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| Subject: Re: Reading, A Lost Art | |
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Author: ~Steve-o |
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Date Posted: 10:45:28 06/10/01 Sun In reply to: TechnoAtheist 's message, "Re: Reading, A Lost Art" on 21:57:56 06/09/01 Sat >By the way, let me preface this a bit for those of you >that don't know me. Unlike Steve, I'm not doing this >for money. I'm doing it for money? So where is it? :) Granted, I would like to do this sometime in the future for a living. But, as it stands, I do it to keep myself entertained. >I don't deny that the web is a great equalizer. I >guess my argument is that we as a Nintendo loving >society seem to want the instant gratification of a >short comic strip rather than a well done novel. I don't know. I've been talking to a lot of different types of people lately and it surprises me how many of them pick up a book occassionally. Granted, there are those of us who grew up in a Scholastic Weekly Reader mentality where constant reading was encouraged and anything less than a book a month is lacking. But, there are more brainless novels out there, like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," that are keeping people reading. It's also my belief that Hollywood is rapidly running short of workable films. It's only a matter of time before the eye-candy appeal of films and TV runs out. I like to imagine that something similar happened in Shakespeares' day with the explosion of low-brow theatre. So, yes, people are more attracted to the pretty pictures in a comic strip than they are for a web-novel, but that's only because the idea of a "real" web series is still new. Think about it, what have we had until recently other than fan fiction, slash, or soaps on the web? Series like The Legacy, and writers like ArkAngel are fairly new, within the past two years or so. Nobody even realizes that there are free, regularly produced works on the web. Stephen King is doing a good job of working toward promoting writing on the web, but still isn't the image we're looking for. Without a major media attention we'll continue to write for ourselves and our friends. >Even a strip like Triangle and Robert takes >far longer to illustrate than it does to read. Naturally, but it doesn't matter how long it takes to do it. You can spend two hours lovingly detailing the colors on a strip but, in the end, if you end up with a big-nosed penguin and a borish fellow with sunglasses it's still just recycled humor. It's far harder to be original. T&R, for all it's simplicity, is unlike anything that's come out before, at least anything that I've seen. That's worth a lot more than the hours Gisele Legace puts into her strips. >Some time back, Carson Fire (of ElfLife) did a few >chapters of storyline where he wrote out the scenes. Frank Miller did the same thing for Ronin. There was more he could tell with words than he could with imagery, so he wrote out a few short stories. >One of the reasons that Sluggy Freelance is one of my >favorites is because Pete Abrams has the rare ability >to present very complex stories in small sections and >keep you interested. It also helps that Pete's characters are original, they don't smell like Hi and Lois or Bloom County. >The only other person I know of who can do that well >is our own Steve-o, who's chapters play out very much >like pages from a 50's pulp comic book, but you'll >never see his work get printed out and stuck to a wall >because it doesn't have "the poster appeal". Thank you, and I agree. It's impossible at this time to be a "successful" serial writer. There's no such thing. You have limited exposure and limited resources to advertise in. And if you run a free page it's impossible to pay for advertising. The best you can hope for is word-of-mouth and even then it's just a nicety to have more readers. But, you can't write with the intent of getting more eyes on your page. >The other thing is that Keenspot will never be >duplicated for serial writers. I don't know. I think Writing Tree provided a good model for how a literary Keenspot should work. Unfortunately, they worked so hard on membership and content that they neglected the promotion and advertising, so they lost money and folded up shop. The way the web is working right now, getting content paid for doesn't work. The subscription method is wrong, advertising is wrong. Eventually we'll need something on the order of a magazine format, where content is paid for by *real* advertisements, not banners. See, I worship Darren Bleuel, who saw a nitch and set out to fill it. I sincerely hope that they find another advertising model to keep them afloat. But, again, there's no way to get something like that started these days. But, as far as promoting writers goes, Bitbooks is a great service, but nobody's ever heard of it. It's great to have a button on the pages you listed, but that assumes people have heard of the pages that have the button. I have no illusions that there are more than three people who've ever heard of Christopher Ford that aren't in a newsgroup I'm in or are other online writers I converse with or don't know me personally. So without promoting Bitbooks, the point isn't served. What good is a service that hypes up your work if nobody's ever heard of it? >Unfortunately, the days when you could start up a web >company by just saying you're a web company are gone. True. But, with companies like Yahoo! providing host space for pennies, the cost of starting up a "web page" as opposed to a "web company" is much lower. That is assuming, of course, you're willing to put the efford into maintaining it. Phil Flora runs Bitbooks all by his lonesome, that's pretty impressive. And also far more ambitious than I care to be. I would love to start another Writing Tree. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do so. And, I believe, even if I did so, promotion would be a bitch. And that's what it all comes down to, innit? >Damn, I've rambled on again. I guess this is a hot >button for me. So what do you see as an answer? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Re: Reading, A Lost Art | TechnoAtheist | 21:46:50 06/10/01 Sun |
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