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Sunoasis X 2005 V2 Issue 6
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David Eide
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Jun 30, 2005 22:10 PDT
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S U N O A S I S X 2 0 0 5
Volume 2 Issue 6
June 2005
"I have never found, in anything outside of the
four walls of my study, an enjoyment equal to
sitting at my writing desk with a clean page, a
new theme, and a mind awake."
-- Washington Irving
_____________________T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
1) [Professional Notes- What's New in the Writing Game?]
2) [Feature Article: Prepare to make money from writing]
3) [Resource Notes]
4) [C/Oasis- new stories and poems]
5) [New Forms of Publishing]
6) [Community]
7) [Etc/Etc/Etc]
http://www.sunoasis.com/sunoasisblog.html
Switch to the online version right now!
http://www.sunoasis.com/honor.html
I'm not charging for subscriptions but if the spirit
moves you please use the Amazon Honor System. Thanks.
Enjoy this issue! Forward any comments to:
eide-@earthlink.net
===========================================================
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__________________P R O F E S S I O N A L N O T E S
Up in the delightful park, in fog and green grass and swaying
trees, my wonderful daughter got married. She's on her
honeymoon now. After the ceremony the many people there mingled
and when I met a person I had never met before they asked the
inevitable question, "and what do you do?"
When I said that I am a writer and an internet editor they gave
me a weird smile as if saying, "ah, you are either a nut, an
irresponsible character, or have ill-gained wealth stashed away
somewhere."
If they only knew the truth of the matter.
I did run into one very savvy person who was in the publishing
business. And I asked him what he saw as the trends writers,
editors, and publishers should look out for. "I would say," he
told me, "self-publishing because it is getting easier to do,
blogging and all of this "citizen-journalist" stuff, and the
globalization of the writing marketplace."
I wanted to spend more time with him but I was pulled away
by the official photographer who straightened out my tie and
boutonniere and asked me to put my wine glass down.
Then the technical writer told me that he had lost his job
to outsourcing and didn't know what to do.
Let's look at some of the issues involved here:
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According to a 2004 story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
a total of 175,000 books were published by mainstream
publishers in 2003. In the same year 80,000 books were
self-published. And the most startling fact of all is that
in 1995, right before digital publishing took hold, a total
of only 5,000 books had been self-published.
"Some 35 subsidy presses and print-on-demand companies such
as XLibris and iUniverse offer a range of services from
straight printing to copy editing, packaging and marketing
for fees ranging from $450 to $20,000," the Journal-
Constitution reports.
As an example of how important niches have become, 57% of
Amazon.com's book revenues are from books not available on
traditional bookshelves
Some of the stories of self-publishing are poignant, some
are rather hysterical. There are writers who have self-
published but who recommend against it. There are book
editors who praise it. There are writers who swear by it
and writers who curse the day they started to self-publish.
Publishing can get very complicated. In print there are a
lot of fingers in the pie. There are pricing considerations,
discount schedules for bookstores to figure out, ISBN, bar
codes, and the rest of it. It's work and provides a good
deal of full-time employment to people. To publish yourself
takes a lot of responsibility and chutzpah, as they used say.
You have to be exquisitely organized and have a systematic
approach to the day a book is conceived to the day it is let
out into the world. But the fact that self-publishing has
increased by nearly a factor of 16 in the last ten years
speaks volumes about how more efficient it has gotten.
Why more books? When I read my Foreign Affairs magazine there
are pages of book reviews. Most of the books would be worthwhile
reading for anyone interested in geopolitics. But not only can
you not read them all, you'd be hard pressed to read a small
portion of them. And the answer is that every market serves
many niches. The readers of Foreign Affairs include professors
and government officials who have special areas of expertise.
Many books serve many niches in many markets. Self-publishing
is the risk of putting out money and time against the
possibility of reaching the niche of choice. And if you can
do it, the experience will be rewarding.
There can't be "too many" books. Therefore anyone who truly
believes and has some resource should do the deed.
However, why write a book when you can develop a website and
apply your writing talents, resources, and passion
digitally? If you can write a three-hundred page book, you
you can make a very good website that finds a public
more easily than in book publishing.
And writers will be more likely to go this route when they
finally wake up to the fact that the internet, itself, is
the new publishing system.
Self-publishing is many things. It is books, ebooks, booklets,
chapbooks, as well as digital writing.
What is Sunoasis X but words and links put through the
infrastructure of a new publishing system? Sunoasis.com has
over 1,000 "pages" to it and will grow through time in a
variety of directions.
There are skeptics in this area. One is Jim Fisher who wrote
a book about an agent/self-publishing fraud and claims that
self-publishing is not an alternative but a "parallel
universe." He makes the point that most writers who get
rejected by big publishers do not make the corrections
necessary to get published.
I'm not sure his assessment is correct. We have to
appreciate the shift that has occurred. In the past the
writer could not find the audience himself. He relied on
publishers and editors to do that. But now it becomes more
and more likely that the writer can find an audience for
his or her work using things like Google Ad Words.
There will be a tremendous amount of innovation going on in
this area. The new publishing system will be about people
finding exactly what they want. And that will include
writers finding audiences.
If on any given day 10,000 people are looking for "short
stories about New York," you can design an Ad Word campaign
or any other PPC and get some of those people.
As a writer, don't be perplexed. Go use the wonderful
opportunity that exists to connect with people who want
your resources and stories, will even pay you or solicit
advertising on your behalf and keep you in rent money.
This is the future. And writers should get used to it as
quickly as they can.
T I P S
How to sell a self-published book to the New York publisher?
Get regional sales.
Hire a freelance editor and a graphic artist for cover work.
If you have the funds, hire a publicist.
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Chief Executive magazine wrote a sardonic article on
outsourcing and how articles written in American newspapers
about outsourcing are being done by Mumbai-based journalists.
"Nobody knows more about outsourcing than Indian journalists,
because they've had to write so many stories about other
jobs that were outsourced," says Vijay Shankar, "...it was only
natural for Indian journalists to take all the outsourcing
stories away from American journalists, not only because we
will work for one-sixth the rate Americans demand but
because American journalists are tired of writing about it."
What are some of the things being outsourced now? Ad copy on
the back of organic cereal boxes, computer manuals,
disclaimers on the reverse side of theater tickets and the
uplifting messages inside Christmas cards. This is according
to Mr. Shankar. And I mentioned the IBM technical writer I
met at the wedding, looking for work because of outsourcing.
Mr. Shankar is a rather amusing, spirited guy and says the
following, "anyone with a high school diploma can write
about recent developments at the Commerce Department or
the fallout from the latest report by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics."
When the editor of Business 2.0 shifted some of his freelance
work to India it was an experiment. He had been criticized for
running stories on the benefits of outsourcing in the computer
industry and decided to try it for his industry; our industry.
He was not satisfied with the result because there was a time
difference and the staff in the SF area and the freelancers
were rarely in sync. There were communications problems.
But, you'd have to be short-sighted not to see that this is an
issue unfolding in the decades to come.
There is the growing sense by the global writing pool that any
market is fair game. We can vouch for that here, getting all
kinds of submissions from writers around the world.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/060805Roberts.shtml
According to Paul Craig Roberts, in the Baltimore Observer,
the fall of communism has unleashed huge numbers of new workers
in the global labor force, eager to raise their standard of
living. Added to that is the foresight on the part of
governments in the third world to support the development of
broadband. The developing countries are trying to slip-stream
the first world using the advanced technology as the way.
The trend has been toward hiring freelance writers rather than
hiring staff. And these so-called third world countries are
like competitive freelancers willing to do the work and absorb
some of the costs that would be incurred by the business. So,
it's very likely that this trend will get more critical for the
writing and editing tribes.
http://tinyurl.com/82mxk
(Registration required)
A new story has emerged with Voice of America who wants to
transfer operations to Hong Kong against the protests of
labor unions and law makers.
And I will re-iterate the amount of inquiry Sunoasis.com has
gotten from writers in India, Pakistan, and like places
about how they can get into English/American writing markets.
At first I thought it was ridiculous because so much writing
is local. The writer has to smell and feel and talk herself
through a story and you can't do that in a cubicle in New
Delhi.
A good deal of writing is research, compiling, and interviewing
that can be done from a distance. Copy editing is very
vulnerable to this trend.
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As someone remarked it sounds like a term made up in some
"peoples republic." From a cynical point of view it introduces
the prospect of editors using very cheap content providers
and undermining whatever pay scale journalists and freelance
writers may have in the marketplace.
It simply means having the ability to publish your own content.
It blurs in with self-publishing in this way, although I would
say self-publishing is more a business venture.
http://tinyurl.com/b7k95
Blogging is considered part of this and as we've remarked,
a precious few have made some money for their efforts.
Blogging could come under the category of self-publishing
too.
Blogging is one form of writing fast becoming mainstream.
Corporations, government agencies, newspapers, PR firms,
and law firms are all using blogs. Why do people like
them? It's very simple: People like new things. They love
novelty and keeping up with the pace of innovation. However,
over time, the novelty wears off. Blogs then must do
something very unique to win the day.
It all depends on the habits of readers. We seem to live
in a time that wants to efface everything that went before
it. The young connect with the innovation and let the old
world vanish into the night of time.
When I started Sunoasis.com I knew that the combination of links
and commentary was powerful. Very powerful. And it remains to
this day. A clever person can build a magnificent information
and opinion machine. Obviously, there's some parasitism going
on that will be corrected through time. But the added value I
think is going to be seen as a cultural value and maintained.
The Society of Professional Journalists makes a key distinction
between "a form," and "a discipline." But, the form could
contain the discipline depending on the habits of the
reading public. It all comes down to that. The people are
going to get what they want.
If they read blogs and give them heft then it is fait
acompli.
Turning the good people from passive to active citizens and
involving them in stories of local, state, or national
importance has to be seen as a positive goal. It is touted
as one of the driving motives behind citizen-journalism.
Blogs remind us that there are groups of people who spend
one hell of a time on the internet.
http://www.ireporter.org/
There is a kind of idealism that it promotes and that's
excellent.
http://www.lun.com/
I think the paper in Santiago, Chile is ahead of the game.
It enlists "citizen journalists," but with these rules: The
newspaper has the right to publish or not, will send a
journalist to check the facts, and will not give money for
the piece of writing.
I've never known one journalist who loved the authority or
system they worked under. So, obviously, the Net gives them
an opportunity to live out some fantasies and more power to
them. We've had some of the same.
___________________________A F E A T U R E A R T I C L E
http://www.sunoasis.com/sunoasisxjune.html
No matter how many changes the world of publishing goes
through there are still things writers need to do to make
money. Money is the Achilles Heel of the writing tribe.
For the complete article please click on the link above.
______________________________R E S O U R C E N O T E S
Self-Publishing
http://www.pma online.org
Publishers Marketing Association
http://www.iuniverse.com
iUniverse
http://www.bowker.com
Bowker Publishing
Citizen-Journalism/Blogging
http://www.poynter.org/medianews/
http://www.newmediamusings.com
http://dangillmor.typepad.com
http://www.cyberjournalist.net
http://www.rebeccablood.com
http://www.technorati.com
http://www.feedster.com
http://www.iBrattleboro.com
http://www.northwestvoice.com
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=========================
For Freelancers Only:
=========================
http://www.freelancesuccess.com/sample/bk2.php
25 very good ideas to be a freelance success from
a successful freelancer, Robert McGarvey.
http://www.writershome.com/instruction/editors.htm
Dealing with editors.
http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/articles/career.htm
Freelance Writing: A Career From Anywhere
____________________________________________C R A F T
http://www.copydesk.org/quizzes.htm
Some quizzes from the American Copy Editor Society
http://www.notrain-nogain.org/Train/Res/Write/org.asp
Ten tips to help organize your stories.
http://www.quotelady.com/writings/creativity-craft.html
The Forces of Creativity: Craft
http://www.aps.edu/aps/Cochiti/6traits/
Six Trait Writing
______________W R I T I N G O R G A N I Z A T I O N S
http://www.stc.org/
Society of Technical Communication
http://www.cwfi-online.org/
Christian Writers Fellowship International
http://wordofmouthwriters.org/
Word of Mouth, An Association of Women Authors
http://www.poetrytherapy.org/
National Association for Poetry Therapy
http://www.scbwi.org/
Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators
http://www.pulitzer.org/
The Pulitzer Prizes
http://www.baip.org
Black Americans in Publishing
______________________________P U B L I S H I N G
http://tinyurl.com/ddlcp
A brief notice about a Doubleday campaign to link a new
novel with intertwining stories on the Net.
http://tinyurl.com/d259n
Why some publishers are digitizing themselves.
==========================================
Don't hesitate to tell us what you are looking for:
http://www.sunoasis.com/oasisfeedback.html
There is an index of writer guidelines here:
http://www.sunoasis.com/sunoasismarkets.html
___________________________________________C / O A S I S
http://www.sunoasis.com/hollandfable1.html
Two Fables by Bruce Holland Rogers
Fables for our time! The esteemed writer offers up The Wolf
and the Lamb and The Bullfrog and His Shadows. "A wolf
stopped to drink at a stream and spied a young lamb resting
in the shade nearby. "You there!" the wolf said."
http://www.sunoasis.com/elinoressay.html
The New Revolution by Elinor Teele
Time, as some would have it, is not a linear line from
generation to generation, but a spiral. As we stand at the
beginning of the century, it somehow seems as if we had
been thrown back to another time in the world's history,
when another worldwide revolution was just about to start.
http://www.sunoasis.com/patflynnpoems.html
Two Poems by Patrick Flynn
Night Bird
Somewhere August
http://www.sunoasis.com/mccabepoems.html
Two Poems by Victoria McCabe
Clandestine
Arrival Gate
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http://netb2b.com/article.cms?articleId=24499
Business Week is blurring the lines between its print and
online staff.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8875069
"A business model that depends on making money with
newspapers on newsprint and giving away the same information
for free on the Internet isn't going to work."
http://tinyurl.com/8nl2u
Newspapers aren't dead yet. They could improve their growth
prospects with content alliances that might turn their Web
sites into portals. Blogs and podcasts could generate
advertising revenues.
http://www.editorsweblog.org/2005/04/emfont_colorff9.html
The Director of OhmyNews International explains the
operation. Thousands of "citizen journalists" contribute
stories. Is this a "new" form of journalism or a new way for
publishers to save money? Whatever the case is it's a
provocative player on the stage.
_______________________________________C O M M U N I T Y
See the Tips Page for more information:
http://www.sunoasis.com/tips.html
Thanks to Steven Evans for his generous contribution.
Thanks Steven! He is an editor and has a splendid
website here:
http://www.the-freelance-editor.com
http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/iswfest/
The 2005 Iowa Summer Writing Festival runs from June 12th
through July 29th.
http://writing.shawguides.com/search?t=July
Shaw Guide for Writing Conferences in July.
_______________________________________E T C/ E T C/ E T C
Editor/Publisher: David Eide
Sunoasis X 2005 is fully protected by copyright.
Please ask permission if you are going to use any or
all of this publication.
Reprint rights belong to the authors.
Contact them if you wish to use their material.
Unauthorized use of any material is strictly
forbidden.
Our hope is that we can help and enhance the world
of writing, publishing, and editing.
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