Category Archives: internet

May 17, 2016   sharon   business of publishing, internet, piracy, technology  
6

No such thing as a free lunch (of Toast)

I had a sad Friday the 13th when a quirky website I very much enjoy called The Toast announced they are closing down. The founders of the Toast had a very frank conversation about their decision to do so; I do not know much about website monetization, but I found it a very fascinating discussion of how the websites we read every day make enough money to stay afloat (or not) and pay their writers (or not).

I wonder if the digital age has taught us to expect free content. Anytime you read (or watch or listen to) something fantastic, a lot of people were involved in creating it, from writers and editors to web designers and comment moderators. We are so used to scrolling Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and instantly clicking through to interesting links, whether at new media hubs like Buzzfeed and Slate or traditional giants like the New York Times and Washington Post without thinking about who pays the people who make those sites interesting, entertaining, and reliable. I personally have known a moment of outrage when something that caught my attention is behind a paywall! And moving from journalism to publishing, e-book piracy is an ongoing problem for publishers and authors, as this handy infographic explores. Then following last week’s BEA/Book Con in Chicago, there was conversation on Twitter about why it’s awful when galleys intended for bloggers, reviewers, and librarians turn up for sale on eBay:

As a literary agent, I obviously think it’s important to protect authors and to make sure they, and everyone who works on their books, are paid for their hard work. But on the other hand, the internet can be an amazing equalizer, bringing resources to communities who wouldn’t have them otherwise. So maybe we need to be looking for the next frontier of the internet that will protect both its important accessibility and intellectual property!

What do you think? Is the explosion of internet content training us to think we should be able to read for free? What kinds of websites or other content would you be willing to pay for? What do you think the next frontier is to monetize our favorite sites and keep the best parts of the internet accessible to all users?

March 25, 2016   Lauren   internet, Lauren, social media, websites  
9

Presence

I was chatting with a client earlier today about the website she’s building—as a debut author she’s had a blog, but now that she’s gearing up for her first book to come out, she needs a website to showcase her book as well.  She sent me the work-in-progress, and I was giving her some ideas that I thought would help her to finish it up.

But it got me to thinking about internet presence in general. I’m well aware of my own clients’ websites and social media accounts, and to some degree familiar with those of other DGLM clients, especially those I work with on subrights.  But for all that we talk about the importance of an author’s internet presence as agents, I realize my go to examples are kind of out of date. Some of those websites probably don’t even exist anymore.  I used to have a much better sense of the lay of the land. I can point people to my own authors to show particular strengths and models of best practices. But it’s time I re-expand my reference points.

So tell me, dear blog readers: which authors do you love on the internet?  Whose Twitter feed are you retweeting the most? Whose Facebook posts do you like (or heart or smiley, now that that’s a thing) the most often? Which websites do you keep bookmarked?  If you were going to model your own internet presence on an existing author, who would you emulate?

August 18, 2015   mhoogland   Amazon, chat, dialogue, e-books, future of publishing, internet, Mike H, news, technology, trends  
3

Collapse of the Kindle?

E-readers like Amazon’s Kindle have forever changed the publishing world, but are we seeing the beginning of the end of the e-reader? Amazon has been getting its fair share of bad press lately, and now it can apparently add declining Kindle sales to its list of troubles.

I absolutely loved Jennifer Maloney’s piece in The Wall Street Journal, and in my opinion, I think she is right: the phone will drive future book sales—not the e-reader. With our increasingly mobile lifestyle, convenience and the ability to multitask are king, and our phones afford us both. I bought the iPhone 6 Plus, in part, so I could take advantage of the huge screen and read whenever I had a moment, which is exactly what I’ve done. My Kindle has been useless ever since (and to be honest, I think I lost it but don’t really care). Carrying around a phone and an e-reader seems counterproductive when just one can easily accomplish the task.

I’m very curious to see how publishers take advantage of this burgeoning trend to package books for the mobile phone. Amazon’s dominance in the book and e-book marketplace began, in part, because of the Kindle and the necessity for a complete book buying ecosystem to accompany the e-reader. Amazon’s Fire phone was a bust, so what does it mean for the retail giant as Apple, Google, and other players continue to flesh out their bookstores and build up lively reader communities for phone readers?

How do you read e-books? An e-reader? Tablet? Smartphone? Over someone else’s shoulder? Oh, and this drinkable book is amazing. Just another reason why print books are best.

December 12, 2014   Jessica   adaptation, internet, Jessica, tech-failures  
0

Technologically Ambivalent

DGLM has had some technological challenges this past week; the cable that carries the internet into our office was somehow severed. (Sabotage obviously. I blame the North Koreans, fresh from their triumph hacking into the Sony Pictures system, exposing the unguessed-at truth that Hollywood folks can be small-minded and mean.) Anyway, my inability to access email, our office network, or the majority of my saved files was disorienting. Then Sharon, tech genius that she is, showed me how to access my e-mail via my spam filter.  This seemed to me thrillingly covert–a bit like crawling into a locked building through its garbage chute–but the interface was so basic. There was no “undo” button, no save.  The result was ugly. Outlook Express and iOS have been saving me from myself. I see that now.

Our computer troubles also allowed me some time to muse on my fraught relationship with technology. I grew up in a family of late (to never) adopters. My parents were unmoved by cable, video games, computers, VCRS, or even color televisions.  I had mixed feelings about this when I was a kid. I cultivated a friendship with a kindly agoraphobic neighbor who watched TV all the day long. To her I owe any knowledge of the A-Team, daytime talk-shows and soap operas that I may possess.

Still, I’ve followed in my parents footsteps.  My sons have had comparatively little exposure to technology.  Given my line of work and benign but inchoate ideas about child-rearing, it seemed natural to favor books over tablets, paper over gaming devices, outdoors over indoors.  But this year—specifically this Christmas–that’s about to change.  We’re buying our sons their own computer.

We are: a) caving or b) emerging from the rock under which we’ve been living, because as it turns out, the standardized tests that kids in our town will take later this year require them to type.  And so it seems cruel not to allow them to build the skills that they will so obviously need.

I can still remember the day when I realized that a computer,  not a pencil, was a truer, faster connection between my thoughts and the page.  I felt a little sad, because I still love the physical act of writing. For me, a good fine line felt tip pen is a source of pleasure.  Today, however, few kids are taught cursive at all.  I’m no Luddite, but part of me finds it awfully sad that reading script will be a skill reserved to archivists. Or–who am I kidding?–an app.

Technology is a great boon—it facilitates so much—but I’m curious about your relationship with it. Or, in the words of Ali G,  “Tech-mology: Is it Good, or is it Whack?”