I'd like to thank the members of Boxing the Octopus for inviting me to join them. I'm new here, as you faithful blog readers already know. As the new guy, I'm facing a real challenge: how to fit in with such a bright, articulate, witty and established group of publishing veterans?
I wish I had the answer to that one. But I do know that I can talk about genre writing and publishing: thrillers and horror, and to some extent, science fiction, more specifically. And I can talk about marketing, since I also work in that field as a "day" job. Marketing and branding has invaded the world of publishing in a big way the past decade or so, and I think that's altered the game in ways that are both positive and negative. When you throw in the changes this business is experiencing (with much more still to come) around e-books, tablets and print on demand, well...let's just say I have some strong opinions about where I think the publishing business is headed.
But that's something for a future post or two. Right now, I just want to say hello, and I'm happy to be on board. And let me leave you with this video, as something to think about: how are our future readers going to interact with books? I'm guessing this little one may experience storytelling in a pretty different way that we did, when we were kids.
Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure: I am what you'd call an Apple fan boy. :) Just saying...
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And I'm thinking of how I taught my son to read with refrigerator magnet letters when he was about the age of the little girl in the video. We really are in a different universe now.
Can't wait to hear your take on the marketing situation for writers.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Welcome!
And re the YoutTube clip: Kathryn posted an interesting question a while back: will writers be responsible for envisioning and executing all aspects of the new/coming forms of storytelling? Will some of us write text and others provide "visuals" (the way others have done our books' covers in the past), etc? Is writing about to become a team sport? Or will more simply be expected of us as individuals? Will all aspects of a story (created by an individual or team) be submitted to a publisher? Or will some aspects be delivered, and others created in-house? And is there any future for text qua text?
Watching this girl, I thought about my son, who was a full blown reader by the time he was five, Reading new books and even, surprisingly, the signs at the zoo. He was (of course) read to from the time he was a year old--maybe earlier--but the truth is that he taught himself to read by watching Sesame Street twice a day, every day.
These days (he's 28), he's a serious David Foster Wallace Fan.
Go figure.