ONE LAST WORD ABOUT FREE CONTENT

All the free content that Kaelan bemoans, all the bloggers and citizen journalists and what have you… Well, like the writers publishing for free, they are all auditioning. They all dream of being recognized for their efforts and ideally, rewarded. That film review blogger with ten readers? You don’t think he dreams about taking a seat on At the Movies?

Twenty years ago, he would have given up because the path was just too steep. If you wanted to be a video journalist, you had to go to the right school and beg for a slot at the local station. Now you can buy the hardware cheap and head out and start reporting or reviewing or whatever. Upload it to your blog or YouTube, or post it as a podcast.

Wannabes aren’t the only ones posting free content. Consider the number of big name authors, journalists, and celebrities that maintain blogs. They don’t get paid to blog, but it keeps the fan base stirred up, keeps the readership going, keeps the fame flame burning.

Adam Carolla’s very successful morning radio show was cancelled when the home station switched from Talk to Top 40. Carolla didn’t miss a beat and came out with his first daily podcast the very next business day. Why not? The out-of-market fans that streamed or downloaded the show outnumbered the in-market fans listening live. In short, a solid fan base hungry for content. So hungry in fact, the new podcast instantly became the most downloaded podcast on iTunes. Over 500,000 a day. Carolla makes nothing on the podcast—in fact, it costs him several thousand dollars a month to produce—but consider the upside. When you bring a ready-made audience that big to the table, people pay attention. (He currently has a sitcom in development at CBS, the same folks that cancelled his radio show.)

THE BUCK STARTS HERE

Okay, we’re not Adam Carolla, but his example helps to highlight one thing. Why are the consumers of content, a.k.a. readers, given such short shrift in all the discussions I see about the so-called crisis? Which is weird because every dollar that flows into publishing originates in a reader’s pocket.

I already hear the moaning: “No one reads any more. We can’t compete with movies and the internet.” Blah blah blah. Stop whining and think, really think, about new ways to build up readership in general. A recent posting on an agent’s blog suggested a national campaign along the lines of “Got Milk?” It’s not a bad idea, and couldn’t hurt, especially if they have fun with it. Imagine a café scene with a dweeby guy making good time with a hot babe because he’s familiar with the novel she’s reading.

But we the writers can do much more. And by WE, I mean the not-yet-famous, under-published foot soldiers pounding the publishing pavement. The ones with the day jobs, writing in what little spare time we have, garnering a credit here and there and waiting to hear back from the half-dozen agents we queried this week.

Be honest. How many of your co-workers and acquaintances know you are a writer? When you get a story or poem published in some remote lit mag, how many non-writer friends do you notify? Co-workers? None, right?

Well, time to step up! Next acceptance you receive, tell them. Tell everyone. Open up your email address book and create a Notifications list that includes anyone who’d give you the time a day, and maybe some who wouldn’t, like that cute new receptionist up on Six. (You never know who might have a thing for writers.)

True story. A couple of years ago, I read at an Opium Magazine Literary Death Match. I’d invited some co-workers and they actually showed up. (One even confessed to writerly aspirations of his own, opening up a dialogue we’d have never had otherwise.) They brought some friends, people who would never even stumble into a reading.
Well, some of them still insist on showing up every month or so. I have to wonder if they’re reading more, too, if maybe the eight, ten, or twelve events they’ve attended have caused them to buy at least one or two books. Opium Magazine has certainly sold a few more issues.

What if that effect were multiplied by a thousand? Ten thousand? How many of “us” are out there? How big are our email address books, our lists of friends on MySpace and Facebook? How many dormant readers—that is, consumers of our products—can we individual writers awaken simply by sharing the fact that we write? How many more dollars might flow into the great monetization equation as a result?

AND?

I told you I didn’t have any answers. I don’t know where things are going. No one does. Until the future takes shape, it’s all conjecture and speculation. I like the NPR model, because it supports quality and generates commerce (or am I the only person to have bought a book or CD after hearing the artist on Fresh Air?). I like the idea of a small royalty that retroactively benefits the original publisher of a story. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Because for a writer, the answer is always the same, no matter whom we’re writing for, or how much we’re getting paid.

Sit down and write. Repeat as needed.

Read Part I.

By Andrew O. Dugas