Are we writing too much to be reading?

I wish I could unplug!

This was the thought foremost on my mind as I read a write up in The Guardian, by Sylvain Tesson, about his new book Consolations of the Forest - a largely philosophical account of his six-months living as a hermit in a cabin in Siberia.

While he took the obligatory survival equipment with him on his retreat, he also carried a library of almost 80 books. As he mentioned in the same piece, for the first time in his life he was able to read a whole book beginning to end without stopping. “Always being contactable is the beginning of your loss of freedom,” he added.

How true!  If I could spend even seven days, in my own home unplugged from my devices, perhaps I could recapture some of that stillness inside which is so needed to create—to read or write.

The theme was picked up at The Literary Consultancy (TLC's) Writing in a Digital Age conference; when Alison Baverstock, course leader for MA Publishing at Kingston University, asked if we were all too busy writing, to read?

It’s a sign of the me economy we live in, one in which many of us —myself included—feel compelled to spend time recording our every thought, word, deed, spewing out our inner stream of consciousness in short 140 character bursts, into the ether.  (1/4th of American children have a digital footprint before they are born*) thanks in part to their overzealous—Facebook friendly parents.

But, when so much of one’s waking hour is spent simply amplifying our own voice in quick rapid fire output of words, is there anything else left to offer to  long form prose? And, is there any mind space left to just read?

As, Chris Meade, Director, if:book, a charitable company exploring digital possibilities for literature remarked at the conference,  “our lives are not disjointed like a stream of tweets, it needs some form of long form narrative” and I would add, both in the written and the read.

Michael Kowalski, Founder of Contentment a creative technology start up which specialises in solving problems to do with digital content production and publishing, hit the nail on the head when he said, “if you don’t have a writer’s chromosome you are more likely to be a reader.”

So what do you do if you were born with the defective writer’s DNA? What is the secret to just writing? (Or just reading?)

You could always resort to apps such as self-control, which once installed on your laptop can help you avoid distracting websites.

Else, eschew the laptop and embrace the joy of writing with pen on paper?

Or simply exercise that simple thing called choice? Resist the temptation of allowing the digital world to disrupt the real world? Shouldn’t just the words be enough?

* Report by the Internet security firm AVG

Can an Indie Author SEO her way to the Bestseller lists?

"The digital revolution has blown open the distribution of books--now it's all about visibility," and with that remark--among others--David Gaughran, author of Amazon bestseller Let's get Digital, sent the audience at The Literary Consultancy (TLC's), Writing in a Digital Age 2013 conference into a tizzy.

A sentiment echoed by Chris McVeigh-- he runs FourFiftyOne a digital publishing consultancy as well as seoforbooks--who said, "SEO is a huge opportunity for Indie authors to become discoverable" adding "it is not a discoverability but a visibility problem for many authors.

Which raises the question, does author success come down purely to the algorithm of discoverability?

The great thing about technology democratizing the publishing world is that size matters less than it once did. So does this mean Indie authors can SEO their way to the top of that Google search result or that Amazon bestseller list?

Well, it is not that simple.

You have to make sure your book is top notch - stand out stuff. So you have to pay attention to detail to make sure it's good quality, well edited content. No less than any commercial book published by a mainstream publisher.

Then you have to invest behind an eye-catching cover and a cut through blurb which resonates with your target audience.

But once you have a great product, and you've pressed that button and sent your book skimming across the electronic waves, what then?

Well then the visibility game starts.

In today's digitally plugged in age, where an average adult in the UK spends just under 17 hours per week online, and where readers discover eBooks mainly through online browsing, an Indie author cannot ignore optimising her online presence.

Which means, alongside setting up an effective online author-brand presence, you need to have a strong, implementable SEO strategy--i.e. feed the biggest discoverability engine which ever existed--Google. So that the next time a reader searches for the genre you write in, your book comes up (50,000 monthly searches for crime fiction alone.)

It's the first step--a real step in developing a direct relationship with your reader, which is crucial in driving sales.

There is no escaping a links based economy, but as an authorpreneur, I hold out hope for a passion driven economy intertwining with this too.

So, with my inner geekess completely in thrall, I am resolved to feed that algorithm monster, mind my metadata and make sure my online digital presence is seamless while complimenting my real world footprint.

But I am still going to have to write that damn book first!

Laxmi Hariharan is a content branding strategist & multi genre author. Find her at LAXMIwrites or @laxmi

Is Game of Thrones - The Red Wedding episode, the real thing?

How was it that just one single episode of Game of Thrones uniformly spawned the same reaction--shock and horror--the world over? 

Tweet after tweet, the same sentiment, not to mention YouTube clips of viewers recoiling from the TV screen. (If you thought the days of watching TV as a family were over, think again!)  Birthing the now legendary @redweddingtears, whose timeline solely consists of RT’s of outraged viewers' tweets and which at last count boasted more than 13000+ followers in 48 hours, I was convinced—first and foremost as a cynical marketer, and secondly as an Alpha Nerd—according to mashable who so labeled those of us who had read the books—that this was one big marketing gimmick.

Surely HBO had put in place a strategic advocacy platform, seeding key bloggers and influencers including setting up that twitter account to get this ball rolling? Then a friend  (thanks Ricc Webb) remarked, “it’s too genuine to be true. You can’t fake a real reaction like that.”

It’s true in more ways than one. You cannot replace the real thing, No amount of marketing can simulate honest emotions, or substitute genuine amazement or true need for something which adds value to your life. Be that something which eases the everyday, or simply that which takes you by such surprise that it results in a groundswell sentiment. Smart words can amplify, social media can help in transmitting the emotional virus, but at heart it needs to be 100% true. No question.

Is Kindle Worlds a pure content marketing move?

Fan fiction by any other name still reads wonderfully fresh. Fanfic as it is called refers to stories produced by fans based on existing plot lines and characters, often taking pre-existing story worlds in new directions. The grey area has always been the rights-holders point of view — people using characters and situations in ways that probably violate copyright. With Kindle Worlds, Amazon seems to aim at a platform to publish fan fiction, a digital publishing platform where writers can publish fan fiction under official licenses and possibly make money. Right now, the deal is limited to Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries — all from Warner Bros.’ Alloy Entertainment — but it promises more to come.

The content guidelines for Kindle Worlds, clearly states Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright. When you submit your story in a World, you are granting Amazon Publishing an exclusive license to the story and all the original elements you include in that story, you also give the World Licensor a license to use your new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to you. 

As an author—my spider senses tingle on reading this.

But as a marketer, I wonder if this concept is not a bold, experimental move?

With Kindle Worlds, Amazon has created a powerful content marketing, amplification platform. At a time when marketers are pulling their hair out over innovative ways to keep viewers/ readers/ film goers/ gamers engaged with their brand—well here is a platform not only completely dedicated to that, but which actually officially enrolls its most vocal evangelists, as brand ambassadors to write about the characters.

Here is a community where these high affinity content generators feed off each other, building on each other's ideas and elements, taking up the plot lines where the others leave.  A vibrant creative world, set around the show or game or movie of that world, which grows with each new story, generating new ideas for the original content producer or studio. Remember the World licensor has the license to use these new elements and incorporate them into other works without further compensation to the author. 

If and there are many big ifs here—If the community is nurtured carefully; if despite the fact that the content generators have to err on the side of caution with respect to pornography, offensive content –, though the thrill of fan fiction is that it is illicit and can take characters and make them do things that fit your personal fantasy in the first place, so lot of caveats here—they stay motivated to continue to write; then it’s an innovative experiment in getting the core fans to actually live and breathe these characters, and generate massive, self-propagating, word-of-mouth traction. The kind which delivers huge franchises, and ultimately big big money. 

Kindle Worlds—the way it is positioned today as a platform for new stories inspired by books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games people love—is a marketer’s brainwave and should be seen in that light. To view it as purely an editorial platform with the sole purpose of providing a voice for budding authors, is muddying the waters, though the connection with Amazon squarely places it there.

Either way, one more barrier towards content generators becoming content marketers has fallen, and the landscape of content marketing has changed forever. 

What is your red thread?

Every campaign that is successful is faithful to its red thread.

This is the life blood which runs through its veins. The spinal chord on which the different stages of development hang off. A tentpole to the umbrella of its creativity which plays out across the different media.

Today I drew mine. 

A reminder that the stars, planets and galaxies which pass me in the night are but temporary distractions. Space ships may pass outside my window, comets may streak by, shooting stars may rise to explode in a burst of starlight and black holes may try to suck me in, but I stay committed to that which binds me together. My writing.

What's your red thread?