Slashdot Mirror
Tad Williams To Release To Web
H.I. McDonnough writes "Tad Williams, author of the near future sci-fi series Otherland and the fantasy series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn will be releasing a new fantasy series on the web. From the site:
"Shadowmarch is not going to be simply a novel to download. It will be a serial story -- episodic, presented in regular installments more like a television show, that can either be downloaded and perused at leisure (even printed out) or read right on the site. There will be art, maps, and background history of the world, all available as part of the package."
I don't know if any other major author has tried this. You can read the free prelude on the site at http://www.shadowmarch.com." The whole she-bang is supposed to launch June 1. But I will say that this looks more like what I think the online publishing will be like - less like King's "The Plant" idea, which was still dumb, IMHO.
I haven't read any of Tad's work, how does he compare to Robert Jordan (Of the Wheel of Time cycle), who's got a legion of fans addicted to his lengthy tomes?
I am a convert.
I truly believe that Open Source is the only possible future for all forms of intellectual property and creation.
I think that the only moral form of creative writing is that which is free. The publishing houses are the software houses of the writing world, and Penguin and Bertlesman are it's IBM and Microsoft. If writing is to become a truly creative medium on a par with programming, it must cease to be the creation of a single man, and become a chaotic mess, a maelstrom of conflicting ideas united by aim.
Open Source writing already exists in a limited form on newsgroups, but it is breaking out of this ghetto and into the world of the mainstream. The publishing companies are running scared.
I shall become the Stallman of the publishing industry, resolute in support of Free Literature. I urge you all to do the moral thing, and refuse to buy books, which are just monopolies. Books are fascist, for they make writing property and bind it in covers of steel.
Fight for freedom, and we will see a free publishing industry based around the Internet, much like the software world.
On a different note, I wish Williams would hurry up and finish the Otherland series so I can stop buying the damn things. I don't like them anymore, but I feel that I've already invested so much time and money in the first 3 books that I have to see it through to the end.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
ok, reading news, whatever, etc, is great on the web, but as it has been discussed w/webpads, it is not a great way to read an entire book.. Sure you can print it out, but that reminds me too much of reading research material for 20 page papers..
;)) why would I want to sit in front of the computer even longer?
:(
:)
I like to spend time away from the computer doing leisure activities (reading, smoking pot, whatever
I think that it is great that people are expanding to the net to do these sorts of things, but w/the way he is talking about setting it up (installments) that would just make it difficult
I say, publish the damn book really cheap and then let us read it
One of the strongest facets to the Gutenberg project, in my mind, was that you could read all of Ulysses by gophering to the site, in one sitting.
Unless there's real monitary reasons, I'd be much more willing to release whole stories instead of episodes.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
and Penguin and Bertlesman are it's IBM and Microsoft.
Shurely a stoodint of Inglish wuld noe it's "its" and not "it's". </grammar_nazi>
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
I haven't read any of his earlier works and I still need to finish the series (4th of 4) just came out ... Some may disagree but I think Otherland is incredible - cyberpunk, mythology, fantasy, sci-fi all woven into the epic - most of the action takes place in a virtual reality world where visitors are hooked into physical life support systems while they explore online realms that vary as the limits of imagination, all vividly detailed ...
AZspot
Somebody marked that article offtopic?
Jebus! Get a clue. I'll spank you in meta, you bad moderator you.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Sea of Silver Light is hitting stores this month. Should already be out in the US and out in the UK next week. Prelude is out at tadwilliams.com Chapther 1 is displayed at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com
I can't believe I just blew my mod points before reading this off topic drivel. This venture has nothing to do with open source, it's a closed IP commercial project.
Good luck with the degree, I think you'll need it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I think the concept of serialization is interesting though, get you hooked and then jack up the price (as it were). But, it has been done before in 19th century newspapers with Dickens or Conan-Doyle, and I predict that this may prove to be as popular today as it was then. (Whether or not these stories are of any quality will prove how enduring they are, though.)
But thats the internet in a nutshell isn't it? Try anything once...
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crazy dynamite monkey
How did this get up to a 3? It espouses Open Source writing? So writers are not allowed to make money from their efforts? I know that the publishing houses suck just as the music and software publishers do. It's a fact of life. The writers still need to make a living and since epublishing still sucks that means print is their best option. If I had mod points this would be marked troll.
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crazy dynamite monkey
...was that it didn't really take into account the realities of digital media. The two big problems are cost vs. value, and the potentially ephemeral nature of digital documents.
Sure, I paid for the first installment, and enjoyed it. The projected final cost of the novel was between $15 and $25 though--far too much, in my opinion, when you don't recieve a nice hardcover volume. If you expected to print out the work, even at the modest cost of a nickel a page your total would be between $30 and $40.
Reading online is all good and well, but I think almost everyone can agree that it is easier and nicer to have hardcopy for literature. This means that the cost, at minimum, must be lowered to the point where people can realistically print it out for the same cost as the hardcover.
Second, The Plant didn't take into account the fact that people download files, then accidently delete them, or change computers and forget to transfer little things between them, or simply are lazy and want to download again for each location they access from. Should people who have paid for a copy and lost it (much easier to do than with a book) be forced to pay again? This fact was not taken in account when the pay-through percentage was calculated.
Hopefully Williams is addressing both these problems-no word yet on cost, but it appears that there will be a login system to access the online version, rather than a pay-for-play download of the serials. This, at least, is a major improvement in my mind.
If the online serial is anything like Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, it will be well worth reading. Tad writes wonderfully rich stories and covers character development and depth better than many fantasy/sci fi authors. Ranks right up there in my mind with the Pern stories, the Book of Swords stories, and WoT books.
gopher? such a thing has never existed, i think you mean the world wide web, or internet, as i call it.
Also, what sort of formats will he be dealing with? Will it be a nasty IE-only site loaded up with Quicktime and Flash5 movies? If he makes it downloadable will it be in a nice portable format that I could use in my Rocket eBook, for example? That's what I think of when I see "downloadable format". (FYI, I'm reading King's traditional new novel Dreamcatcher that way.)
Duane
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
All of William's work is amazing. He IS epic fantasy. Memory, sorrow, and thorn is especially remenicent of the literary style of Tolkien--it envelopes you in a musty, old world with a complete history.
Your point, also, is excellent.
Could you imagine if everyone had to pay $150 dollars to read Shakespeare or Chaucer? What would happen if all art and literature were bound by the shackles of 'the artists right to make a living' as the pro-RIAA advocates always say. This right lasts for 70 years after the artist's death. Where's the sense in that?
The fact that art can be monopolized at all is detestible. Whether in source code, in music or in literature!
Because the story isn't done yet when they start. That's the fun of a serial. It keeps on going, and it need never end.
yadda
WHAT??
How did what you post make any sense at all???
Writing needs to be open source??? Yeah, right! I think that kind of underminds the purpose of most authors - if you have a creative vision, then it is your creative vision - not anyone else's. If you so choose to share that vision with the world, so be it, I think that's great.
Perhaps you mean to "open" the publishing schemes, but there is no way in hell that writing should be "open" - that's not quite the way to write a coherent story.
On the other hand, nice troll. Look, you even got us to respond...
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
So I'm really looking forward to this little piece of happiness. Be it news, commentary, discussion, or fiction, I prefer reading from my computer screen to letting my hand cramp trying to hold up a magazine or a paperback.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
This is the last of the four books in the Otherland series. I just called my local Borders and had a clerk pull a copy off the shelf to hold for me. I have been waiting for this last book in the series for almost two years! BN.com says that the book comes in 4-10, Amazon just says published in April.
Another wanker with a half-thought idea.
And how are you going to feed your family or pay for that fancy degree from princeton with all that free writing your doing? Oh.. wait.. never mind you must have money already!
Jeremy
What's everyone's predictions on how this is going to turn out? Even with all the multimedia, pictures, etc. that Tad is going to include along with the story text, do you think people are actually going to pay for it?
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
We also don't know alot about how Tad writes, I'm thinking that the design of the site will make it easier for him to produce text thus he will have lower effort. (No attempt at one stream of story telling.) Plus again money effort, Puting a complete work the size of a Tad Willams work must invole a few years of work on his part so Episodic get him to market faster.
Grey (Chris Lusena)
It's a troll. Artfully done, but troll nonetheless. Use of the word "ghetto" is a major clue. Read it carefully - don't just skim - and you'll see that it makes no sense whatsoever.
Of course, it's an open question whether "moderators who skim" or "moderators who read carefully" are in the majority.
The Dragon Bone Chair (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn book 1) was quite possibly what got me into the Fantasy genre, and as such, I think very highly of Tad Williams' ability to write. From what little I've browsed of his web sight, intros to books, etc, he's pretty in touch with fans. Hopefully this online venture will be guided towards a sane, useful online format, and I could definately see him pulling it off.
The Belgariad was written by Eddings. Feist wrote the Riftware Saga. I loved both series, though IMHO everything Eddings wrote after the Belgariad was junk.
The Death Gate Cycle was amazing. I've been thinking about reading it again.
Two is not equal to three, not even for very large values of two.
Ok the idea of open source writing eludes me. If I understand the concept correctly you write a piece and then put it on the web for free in hopes that someone will change it? Thats all well and good but it kind of defeats the purpose of getting a message across. Not that this isn't already the case but who would want to read 6 million versions of Tom Sawyer all with a different overriding message and many about a completely different thing than the original?
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Williams is not the first 'major' author to publish in this fashion. JMS (Babylon 5's creator) published a serial novel to an online site called Bookface.com. Users religiously logged on every Monday as new segments were made available.
Bookface had a reading interface that was likened to 'streaming text'--it downloaded a piece of the book at a time, and as you reached the end of the segment, it pulled another. Sort of like the segments of an escalator.
The user interface surprised a lot of people--many skeptics were converted after they found that they had just read online for an hour without even realizing it. The width of text on the screen was designed to emulate the approximate size of a paperback book. You hit the spacebar to advance to the next page, like a visceral reminder of flipping the leaves of a book. You could search through the text of the work you were reading, or search against all of the books in the database. When you returned to a book after a prior reading session, it would return you to where you left off. You could leave annotations to yourself, anchored on certain text--think of it as highlighting a passage and adding a note reminding you WHY you highlighted it at the same time.
Unfortunately, the downturn of the internet sector clobbered Bookface. The company did have good momentum, partially because printing a trade novel to paper is a costly process (to address the assertion of another poster)--electronic publishing is a less expensive alternative, and it reduces time to market. Perhaps once the economic climate returns to "Sunny and Warm", the founders of Bookface will resurface.
Is Tad going to put up his chapters in E-Books format too? I want to read it on my PDA.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I don't completely agree.
While some intellectual property might be more beneficial if it were "open-sourced" (for example: software), I believe some should most definitely NOT be (fiction). Software could be contributed to by many sources to be improved upon, whether it is additional functionality, more efficiency, better user interface, etc.... Fictional works written by individuals should more-than-likely not be improved upon or rewritten by additional authors. (If this were the case, we'd probably have about 30 different versions of "Star Wars: ANH" trying to explain "the Force" and midichlorians.) Fiction should remain the property of the author and if they wish to charge a fee to have access to their works, then so be it.
If authors could not make money on their writings, do you honestly think that we would have any more (or at least as many) writers? (Of course, other than people who find that they have a free time after their current job and family time etc...) Sure, I have no doubt the Steven King would have no problem writing more, because he's made money already and can probably live off of that for the rest of his life (although I have no idea what type of lifestyle he leads), but any writer would never consider getting into this business if you can't make a living off of it. (Unless, of course, you have a sugar-daddy on the side. But how many of us are lucky enough to have THAT?)
Karma: NaN
Obviously so they can have the readers come back again and again to the site looking for the next chapter, constantly making more money for displaying banner ads on the screen for each visit.
Karma: NaN
why do these online "experiments" produce episodic stories at all? Why not release the whole story in one shot
Too risky. If you publish 100,000 words electronically, clever conclusion and all, then you've pretty much blown your chance of getting a conventional publisher to pick it up.
And if two fans pay for it then, ahem, share it with their friends, and they share it on, and on, then BANG, it's gone, and you've blown a year's work and a year's reward. The downside to electronic format is that the perceived copyright gets diluted rapidly once you're not getting it from the original distribution source, so it starts as copyrighted, then it's seen as fair-use-ware, then just another share down the line you're into the Napster zone where the content is pretty much viewed as public domain freeware.
On the other hand, episodic is a bad move considering micropayments are still on the To Do list. Did you notice that The Plant would have cost you $20 to read (of which 1/3 went straight to the credit card companies), plus the cost to print it out if you wanted a hard copy? The saps - bad pun intended - who purchased the early episodes must have had rather poor arithmetic skills. However, there's no indication that Tad has a better idea. At the moment, it sounds like he's just blueskying.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I have no problems reading electronic text. I've read quite a few novels via my old Palm Pilot Pro. The only hassles I deal with is occasionally having to reformat the text so its comfortable on the Pilot and dealing with the Pilot Pro's limited memory (which means creating multiple doc files and shuffling out the old for new to keep up with where I am in the story).
I have been suprised to find that I have no problems with the interface. I find myself just as immersed in the text as when I read a traditional paperback book. It is easier to carry the novel around and read it at oportune times. And, as a bonus, I get a book light for reading when it gets dark.
Others report having a hard time reading with this format. Usually the complaints center on the readability of the text rather than the reading tools themselves. After all, the Pilot wasn't designed as an electronic book - so its no suprise that some find the experience unsuitable.
Does that mean the end of paper books? I hope not.
I still like traditional books. There is still something about the experience of a book that can't be replaced by a glossy electronic device. And I like to have my book shelves populated by my favorite works - quite often hard cover copies of series that I particularly liked. Again, its not the same as a directory of file names... even if you do something Nautilus-like with a nice cover art icon.
I would love to buy a book and be able to slip out the included CDROM to load up my Pilot before placing the book in my library. But I suspect publishers would have little incentive to do this. Instead, I suspect the model would be something along the lines of buying hard cover books for my library and (hopefully) a reduced fee to download the electronic text.
This wouldn't be the end of the paper book. But paperbacks may become the casualty in this arangement.
Yeah, but the guy writes whole books in real life. Not serials. This is completely different for him.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
...less like King's "The Plant" idea, which was still dumb, IMHO.
Need to change "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" to "Editorials for Nerds. Stuff that matters". It suits this place a little better.
Bryan R.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
I honestly don't get it. Writers don't want a daily grind -- they want to write. If they give a good deal of people some joy, they want a reasonable return so that they can support their family, live in relative comfort, and write more. In the world of software, programmers aren't respected as artists. They don't receive a royalty for the sale of their creations. They're salary workers expected to come in to the workplace like a typical gopher, sit in a cubical, and perform some magical rites over a computer.
It seems to be pretty clearly an entirely different situation... But maybe I'm missing out on something?
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
Go to the library. About as open as I can think.
Tired of sitting at that karma cap? Start a flame war today! See just how low you can go!
when was the last time you did something that made half a million dollars?m l
http://www.stephenking.com/PlantNumbers_010101.ht
Ever since I read "The Science of Hitting" as a child, I've been eager to read more of his work.
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wcb
The "correct" English usage of "its" is wrong. That it is accepted practice does not make it correct. It's a stupid rule, and I'm happy every time I see someone using the incorrect, yet more logical "it's". Each time brings us a step closer to removing "its" from the language altogether.
</RANT>
I don't know exactly how Williams is going to work it, but publishing fiction on the web (good, commercial fiction, not just fanfic) is already being done. Clockwork Storybook is a good example; it's a SF/fantasy anthology of stories all set in the same city. They publish the stories on the site for a limited time, and then sell print editions. They're not getting rich, but it isn't a loss-leader, either, and the quality of the writing is damned good.
This respondent nails it. $15-25 for an ephemeral experience is just a rip job. The problem with digital distribution is that the greedheads that run publishing are desperate to take what should be a cheaper distribution technology and turn it into a cash machine. Now, some will object by saying that a movie is no less ephemeral, and has a comparable cost. Well, at a movie you're paying to rent a pretty unbeatable playback mode, giant screen and professional sound system. Whereas with digital publishing, the user gets stuck with the cost of the playback technology. A bunch of things are going to have to happen to make this kind of thing fly: 1. It's going to have to give an experience significantly superior to simply reading (reading online is a drag anyway except to kill time while it looks like you're working). 2. It's going to have to be reasonably priced and in a format where it's worth the effort to drag out your credit card (so when there's only one project like this out there, it's gonna be a much harder sell. There are a million things I could read, this one requires special effort ergo...) 3. It's going to have to leave some useful/desirable artifacts behind (since I don't get a book, I need stuff like fun icons or noises for my cptr, puzzles or games, posters or cards to print, SOMETHING beyond just the content of the experience). With a book I get, well, a book. I'm not going to shell out cash just to read something once. I question whether I would bother even for one of my favorite authors, let alone someone I had no special feelings for like Williams.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Or, perhaps, you mean that all writing should be "free" (as in beer). Because if the literary work is the "compiled product," the real "source" of one's writing, insofar as I can tell, is the collection of experiences of an author. I've already seen some responses here saying, "yeah, imagine if we had to pay for Shakespeare" or whatnot-- First point-- shakespeare was PAID for what he wrote, just not by you. Secondly, Shakespeare's plays and poems were not written in a write-something-and-pass-it-on fashion (unless you're one of those people that believe he didn't actually write anything). The "collaborative" elements that inspired his work came from other plays and writings that had come before him, world mythology and the history of civilization, and from his own personal experiences and trials and experimentations.
They did not come from a committee submitting literary "patches" for his sonnets.
If writing is to become a truly creative medium on a par with programming
Is this a joke? Are you also advocating open-source painting? If so, maybe you can help me get a paintbrush into MOMA-- I'd like to make a few improvements to some of the Picassos.
In short, if you really believe all writing should be definition be collaborative, please forward your Slashdot password so i can submit better informed opinions.
I kinda feel like this is a troll or I'm just missing the sarcasm.
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
"Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision. The fact of the matter is, since the beginning of time, you could buy a Picasso and change the colors. That's trivial. But you don't because you're buying a piece of Picasso's $&#**^% soul. That's the definition of art: Art is one person's ego trip."
- Penn Jillette
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I hope he puts out some of his other, earlier stuff, like "The Erotic Awakening of O" or "How to Love your Dog"...
------ 1001001
After the first chapter of Stephen King's The Green Mile came out, the next six months of my life were CONSUMED by wondering what would happen next. It's like being addicted to a really great television series, but even better! Serial fiction is the tops.
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
In fact, I think that Tad Williams is the only "fantasy" novelist to out-Tolkien Tolkien himself. His novels have amazing complexity, some of the deepest and best-realized characters imaginable, and Williams has even gone through the effort of writing several original languages to flesh-out his worlds.
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
Tad Williams is well known for going "over-budget" on his novels. Typically, they're HUGE, and each set of books he's written has taken close to 10 years to finish. You'd need an 8meg (or more) flash chip just to hold one of the volumes.
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
I wish Williams would hurry up and finish the Otherland series so I can stop buying the damn things. I don't like them anymore,
...but no, there was a reason it was at the Dollar Store.
I haven't read anything of his since picking up Caliban's Hour at the Dollar Store. I thought, 'hey, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn kicked ass! This novel is only a buck, must be my lucky day!'
Was that his only flop? I never read any of the Otherland stuff. (I'll likely download this serial thingie, though, it sounds cool...)
"Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I just got done reading the prelude, and I have to say it looks interesting. The "Blind King" reminded me a bit of Lovecraft's "High Priest not to be described, which wears a yellow silken mask on its face." :) The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy kicked ass, so with any luck this will, too.
-SatanicPezDispenser
--
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
http://www.jackiereaper.com
The gist of MSoT is, what happens after "they lived happily ever after"? The novel starts with the death via old age of Prester John, the land's beloved king who, in legend, slayed a dragon and built his throne from its bones. The king's sons start a struggle for the throne, but the real story follows a scullery boy named Simon as he flees the castle and "dark forces" (oooh) that are pulling the strings.
It's all pretty basic Joseph Campbell stuff, except that there is no blind "here's the archetypal hero, here's the archetypal bad guy" stuff. The characters of MSoT (and there are a LOT of them) are all very deep and complex; Tad Williams is clearly aware that from each character's perspective, the story being told is their own.
In fact, this storytelling tendency even gets Williams into a little trouble. The first volume of the "trilogy" is enormous. The second (and fastest-paced of the set) isn't quite as large; the third is twice the size of the first. In paperback, the third is simply sold as two gigantic paperbacks. There's an amazing amount of story stuffed into this simple premise.
There have been rumors of Tad Williams doing another set of novels in the MSoT "universe," and I know of one additional short story set as a prelude to MSoT. Shadowmarch might be this additional set of novels -- "Qul-na-Qar" sounds like a city right out of MSoT, and the Twilight People are probably the Sithi. Maybe.
A couple other things: I haven't been able to get into the sci-fi epic he's spent most of the 90's working on. Sorry. VR fiction just doesn't do much for me after Snow Crash. But I really want to give it another chance.
also: Serial fiction rules. For six months I was absolutely GLUED to Barnes & Noble waiting for the chapters of Green Mile to come out. It is so great to have something to look forward to so much every month. Remember when X-Files was at its height and you couldn't wait to see each new episode? It's like that, but literary. This is gonna be FUN.
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
you've pretty much blown your chance of getting a conventional publisher to pick it up.
So you say. I argue: a) online distribution is not a bellweather for print success, nor do the audiences overlap to any great extent; b) the market for e-books of any format remains largely nascent.
The fact is that this is an established author, not King, granted, but he could get this book between covers if he wanted to. I'd be more interested in the experience of a new author using this model more. I think this is a legit road to print for a new author, building a demonstrated market for her work which only enhances its value to potential publishers.
illegitimii non ingravare
of the qualities of the medium. Serialization allows for content to be refreshed regularly, for audience to build through word of mouth as the series progresses. It is also widely accepted conventional wisdom that folks don't like to sit and read from the screen for extended periods of time, present company excepted.
illegitimii non ingravare
where did i get the o in MSoT from??? ah well
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automatictaxistopelectriccigarettelovebaby
I am with you. I think that the serial has a new lease on life with the distribution economies the web makes available. Its also a great way to tell a story if done well. The plodding and repetetive cliffhangers of pulp's hayday are thin gruel against the plotting of a Dickens.
illegitimii non ingravare
Wow, you mean you actually read all of Ulysses in one sitting?
Man, your butt must have been really numb by the end.
There is a good one: the afficion (passion) model. Let the big money folders retread their backlist. There is going to be an explosion of really good writing soon. It makes market for all the stuff that is to small to hit the radar screen of the big boys. First indie music, then indie movies, now indie fiction.
illegitimii non ingravare
Ummm...guys...this looks a lot like sarcasm to me. Take it down a notch!
Just keep it simple.
IIRC, Dickens was the first author with episodic releases. As soon as Dickens would finish a chapter, he'd ship it off to the Americas to be read. As for digital distribution, Orson Scott Card was also a precursor. Back when I was on AOL (yeah yeah) I would visit the Hattrack chat room. He had an area available to download a couple of his works. Usually it was short stories or working texts. However, new novels would be realeased chapter by chapter. When the book was sent to the publisher, it would be removed. I read all of Children of the Mind (final book of the Ender series) in good ol' ASCII format. I also read the first few chapters of (I believe, it was a long time ago) Heartfire, part of the Alvin Maker series.
:)
:p
I thought it was a lot of fun getting a chapter at a time. Being busy all the time I had an excuse not to be reading a novel all the time.
I don't know if Orson Scott Card has continued this service with his Hatrack.com website, however. I suppose I could look, but I'd also like to get others to visit.
> I don't know if any other major author has tried this.
Umm...before the advent of the ubiquitous Internet, we had these things called books. Yes, books! And way back in the 1800's authors did not generally publish their novels in the form of a single volume book. Guys like William Thackary and Charles Dickens, maybe you have heard of them, had deals with the magazines of the time (periodicals they were called) to publish their novels chapter by chapter, in the order they were written. You see, they got paid by the chapter. And the novel as it was printed was called a *serial* publication. Isn't that fascinating? They even had a few pictures in each chapter to go with the events in the story. That is *so* amazing! I just cannot believe how advanced those Victorians were.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
My favorite Otherland character? He is finally figuring out who he really is ... well, sort of ...
AZspot
The only way to determine what will work and what won't is to have the testicular fortitude to try it. I think that King's "experiment" had less to do with "testicular fortitude" and more to do with "making a quick buck". I'm sorry, but taking an outdated (20 years) throw-away short story (it was originally given as a Christmas gift to a few friends) and stretching it out until the money stops coming in is NOT what I would consider a serious attempt at publishing. Rumor among the publishing circles, by the way, is that he got bored with the story, not that the revenue model wasn't working. Regardless of the reasons, the fact remains that he stopped. Now all the people that did pay ended up with nothing but a few CHAPTERS of an incomplete story. An experiment in electronic publishing indeed. King's previous attempt at serialized fiction (The Green Mile) worked because the consumer KNEW that all 6 books would be available right on schedule. By stopping The Plant, King showed himself to be an untrustworthy businessman. Would you ever buy a book by-the-chapter from him again?
The reason this will work is that it provides a value-added service. Unlike King's Plant, which only offered an online version of a novel, this will offer maps, background etc. I much prefer to read novel on paper, however if there's a good reason to go online for it, we will.
The One,
The Only,
--The Kid
the liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perception
www.quantumheresy.com
On the Web it makes the same kind of sense; if the readers like it, they keep coming back to your site, and if they don't, you haven't invested in an entire book to find that out.
No it certainly wan't a dumb idea (the story wasn't so hot, but what else could he use for an experiment outside of his publishing contracts?).
If you go to his web site you can see the expense report for The Plant. He made a fairly nice profit (half a million) considering 1) it was a first-time experiment, 2) it was overpriced, 3) he botched up the mailing list that was supposed to announce new installments, so nobody knew to get the next installment, and 4) the story was a leftover.
He even wrote letters (used to be on his website someplace) to major publications that called it a "failure" saying that it actually wasn't a failure, he made half a million on a book that never even existed on paper! But of course the publishers declined to publish those letters. Wonder why?
I would definitely call it a successful first attempt. Imagine if he works out the wrinkles, gets some better marketing, and tries it with a better book (or in parallel with a regular paper book).
dude, your porn is weak
you call that the 'ass' section??
better find some without the bathing suit , bub
This might prove to be flammable and unimportant, but for what it's worth, I was really bored with the Death Gate series, although I more than liked David Eddings' books. Besides that, the Amber book series, by Roger Zelazny, is also very good, much better than everything i've ever read by Weis/Hickman...
- Make it idiot-proof, and someone will build a better idiot.
I'm sure glad that SK considers it a success. I'm sure that everyone who paid to download the story, with the understanding that a whole product would be provided, would disagree. But, he might as well make a lot of money at the expense of the fans.
And I don't think it was 'dumb', I think SK intended to stop at some point. He knew he had a flop of a story, but if he flogged it chapter by chapter he could eventually blame the lack of sales on 'pirates', instead of the fact the story sucked.
If he was doing this, for real, he wouldn't have guilt-tripped the paying users into paying more to cover the supposed 'theft' by the nasty 'pirates'. He'd have had a reasonably robust system implemented to make sure that people actually got the section they intended to download, and that replacements could be provided for a reasonable price (free, or $.05 for the bandwidth, etc) for people who lost the original copy.
Instead he set up a system with insane rules, knowing that when it screwed up, he'd be a good bit richer and wouldn't have to actually provide the product.
What a complete ass.
I think I'd actually prefer a novel that was serialised more in the manner of Dickens, because it will avoid the long wait between volumes, which can be as much as two years with a high quality work like George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.
Anyway, I enjoyed Memory, Sorrow, Thorn, so I'll definitely give this a look. (I might even change my mind about not reviewing e-books...
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
One other mistake he made was using percentage of downloads paid as the benchmark. He should've used his profit margin as the benchmark (i.e., I want to make fifty cents of profit for every dollar spent on web hosting and bandwidth, or something), or absolute profit (I want to make one million on this ebook or I won't do another one). If he reaches his goal, who cares how many people have copies of the story? And he should've put something in the PDF itself reminding people to pay if their friend gave them a copy, just on the first page or something. If 1 out of 1000 pays like this, that's pretty good considering copies between friends doesn't cost him a penny.
But I still hope other authors follow his lead and continue the experiment.
Hmmm... I studied Thomas Hardy for my final secondary schooling examinations, and also read some Charles Dickins, and in their time they wrote for deadlines to have their 'phases' published in literature journals. Then with the advent of novels and more freely available print, many wrote for complete publishing, and Thomas Hardy re-edited some of his works for novel print.
In some of Charles' works, he introduces a character near the end of a phase, and then they never reappear! After meeting that deadline, he changes part of the direction of his piece.
Character development is very important in Fantasy-Fiction, so let's hope that Tad doesn't make that mistake - AND isn't forced to write to too strict deadlines.
The full circle of change in writing attitudes or behaviour as different mediums for print appear is quite fascinating.
Rich
gopher? such a thing has never existed, i think you mean the world wide web, or internet, as i call it
I hope that's sarcasm.
chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Bejayzus, english major must be laughing his socks of at all the others who replied.
This wasn't a troll, it was a joke, and a damn funny one at that but perhaps people on here are so blinkered by FREE this and FREE that, that they can't see it.
Thankfully, since I started reading Slashdot, it and similar sites have helped to open my mind, but this has usually been achieved by my viewing of the closed-minded fascism present here.
I'm afraid this community is stagnating now with a very static mindset, and it rarely expands my knowledge or intellect anymore.
Think outside of the box, or you are no better than those who would sponsor legislation such as the DMCA.
-------------- Russ
Conscience? Is that *still* in the dictionary?
The "correct" English usage of "its" is wrong. That it is accepted practice does not make it correct. It's a stupid rule, and I'm happy every time I see someone using the incorrect, yet more logical "it's".
Bzzzzt. Sorry, thanks for playing though. Its is a possesive pronoun; pronouns aren't modified by the genetive ending ('s). If we apply your 'logic' than it should be he's instead of his and I's instead of mine, and so forth.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
...go here: http://www.clockworkstorybook.com. These four guys have been posting monthly and now more frequently (daily) stories and installments for over two years now. They are working to have 12 books published by 2002. They know how to make this online publishing work. They've built a fan base, with whom they regularly interact, provide maps of their fictional setting, maintain an easy to use site, and write great stories. You should really give them a try.
Small followup:
Bzzzzt. Sorry, thanks for playing though. Its is a possesive pronoun; pronouns aren't modified by the genetive ending ('s). If we apply your 'logic' than it should be he's instead of his and I's instead of mine, and so forth.
The 'logic' you mentioned would apply more in (here I'll use some technical terms, since you seem to value that) agglutinating languages (such as many Finno-Ugric languages), or in polysynthetic languages (such as most Eskimo languages), but it generally doesn't apply in inflectional languages (such as most Western European languages), and can't apply in isolating languages (such as Chinese).
"It's" is more technically correct
If you'd like to learn some accurate technical things about languages, I suggest you check out what the Linguists say: http://www.linguistlist.org. Afterall, they spend a bit more time thinking about this kind of stuff, and they use a little more empirical data than their own opinions.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Posted by Hemos on Monday April 09, @11:45AM
from the cool-new-series dept.
T. Roche writes "Tad Ghostal, host of the near talented talk show Space Ghost Coast To Coast and the children's series Cartoon Planet will be releasing a new comedy series on the web. From the site: "The World Wide Space Ghost is not going to simply be another web page. Oh, no siree, Bob. It will be an epic adventure -- (Zorak: Stupid!) exciting interviews, presented in 30-minute installments more like a television show, that can either be downloaded (Zorak: Stupid!) and be watched at leisure or viewed right on the site. The fun doesn't stop when the Ghost is in the house! (Zorak: Stupid!) Are you done? (Zorak: Yeah... I'm good.) There will be cake, party hats, and pictures of me, Space Ghost, all available as part of the package. It can't miss, kids." No siree, Bob? Who talks like that? Anyway, I don't know if any other major superhero has tried this. You can see the super inviso-page at http://www.ghostplanet.com." The whole whiz-diddly-bang-diddler she-bang of a good-ole-time-ruckus is supposed to launch June 1. But I still say that this looks more like I think the online interview will be like - less like Slashdot's Bash The Guest idea, which was still dumb, IMHO.
For want of a more eloquent reply, what can I say apart from "wow". I'm eagerly awaiting the final book in the Otherland series and thoroughly enjoyed Tad's previous fantasy stuff. Can't wait, this should be very cool. It looks like he's funding it all himself too which is cool to see, finally an author willing to risk going ahead with something like this. I'll certainly be coughing up to read more of this story.
Hrmm. I hope you're mistaken. A book printed is printed "for keeps" as well. I just find the idea of electronic distribution too compelling to let it rest in the hands of the big houses. E-rights are separable and should be negotiated in this light, but unless you are SK or someone of comparable stature, this is problematic.
The argument I am making, I'd like to see made, is that the new distribution model dramatically alters the value proposition the big publishing houses make for authors, but this has thus far had no impact on the status of authors in negotiation for their IP. The production, inventory and distribution costs have essentially vanished and with no impact on rights valuations; the situation is precisely comparable to that in the music industry. The only value-add publishers provide is editing and quality assurance, effectively noise filtration. Against this the terms of the typically first-time novelist's contract are profoundly insufficient.
Big publishing has only recently allowed its accounting procedures to be audited by a professional association of American writers and they found gross negligence and outright fraud, with costs being inflated in order to ensure that little or no royalties would be due. It is quite common for new authors to be required to reimburse the publisher a portion of their advance. Perfectly criminal, IMHO.
I shamelessly invite you to have a glance at scripsi.com in a week or two.
illegitimii non ingravare
I enjoyed the comments, suggestions, and the many kind remarks about my work. Thanks. The suggestions in particular have been noted. We want to make this the best site we can create (which also means "we can afford".)
The reason for writing an episodic series like SHADOWMARCH is very simple: I already write novels, so I thought it might be interesting, fun, and challenging to try doing something different. During the years of my professional writing career, I've also started up an interactive television business and co-produced video and film projects, all of which were funded by money I put up myself. (And none of which have made me any profit. Oh well.) It's nice to experiment. Change is good.
I also like working in different ways. Back in my theater days, I loved to do improv. I like spontaneity. By the time I publish a novel, even if it's only part of a larger story, I've had months to think about it, rework it, change it. There's not really a practical way to write installment fiction for ordinary publication unless you're Stephen King and can convince a publisher to let you do something like THE GREEN MILE. But I'm not Stephen King (an arrangement that Steve must wake up every morning saying "hallelujah!" about.) And even GREEN MILE is more like a regular novel than I'm interested in trying here. I have -no idea- where the plot of SHADOWMARCH is going and that makes an exciting change.
I'm not doing it to make money, although I'll be very pleased if I do, and can only afford to -lose- money for a while. In fact, I can't imagine anyone doing online fiction at this point in time with money-making as a primary goal. Yes, Stephen King made half a million, but he makes a huge amount more than that with any of his regular novels, which don't take any more time to write.
So I'm doing it mostly because I want to. I hope people will like it.
We (I'm now speaking also of the four other people involved in getting the site up) are going to try to make something fun and involving. We'll make mistakes, I'm sure of it. There will be times when we're overambitious. But I can promise these things:
- We'll make it as easy to use as we can -- trust me on this: it's to our advantage more than anyone else's.
- We'll make the price as low and fair as we can. We've never done this before, so we're still trying to figure out how much work it's going to take from me and the producers, how much we're going to have to earn to support it, etc. I promise we will do our absolute best to make a price and stick to it, and create a payment system and stick to it.
- We'll be as transparent about it as is practical and sensible. That is, we'll treat our readers as intelligent people and keep them informed. If we have to change something, or we've made a major miscalculation about format or something, we'll tell the truth.
- Even if we've made a mistake, we WON'T suddenly up the rate once someone has subscribed. This seems obvious to me: a subscription is a contract. But if we've badly misjudged what we need to make to stay afloat, we may then have to offer a higher price at the next season-subscription. (As of now, we plan to run in six-month "seasons".)
(Remember, we're paying for this site ourselves, so if we make an error and underprice, or don't get enough readers, that means we'll be in the red for that season and paying for it out of our -- the "us" being me and my family -- own pocket. Contrast that with writing a regular novel where the publishers pay me before I even start, and ask yourself "What kind of idiot is this guy?" If you come up with an answer, let me know.)
I appreciate the interest here and elsewhere on the net. I hope some of you will check us out, make suggestions, get involved, and most of all, read the thing. Who knows -- it might turn out pretty good...
Tad Williams
Goodness no! You mean that applying logical rules to the language might result in even more changes? I take it all back then! English as it is right now is sacred and immutable!
Good ideas on he's and I's though. Now you're starting to understand.
Oh, BTW: replying twice in a flame is the /. equivalent of thinking up a real "zinger" long after all the other kids mocked you and kicked you out of the treehouse.
You can't compare Otherland with Wheel of Time (WoT). They are different genres.
If you want to make a comparison read Memory, Sorrow & Thorn (MS&T). I'd have to say that MS&T is the best series I've read. Here's why:
MS&T is a creative work in my view. It really get's your imagination going. It's like you're watching it in real life as you're reading. There is just something about it which makes it feel like it is a higher quality of writing rather than just an exercise in churning out novels.
While I really enjoyed WoT I think that Jordan has flogged it to death. While it's always a pity to reach the final book of a series you really enjoy; I think that's preferable to being bored to tears by it. The creativity of a writer has to be judged by what he writes and Jordon has only written one series and it just keeps going and going and going. In fact I'm beginning to feel the same way about Wot as I ended up feeling about Dune. I'd say that Jordon is a modern day Eddings whereas Tad is closer to Tolkien or Gibson.
Tad has produced three series of books that are quite different. I think this is a testimony to his creativity. Also as I said above I felt that the literary quality of MS&T was better than other things I was reading or had read in that genre at the time.
On the other hand I found that Otherland stretched my patience a bit. I really enjoyed it but part of that was because I have an interest in virtual 3D worlds but while it was good I think he wrote too much in order to get his ideas across (ie. I'd have to say he rambled a bit). However conceptually it was a joy to read.
So in summary. If you like fantasy then Memory, Sorrow & Thorn is a must read ! IMHO
Subscription to Shadowmarch makes a lot of sense for a new paradigm. I'm a big King fan and I DID do the "show up at the bookstore every month on the 28th" game with his Green Mile. (He says he had no idea how that would end, just like your Shadowmarch! I was afraid it wouldn't be good for that reason, but the ending was dynamite.) However, King's process for Ride the Bullet was just too complicated even for a reasonably computer-savvy major fan. You had to download the reading software, and I tried, but not only did it never download for me but also they charged my credit card anyway! Then you had to pay every month for a new installment to download.... they are saying people did it but then didn't read them. I guess it just wasn't enough like a book. We wanted a book. If Shadowmarch is a passworded pay Web site, like Stratfor.com, I can deal with that. I've already done it, I know how, and the technology is robust, unlike that reader software that would not download and also is new to me. So good luck! I'll be supporting it. Also, congratulations on your new Otherland volume, which is supposed to be on my porch right now, according to the UPS tracking. Shebe