s web site etc, so you buy through them). Give pub to those whose books deserve but have not yet been picked up.

Thing is though, wonder if after they become published here, would the other publishers pick them up? Would like to hear from the folks who are doing it. Scott, Kyle, any publisher out there. What do you think, would you publish a book that has already been (self) published?

by the way. was just over at ellipses. They have redone the web site. Pirooz you are featured prominently on the web site. Got me all excited to see you and Stacy and others lined up for that first issue.

Watch this thing go bam!!!

jwg said...

maybe I've already said it and it is time for me to go to bed, but I haven’t seen it around anywhere else. We could start a blog with poets posting their books. Doesn’t matter where or how the book was published, we (who ever that is) just decides which books they like, and give a link to them. I think this is a way to expand the community and give the web site the feel of a magazine where only the ‘best’ is accepted. Put up issues of books. maybe once pre year, post 20 books by the ‘new’ writers. discounts, group buys, etc.

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

Yes, I hear you all. Lots of ideas. I will have to draw the visual to make my vision clear. I do not have the language, but I do have the visual. I will work on it this weekend.