Still on that Transmedia thing

Good thing I wasn't the only one thinking about Transmedia this week or I wouldn't have anything to post. As it happens the fine folks over at Publishing Perspectives were riding a similar wavelength and posted about How Transmedia Storytelling Becomes a Billion Dollar Business. It's an interesting story about the creation of Inanimate Alice, and it involves our very own Kate Pullinger.

They follow the story up with the question "Can Publishers Transform into Transmedia Storytellers?"

Publishing Perspectives is another one of those sites that people interested in finding out where publishing is, and where it is going, should pay attention to.

Defining Transmedia

The other day I posted about a conversation I had regarding a transmedia project and linked to a couple of interesting articles about Transmedia. Well some people asked, "What's transmedia?" So today I'm linking to a post that attempts to define transmedia by referring to the Producer's Guild of America's recent recognition of a transmedia category.

The Guild says:
"A Transmedia Narrative project must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing in the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: Film, Television, Shortfilm, Broadband, Publishing , Comics, Animation, Mobile, DVD/Blu-Ray/CD-ROM... These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms."

Read the rest of the article for a discussion of the definition.

FREE BOOKS: Adam Lewis Schroeder Rocks

Thanks to the generosity of the fine folks at Douglas & McIntyre books we'll be giving away one copy each of IN THE FABLED EAST, by Adam Lewis Schroeder and DARWIN'S BASTARDS, edited by Zsuzsi Gartner (including a story by Adam Lewis Schroeder). Simply send us an email by Friday May 7th at noon, with the subject line ADAM LEWIS SCHROEDER ROCKS and you'll be entered to win. Please send your emails to info@mcdermidagency.com.

Thinking Transmedia

Met with a wonderful writer this morning and in addition to her project we started talking about transmedia. Not what I expected when I was going to the meeting but a lot of thought-provoking fun. So I started thinking about a couple of posts I'd read recently about transmedia and thought I'd share. Certainly transmedia isn't for every author, but if you envision your stories, or characters across a number of media platforms, thinking of it as a transmedia project from the outset is probably the best way to capitalize on what you are doing.

The first post is a very useful 5 Stage Development Process for Transmedia Projects, and links to another post on a transmedia business model.

Post number two tells us that Transmedia Requires a New Breed of Writers, Publishers.

While you are there check out the Digital Book World site. It's full of interesting material about how publishing in the 21st Century is developing.

MEN BEHAVING BADLY: And the winner is...

Kate Webb is the winner of our MEN BEHAVING BADLY contest! She will be receiving her books from HarperCollins Canada. Thanks to everyone for the great response. We had fun, hope you did too.
Come back next week to see what we'll give away then!

Why Publishers don't Market (well) And what Writers Need to do

Two great posts from Jane Friedman at Writer's Digest. The first tells you all you need to know in the title - Why Don't Publishers Market and Promote the Books they Publish? One of the questions I asked many times when I worked for publishers.

The second post is about what new gadgets like ereaders and the iPad mean for authors - and how they can be used. It also includes some great links to articles by some big thinkers on what these things will mean to authors and publishers of the future.

And check out Writer's Digest site. It's full of good things for writers.

FREE BOOKS: Men Behaving Badly

Thanks to the generosity of HarperCollins Canada we will be giving away one copy each of GIRL CRAZY by Russell Smith, THE WARHOL GANG by Peter Darbyshire and TOBY: A MAN by Todd Babiak. Simply send us an email by Friday April 23rd at noon, with the subject line MEN BEHAVING BADLY, and you'll be entered for a chance to win. Send your emails to info@mcdermidagency.com

Chris Anderson (WIRED, THE LONG TAIL) call Richard Nash a Genius

Chris Anderson of WIRED fame, and author of THE LONG TAIL, called Richard Nash, former publisher at Soft Skull and the brains behind the new project, Cursor, a genius.

We are big fans of Richard's and will have him give a keynote at the author conference we are hosting this fall (shhhhh). Here's a link to his most recent talk in Toronto.

The Joys of Metadata: More Discoverability

It certainly isn't the sexiest subject in book publishing (although this might be) but 'metadata' is one of the keys to getting your book discovered.

"Metadata is, simply, information about data, stored with the data. In the case of a book (the data), a particular title's metadata would include the full title, author's name, publisher, date of publication and ISBN number ..."

And much much more. In the following article Laura Miller explains why it matters, what iBooks has gotten wrong so far, and what Amazon has gotten right.

Make sure your publisher gets all your metadata right.

Discoverability: Still A Book’s Biggest Problem

A really good article here about how the biggest problem books face is being discovered and how the old methods of discovering books is breaking down:

And take a look around the digital book world site. A lot of great information on where publishing is and where people see it going.

Follow The Reader

FOLLOW THE READER is a great new blog for 'those who read and reccomend books.' They have a lot of good interviews with publishing types who try to promote books. Have a look at an interesting post about building reader communities.

Many in publishing believe that building these communities will be essential to the life of writers and publishers in the very near future -- if they aren't already.

A Good Site Helping Authors Promote Online

Another good site where authors can find some useful information and helpful hints when it comes to self-promotion. The site is called Best Seller. Here's a video from the site explaining how to add some unique pieces to your facebook page.

Hope it helps sell some books!

A couple other things to occupy your time

Want to let you know about a couple of other places where you can find out about the world of publishing and writing as we are seeing it develop. I know you have all kinds of extra time for FaceBook and Twitter, so here is where you can keep up with us.

Our Facebook page has been very active for a couple of montsh now, full of links to articles about publishing found all over the web. Take a look and become a fan.

For even more information you can also follow on twitter.

Finally I'd like to highlight one site that I think everyone who is interested in the world of publishing should be paying attention to. Yes it's a paid site but well worth it (says the guy whose company has a subscription). Publishers Marketplace is the place all the publishing insiders look at for deal news and smart analysis.

At least you'll have something to do this weekend when you aren't writing your book.

Some marketing sites for authors

Just came across some websites that I think will be useful to authors looking to do a little self-promotion.

The first, called Social Media Examiner, has a ton of interesting advice on how to use social media for building your business (your *ahem* platform).

The second, called Tribal Author, promises to help you 'build a worldwide tribe of die-hard fans, evangelists and influencers..." I don't know if it can deliver all that but they seem to be thinking the right way.

Give us some feedback if you find the sites useful...or flaky.