Social limits
A challenge to being an aspiring writer in the new media galaxy is in building a platform. These three words refer to being active in social media rather than writing well, generating good ideas, being approachable or reliable. As much as I love the tweets and enjoy Facebook, the words build a platform always evoke swirls [...]
E-books: starting with a big bang
New media technology empowers writers to avail their work to billions of readers and tap new sources of income. Well… in theory anyhow. The truth is it’s difficult to reach readers and get an income. If you simply publish they will not come. For any chance of readers (and returns) you’ll have to do some [...]
A contractual obligation
Looking from a tall city window I see the uniform shape of panes in the building opposite. Each gives me a little scene (of desks, chairs, shelving and cabinets) in a cookie-cutter tableau. I see a world of difference between these offices and my humble desk at home. It’s a distance from ‘business’ that is [...]
A big change
‘The book of my enemy has been remaindered / And I am pleased,’ wrote Clive James in his 2003 poem of the same title. Ten years ago, the remainder table was considered a literary backwash. It was reasonable for James to use it as a place to celebrate the failure of a literary foe. But [...]
Your work could be special at Penguin
‘This is possibly a golden age for a book publishing model,’ says Ben Ball, Director of Publishing, Penguin Group Australia. He’s referring to digital-only distribution of long form work. At Penguin they’re called Penguin Specials. As the website blurb says they’re e-books, ‘designed to fill a gap… to be read over a long commute or [...]
‘Community’ or ‘Crowd’?
As a writer and adorer of our motley English language I do like to amuse myself with the origin of words. For example, in English we have many lexical twins and triplets. Like ‘guts’ and ‘courage’, or ‘ask’, ‘question’ and ‘interrogate’. Their meanings are similar but their origins differ. I like to know these facts [...]
Tweet like it’s 1999
Writers’ lore states that though writing for publication is a challenge, the bigger challenge is in promoting your published work: getting sales and readers. Without the support or contacts of a big publishing house, promoting your work as a self-published writer surely has to be harder. I imagine self-published writers as lone hitchhikers, holding their [...]
Let’s take MONAment to inspire your inner entrepreneur
Last weekend I wandered the muted rooms of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). Well, I say ‘Hobart’s’ because it’s located in the outskirts of the city. But technically it’s not Hobart’s. It’s David Walsh’s. He’s the one who conceptualised and funded it. He’s the one who gathered experts to work with him [...]
Crowd-funding is the new black
Life is peppered with turning points – those ‘ah-ha’ moments, or forks in the road. In my first post I wrote about a turning point I’d had at the Wheeler Centre last year. It was when I finally realised that the traditional publishing models were floundering, and that I would need to find new ways [...]
The future of long form: an odyssey
There are times when I know I am sitting at my desk – grounded (in a very gravitationally fulfilling sense). Magpies warble and school kids occasionally wander outside. I can smell the echoes of tea and toast that started my day. I am well and truly here. And then I start to work, and to [...]
