Would you like a book with that?

A couple of weeks ago an octogenarian friend of mine asked to read some of my writing, ‘None of that Internet stuff though,’ she said, swatting the idea away with her hand, ‘only real writing.’ She is a little old-fashioned, but the truth is octogenarians aren’t the only ones who value a printed page. At this year’s Emerging Writer’s Festival I heard three young writers express their desire for a real book to, ‘show Mum and Dad’. On hearing this, audiences giggled nervously. E-books seem such a given these days that there’s something a little naughty in the desire for print. With the demise of the newsroom, the fracturing of traditional publishing models and the ongoing evolution of digital communications I have accepted that print is not a place my byline will often be. But what I haven’t considered is that while the digital world evolves, so does the physical. The field of print on demand (POD) has recently made a nice addition.

Many writers are aware of POD outfits that produce a book in a cost effective way (for example: blurb.com and lulu.com). Just like an e-book, these outfits generally allows you to prepare and upload your cover and content. You then pay a fee for the cost of printing. You can print as few or as many copies as you like. And in a short while they will appear at your door, ready for you to show your parents and your elderly friends.

Before POD, self-published writers desirous of hard copies had to pay for print runs in the hundreds.  To this end, POD has been liberating. But whether it’s three or 300, POD doesn’t help to resolve the challenge of getting your work out there. Or does it?

The Espresso Book Machine (made by On Demand Books) captured my imagination recently. It looks like a photocopier retrofitted by an enthusiastic geek. But looks aren’t everything. The Espresso Book Machine prints and binds an entire book in minutes and has mobility due to its size. Thus, Espresso Book Machines are popping up all over the industrialised world. For now they seem to be focused in bookshops, libraries and academic institutions.

It’s early days for initiatives like this. But their geographical and intellectual locations make these machines a potential boon for self-published writers. It will literally put our work within reach of readers (currently at libraries and bookstores). It could also enable writers to promote our work in particular locations that have both geographical relevance and social impact. This might involve a community you have written about, or a topic that affects that community. Or it could be targeted to people who are interested in your work simply because you are near them.

As the name implies these machines could appear in other places too. Like cafes! Readers who prefer our work in print could order an article with their coffee (both take the same time to produce). The reader’s choice could be based on word-count or time available (though the Espresso Book Machine currently requires a minimum of 40 pages).  In this scheme, local writers could be promoted.

The truth is that my folio lacks what my friend called ‘real writing’. The Internet was well entrenched when I started. The plastic bag of work I eventually took to her was diminutive. Air ballooned around the magazines. Were it not transparent, the bag would be mistaken as empty. She was very polite in receiving it. But I can’t help but wonder, would I have genuinely impressed her if I could take her for coffee, and when the waiters ask, ‘Would you like a book with that?’ I could answer in the affirmative, then dazzle her luddite-like ways with a version of the ‘real’ writing.

Did you feel that?

In Melbourne last week we experienced three tremblers. One took me by complete surprise. It was a 5.3 magnitude earthquake that made me wonder if I was back in Japan (I was there for the big one in 2011) and had me promptly enacting my Japanese evacuation plan. The other two sent waves of aftershocks across our media. Sitting at my desk however, I didn’t feel a thing. Two of our biggest print media players (Fairfax and News Ltd) announced last week that they must finally change their publishing models, to reduce their print circulations, to pay wall their online content and to restructure their organisations. All, of course, are responses to the new media landscape: an undeniable transformation of the way we consume content. Yet the wider Australian media was filled with stories of shock and awe. This surprised me.

Just days before the announcements I’d passed by the print-complex of Fairfax’s Victorian masthead at Tullamarine, The Age. My eye traveled up their bold, signature sculpture toothed with shards of glass. The shape was ablaze with inner florescent lights, and stamped with a logo that tilts its hat to newspapers past. The building was opened just nine years ago, but the shape of the signature sculpture – that of a rolled up newspaper – now seems positively twee. When it was finished in 2003 this homage to print media was already on shaky ground. New media was undermining the paper’s gold-leaved classified sections. Portals like seek.com.au and realestate.com.au were well underway.

Which is why I’m surprised by the surprise. We talk constantly about new media and how it is a change as significant to our societies as Gutenberg’s printing press was. Of course, job cuts are a part of the shock, and these are always terrible. I don’t question the shock and anger of people losing their jobs. But surely it was clear that the numbers couldn’t add up. These monoliths were now without classified incomes and yet were somehow providing news for free online. Did we really think it was financially viable for this to occur forever? That’s like expecting to pay only when you eat in at a restaurant, but feeling fine about getting home-delivery for free.

But what does it all mean to writers of long form non-fiction? Clearly, the chances of a job writing for such a masthead are unlikely. But we knew that already. Ultimately the shake-ups at these institutions are good news because they open the field up. Without these habitual mastheads readers may begin to explore new ways of accessing our work. Writers with more clout might now step out from behind the old monoliths and join us in the new media galaxy. These combined may bring more readers to our new publishing channels.

Though current reading habits are shaped around accessing free content, introducing pay walls changes this. Once asked to pay, some readers will look elsewhere for the kind of writing they prefer. And if it’s long form non-fiction, they might just look at options such as self-published articles, community funded reporting or crowd funding pieces that they want to read. It’s still a challenge for newer writers to get their work to readers, but the breakdown of institutions does chip away a little at the barriers to entry that have developed as organisations like Fairfax and News have tightened their belts over the past decade.

The loss of jobs for workers at both organisations aside, these changes do provide other benefits for emerging writers. Some of the expertise that is currently siloed in these institutions will now be out in the free market. A higher calibre of free-ranging journalist can only lift our game. Plus, they might avail their writing and publishing talent to help new publishing initiatives succeed (a good example of this is long form non-fiction writer, Dan Baum, who has signed on to help edit on crowd-funded and soon-to-be-launched long form masthead Matter.com).

The changes at Fairfax and News are the kinds of seismic shifts needed in the Australian media landscape to rattle writers and readers into the new media galaxy. Shifting these centuries-old tectonic plates may well mean good news for us.

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 think about the future of long form. The magpies are silenced, the school kids unnoticed. I might still be here, but the state of my mind has inversed. I’ve gone head-first into the screen of my computer - like in some cheesy BBC sci-fi show for kids. I’m not grounded in any sense, but floating within the interwebs in the most peculiar way. And then I am unmoored.

Thus, in this terrain-less place of zero gravity I have had to set up some space-stations of sorts; categories that that we can work within. They’re in constant flux, but necessary moors for efficient travels into the possibilities of long form. No doubt the opportunities will grow, but here is a list of the types of ways we can publish long form non-fiction as I see them now:

Station 1: Traditional print

If you’re a bit old fashioned like me, you get a kick from seeing your byline in print. (And it also involves the validation of an editor). But it’s a slow process and depending on who publishes you, your audience is limited. I won’t elaborate here, as we all know the basics of this model (and if you don’t, just get online to learn more).

Station 2: Traditional online

These publications are modelled on print (there’s an editor, and a regular publishing schedule), with the main difference being that the work is published online. There are generally shorter lead times, and bigger audiences (particularly if it’s not a user-pays site). But there are few online venues that publish long form produced by emerging writers. And also, many online publications don’t pay.

I’ll presume you all know how to pitch your work to editors (and if you don’t know, just google it). In this blog we won’t cover the practicalities of traditional print and online approaches. But getting your work to readers is getting your work to readers. So together we’ll combine a list of potential venues for long form non-fiction.

Station 3: Enterprise Journalism / Community funded reporting / Crowd sourcing

In this model you pitch your idea to a community of potential readers, and if they like it, they’ll commit an amount of money to fund it. When I say ‘readers’, I mean anyone. They can commit a few dollars or thousands.

As far as Community Funded Reporting; in the USA, spot.us is making tracks with this idea. It seems less popular in Australia however. (Last time I checked the Aussie equivalent youcommnews.com had stalled. Most activity is date stamped 2011. Not to mention that the only funded projects were pitched by established journalists Margaret Simons and Toula Mantus.)

Crowd funding (ie via sites not specifically focused on journalism) is certainly gaining some momentum. (See post Crowd funding is the new black) Using sites like pozible.com, kickstarter.com and indiegogo.com you can try to get anyone to fund a small portion of your writing project.

Station 4: Publishers funded by philanthropists

In Australia, The Global Mail was recently launched, funded by Wotif.com founder Graeme Wood. It’s early days for the concept of philanthropic publishing, which may mean the opportunities for emerging writers are limited. But we’ll certainly take a look, and report back what we find.

Station 5: Writers funding philanthropy

This model is not unlike enterprise journalism / community funded journalism with the main difference being that the funding goes to a charity (not you).  You pitch a story and pick a charity. When the readers fund it you write it, and when you publish it, your charity gets paid.

Station 6: Writing for free / Self Publishing

If you don’t want or need to get paid for your work, you can publish your long form article on your own site or blog. Once you have done this you can ask networks like www.longreads.com and www.longform.com to promote your piece.

Station 7: Entrepreneurial journalism / Self Publishing

For some, entrepreneurial journalism includes or is interchangeable with what I have described as community funded reporting (and vice versa). But to me the difference is that the ‘entrepreneurial’ aspect involves more business functions – like sales and marketing. Self-publishing your article as an e-book is a form of Entrepreneurial journalism.

I’ll be exploring all of these options (and more) on this blog. In the meantime, have any of you had any experience with some of the newer avenues of publishing non-fiction long form?