LitTAP Blog

Here are comments by a LitTAP participant:

“As the day progressed I noticed the trend more and more toward collaborative writing & discussion of writing.  The idea which disturbed me was others PARTICIPATING in the creation of a piece of writing.  Several times during the day the discussion included references to a trend which I don’t believe we can stop, which is the constant communication via cell/computer/texting/blogging, etc. which I have noticed includes communicating about your breakfast, bathroom/bedroom/kitchen habits, etc.  We seem to be without the ability to critique ourselves.  As in a hive or ant hill, we want to be constantly communicating.  However, that hive communication seems often more purposeful. Have you noticed how banal most overheard cell phone conversations are?  I’m not so sure inviting one & all to chime in as a writer works would be good.

Having some experience looking at copies of old manuscripts which had editing marks by the author[s] I agree it is invaluable to be able to see what happened in an author’s mind during the creative process.  But to participate DURING the process – ?  The voices that keep popping into my head are these: “Yeah, but – Mr. Poe – WHY a raven? – An eagle: now that’s a much more impressive bird, don’t you think?  Why not make it an eagle, Edgar?” and “C’mon, Bobbie – ‘whose woods these are I think I know?’  I mean – you’re only doing it for the rhyme, aren’t you?  Nobody would say it that way.  It’s ‘I know whose woods these are!’ and then you’ve only gotta rhyme with ‘are’.  Get with the program, Bobbie!”

I do not believe any writer working seriously would want collaboration of others unless s/he was familiar with their work and wanted to do a collaborative piece.  I think most writers know writing is hard, solitary and private.  LATER you want feedback – NOT during the creative process.  I SEEMED to me, and perhaps I’m being unfair, that the folks who were so fervently behind this concept were NOT writers, but publishers, editors, agents & so on.  I would be very interested in what other writers think.  I did hear similar grumbling around me from those who were writers.  The others seemed blithely confident that it was a good idea.

I hope I haven’t insulted anyone.  Perhaps I’m just crotchety in my declining years.”

Bob Stein, Institute for the Future of the Book

Talking to publishers — in order to keep doing what you’re doing, you have to make only incremental changes. Don’t have to do what he recommends — for the future.

Printing press — 1454. Took 50 years to put page numbers on books. SO, takes humans a long time to figure out how to use technology. Personal computer is only 35 years old. In middle of deep transition — how species communicate with each other.

When left publishing in 1996, needed professional programmer to do online content. Institute of the Book — MacArthur foundation-supported.

Ways of thinking anew about book, w/ tech.

Writing in margins, book + conversation. Book as blog posts in the making. Teacher working with class, annotating on piece — active engagement w/ text

Dorris Lessing’s Golden Notebook — comments in column alongside text. Proved value of asyncronous reading — didn’t have to meet all together in a physical space.

Easy to do, inexpensive. Examples, not online: Howl — text + audio, audio goes along w/ text (turns page as read). Emily Dickinson text — showcase all possibilities of text

Experiments — work well in a closed group, and if author is present. BUT, doesn’t work if you just put it up online.

“A book is a place where readers and sometimes authors congregate.”

“Old school” authors — engage with subject for readers vs. “new school” authors — engage with readers on behalf of a subject.

To publish online: need 1. distribution mechanism (Internet is great), 2. display (iPhone good, iTablet will be better), and 3. tools (DON’T have). Don’t want to publish five things, want to publish 50 things. CD-ROM — elegant. Vs. Internet. Locating content in a network — not that you could get it, but that it would put you in touch w/ others. Internet — connecting. And examples — easy to do, but might break! Not stable enough.

Looking to establish fair use for audio that we have for text. Found Bob Dylan lyrics — quotations are fair use, but included musical accompaniment. Copyright will be fought “in the streets,” depending on what people do, what happens in response.

Comment Press — will be available online at Institute soon. Way to present text, image/audio at once. But will be hard to commercialize.

200 years — post-Enlightenment — cult of the individual. Future — about collaboration.

I have a question for Mary Gannon, Editorial Director for Poets & Writers — who happens to be sitting next to me. Mary: How do you decide how much of your print articles to put on online?I noticed your online article on MFA Program Rankings contained much, but not all, of the print article — it was certainly more of a teaser, but made me want to go to the article to read the rest.

We post all of our News & Trends articles from each issue, as well as one feature, typically. The theory is to give potential subscribers a sample of the editorial content and also to post articles that are shorter and, therefore, easier to read online. Finally, we have a very writer-friendly policy, so we pay for electronic rights, and as a nonprofit we can only afford a certain amount. Regarding the MFA rankings article by Seth Abramson, we posted the rankings without the data and a condensed version of the article because, frankly, we couldn’t technologically reproduce the entire rankings/data chart online. And we wanted the piece online because we hoped it would drive traffic to the site and begin a conversation about the subject. If you only provide promotional copy to entice people to buy in print, people can’t fully engage with the content. And they may stop coming back to the site.

One Story — successful org uses tech to further mission. Only do tech that has a chance of revenue. Developed online Submission Manager — 100 mags use. Also developed online subscriber DB. Websites help publishers look more professional.

Publishing Genius — artifact is still important. Is Reads, Chapbook Genius, Everyday Genius. All are vehicle to get attention for book.

BOMB — started blog last Jan. Video, audio, podcast. From 5 to 10 person staff, plus additional interns. “Free-mium”: all interviews now online for free — BOMB’s rights (vs. literature — don’t have rights). Discussed payable options, not feasible for cost of doing, stats. on how would sell. Subs increased by 25% since putting up more recent content. Happened w/ mag redesign — a more desirable object.

PG — all except for books online. Don’t pay writers — use content to get an audience. vs. OS — don’t give anything away for free. If you give something away for free, and audiences don’t like that — they may think they might not like us. MB — OS is mag w/ website. Stategized w/ consumer mag — took content off website, put teaser on, got more subs. Smart to test, follow stats.

BOMB — also working w/ JSTOR (library sub. service, list of mags which you can access via computer — “like a library loan, but in cloud”). Online — BOMB doesn’t look like it does in print vs. JSTOR. Also — good to see changes over the years.

PG — for readers: several communities online for every kind of writing that you like. Important to find, become active, connect. Agree that no one is late to the table right now — no one knows what will stick. Electric Literature — uses all possible formats to promote literature (NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/books/28electric.html)

OS — in the beginning, got friends to give work for free. But pay writers for stories. Pay a little more for Kindle (do either by sub or by piece). BOMB — pay writers as well. OS — People wouldn’t pay for online content, but WILL pay for via Kindle! Like newsstand: you give them, they charge what they want.

PG — Blog helps us reach audience. OS — asks for feedback on blog. If they get a few responses, that’s a lot. PG — BUT, people might talk about OS on THEIR blog.

Maribeth Batcha: New York Review of Books — Had Poem-a-Day for Nat’l Poetry Month on website, brought people via Twitter.

Hypertext work — not showing up on mag websites.

CLMP website — has list of literary magazines online. EBSCO puts mags online to Amazon. Poets & Writers has magazine database.

PG — au. of chapbook novel worked hard, chapbook went viral. Got interview on Bookslut. Production company for Spike Jones read, followed up. What can writers do? Facebook, blog — PG au. used blog effectively, became active in community. “Uncomfortable deliberateness” to write blog so you can sell a book, but useful.

BOMB — got grant from NYSCA & Warhol Foundation to digitze archive. Website is a search engine for archives. OS — doesn’t have digital rights to archive, but is considering to do so.

BOMB — spend a lot of time trying to keep people on site — on bottom of page, “If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy this article.” Connect to more work.

Stephen Motika — seems like response has a lot to do with individual personality (i.e., Harriet blog on Poetry foundation, Ron Silliman blog, etc.)

Steven J. Tepper, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University

YouTube video — 58 million people have seen Paul Potts on “Britian’s Got Talent.” Root for pro-am — professional amateur. Vs. artists performing flawlessly for audience — our model. Shows that arts are not “dead.”

All in arts have operated in shadow of last great transformation in field — shaped by technology. 1909 — 365,000 pianos sold in U.S. Piano “was a musical hearth” in 19th Century. “Participation was all about doing.” In 19th Century, Shakespeare was “popular” art — performed by families. 1/3rd of pianos = player pianos. Era of passive participation had begun — radios, phonographs, movies, etc. changed from doing to consuming. From “thick” to “thin” participation — consume what someone else performed. Art orgs, institutions, schools developed to help.

By mid 20th century — participation = audience. People listening to events. 2002 NEA survey — audience participation = all about attendance.

Wholesale disengagement — young people not going to musical events, reading literature, going to baseball games. People who do things do other things, across all sorts of activities. SO, people are changing the kinds of things they do — biggest events, with biggest audiences, do not do best (i.e., Little League, Minor League baseball doing well). US rates similar to, sometimes better than, Europe.

Religious communities — engage in arts. Mainline churches — 20% have book clubs.

WSJ survey — 3/4 of college grads said moving to a place they want to live, as opposed to place for a job. Music is no. 1 activity for Gen. X & Y. Want “mash-ups” of art forms. 17% of young people want careers in arts — more than double that want to go into business.

UCLA student survey — students want to do more in arts.

Other surveys: 81% of Americans want to write a book. 33% of teens online have created something. 19% have created an online journal. NWU survey – 21.8 of students writing poetry/fiction. 86% — own creative work is very important to them. Survey: 52% discuss book, poem, story — vs. 90% own creative work.

Also — young people want to see creative process unfold. Why “Reality TV” is so popular. Plus, choice is important — exploration of the new is a cultural activity. Rhapsody — given the opportunity to listen to an unlimited amount of music, people take advantage of it. “Will lead to death of mass market.” Find niche market.

Also, breakdown of cultural consumption. Rise of the omnivore — person who likes Classical music will like all over kinds of music (except Country/Western!).

Second Life: 250,000 a day interact. 10 x the size as San Francisco. 100 million user-created objects. Average age = 32. $35 million traded in SL properties. Also, cultural graffiti. Terms: modding, wiki spaces, machinima, life catching, mob tagging, narrative overlay, etc.

12% — feel they are VIPs in 1950 vs. 80% in 1980. Avg. student in 1980 is more anxious than 85% of students in 1950. More overconfident, but more anxious.

Young people — better at engaging moment, but have a harder time finding meaning/purpose.

Have to understand social life connected to Facebook, Twitter, etc. to engage w/ them.

Narrative — important to understanding who people are and why they do what they do. To succeed, most have an understanding of own story.

Process — question about Yaddo, which does not want younger attendees making videos, blogging about time. Audiences want to know about process. Theater group made video of rehearsals, showed to audiences before performance.

Anyone who’s doing something wants to do it better — and gain status from doing it better. “The fact that they are in the game is so important — we have to deepen their engagement.”

Academy of American Poets: online since 1993, before Amazon and Yahoo, etc. 1997: launched www.poets.org w/ programming: poet biographies, games. Now: over 1 million visitors a month. One year — had Almanac, with new content every day, which set up current structure. Coding, structure easier, more automated.

Open Letter, 3 Percent. Press — 2 years old, 12 books. Idea: webblog — tell who Open Letter is, what they do. Now reviews, awards. Build support and community.

Billy Merrell: “The funny thing about technology: the more we have, the more it opens up to us.” Every development leads to further development.

Open Letter/3 Percent: challenge is time. Tough to keep up w/ new ideas along w/ publishing work. Would farm out work if they could.

AAP: less integrated than they would like us to be. 9,000 dues-paying members as well as subscribers — but both DBs aren’t integrated. Web Store and ticket buyers list not tied to Fundraising DB as well. AAP — done fundraising appeal (”help us buy a robot”) around automating for website. Also, once ahead of curve, now behind in some ways — “Do you wait for something to be cheap and readily available, or do you build something yourself and have to fix it constantly?”

Challenge: AAP website gets hacked! Big sites get scammed for vulnerabilities — recently hacker went through calendar on AAP. Google will take off search ranking if they find out. Can’t know of vulnerability until you get hacked.

OL: at university, started own website so as not to go through monolithic structure. Content Management Systems for publishers too expensive, not so customizable — so OL built own CMS.

AAP: a time when funders would give tech grants for website creation. Past that stage — hard to get funding for web 2.0. How to get funders to realize how valuable website is as program that reaches a wide audience. AND, how audiences want content delivered. Beth Harrison: “It’s not just a website, it’s a way of life.”

“Evergreen vs. ongoing” content — why AAP can’t add 200 bios. Each bio is a commitment to keep up-to-date into perpetuity. Google analytics — a lot of javascript online for problem solving. Billy Merrill: “Once you got so used to knowing stats that once you start making decisions based on that, you want it for everything.” Google can give you info. Web redirects — shows you who goes to which redirect — track sources. Billy Merrill — contact him for two links that explain (e-mail: bmerrell@poets.org).

Question: how much marketing, outreach is too much. AAP: newsletter — make easy to unsubscribe. As long as subscribers are growing more than unsubscribers, good for org. Manage staff marketing work via staff-wide Google calendar to make sure it’s spaced out. Can also ask for feedback as marketing — i.e., what ideas do you have? — follow up w/ fundraising appeal to lists, let audience know. Layer things on top of each other — provide both print and web materials to members/community. Used to think there’s no too much ,b/c you can turn it off. Be aggressive, watch traffic — when that drops off, you can stop. OL: reach out on everything — anyone who’s following in any way will see it. E. J. Van Lanen: “Try to be consistent, focus on one book/event at one time, with everything we do.”

OL: Use Google for mail, don’t get statistics. But follow website — starts small, builds. Main thing is to update each day w/ material that readers will find interesting — not only content, but explanation about what you do. Doesn’t have to always be interesting to whole audience.

AAP: count newsletter response via click-back response. Can see through Google analytics. 67,000 subs to newsletter — successful newsletter: 5,000 click-backs. Not accurate, though. Anyone can cut-paste to blog, but won’t count as statistic. Also, just reading text doesn’t count.

Gary Glazner — Bowery Poetry Club. Putting together shows w/ tweets. Launched webcasting all events live in Sept.

How use technology to fundraise? Beyond “button — pay now!” Online auction — works for some orgs. E-Tapestry — fundraising. Web-based. Nonprofit enterprise section of Google. Google — back-end resources. Geoffrey Gatza: online bakesale! AAP tried to make money via mobile phone fundraiser, didn’t work. Also, Giftworks from Mission Research — DB answer to Raisers Edge.

Spam — AAP doesn’t even get alerts, just hears from newsletter subscriber who no longer can get e-mails. Different in different cases — e. e. cumnings and “Sappho, Lesbian poet” can get blocked. Have to go through manually — usually school systems that block.

VPN — virtual private network.

All resources mentioned will be posted on LitTAP website!

Question: AAP — thought of members-only section. Beth Harrrison: “We want poetry to be free. People expect it to be free.” Explain to consumers — you want Poem-a-Day to be free, please help us. Premium to audio archives — $25 or more, can download a CD worth of poetry (”deep cuts from archive”). List that asked to donate first outperformed 2 to 1 over list that ask to pay once used. Psychologically — pay, have value.

E. J. Van Lanen: “Building an audience around literature as translation will lift all boats.” Working to create fan base.

The money Seven Stories Press is making from Kindle is increasing every month! Also: this year, Seven Stories has changed from a static website to a blog format, which allows them to “talk to our readership.” Seven Stories: important for publishers to be content providers online — start conversations about books. Publisher must start discussion.

BlazeVOX moved into e-books from a literary magazine because of author demand. Track numbers online of how well authors do in moving from magazine to book. Web statistics allow for a greater understanding of who readers are, what they are looking at.

Question: “free-mium” model — how does it work for publishers? BlazeVOX only started charging for books in 2005, after five years of publishing. Operating in a “gift economy.” Emphasis on getting books into hands of readers. Seven Stories — believes in conversation, though needs to make money to operate. The field is wide open — any experiments in getting books out into the world are still new, necessary. Does serializing of books online, online sections of books which has been effective.

People have equated possible audience you can get on Internet to audience you can really get on Internet! It’s all about connections.

Book is part of the experience — author and publisher committed to doing that, through online experiments AND book publishing, according to Seven Stories Press. But according to BlazeVOX, literary experience is no longer contained — bound! — in a book. With Kindle and other digital readers, reading will change.

Great quote, from Geoffrey Gatza on 1984 and Kindle, which pulled the novel from devices: “Violence was involved.”

Blogs can create community, help lovers of book tell friends — help foster experience. Help bring readers to events, according to Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer. Author is no longer someone who writes — has to go out and “gather an audience,” according to BlazeVOX. And tech can create virtual discussions online, according to Seven Stories Press — can have conversation w/ writer(s) “within” the text itself.

Can create directed conversations about a book (vs. social networking). Next great quote, from Lars Reilly on social networking: “I barely want to talk to the people I live with.” And, from a friend, “If you don’t have Facebook and Twitter as a publisher, that’s malpractice . . . you are not serving your authors.”

Seven Stories Press: publishers can connect readers to other books they may respond to, love online. Important to promote press as curatorial — “like a great old record store.” Must do that as well as promote individual writers/pieces as well.

Makes sense to know about “Internet Titles” — books talked about online, not available in stores. Also, sometimes easy to focus on a title that wouldn’t necessarily sell well. Really about getting readers to “try” the book — really about reaching out to a wider audience. Not so worried about quantifiable translation right now — though happy for e-book revenue.

Seven Stories Press: catalogue — went from print to virtual, to save money. Got responses from new readers, but lost a certain audience. And literary readers seems split between print book buyers and a new online generation — must reach out to both camps.

BlazeVOX: books cost $3 ($2,000 total). With many titles, can make revenue on small sales numbers.

Seven Stories: sent PDF of review copies — most didn’t want them, a few did.

Question: online as promotional vs. revenue-producing. Seven Stories: worst thing we can do is think about the Internet as strictly promotional — it HAS to be revenue-producing. Is still predominantly promotional, but starting to see revenue. Have to let the market to figure out a universal way to let an e-book sell — we’re not there yet at all.

The concept for today’s convening is to have literary organizations present their technology plan — how they’ve come to the place they are, what issues they have faced and continued to face, and how their organization’s mission is represented by their choices regarding these technology plans. Each panel pairs a small organization (comprised of a volunteer staff member or two, for example) and a larger organization with greater staffing and financial resources. Each panel is moderated by a member of the literary community, a knowledgeable individual who will shape the conversation and help to weave your questions into a stimulating conversation.

All together at Poets House — Kathleen is reading the wonderful bit from The New Yorker. Which is seriously funny!

More soon . . .

Here’s the Q&A response from Billy Merrell, Web Developer for the Academy of American Poets.

*****

1. How has your literary org changed over the past 5-10 years due to technology changes?

As the internet has become an increasingly valid and now necessary means of serving our various audiences, the Academy of American Poets has shifted priorities to embrace Poets.org as a priority program with transformative posibilities for reaching new readers nationally–much more than the bulletin board for Academy programs it was when the site was launched in 1996.

2. What do you feel new technologies offer you a chance to do that you could not before? What do you wish you could do, if you had limitless resources?

Poets.org is now our primary way of interacting with general readers–some of which know who we are as an organization, and others who may not know who or what the “Academy of American Poets” is.

The web also allows for free, interactive exploration possibilities, as well as more democratic curations of our content. If we were able, Poets.org would dramatically increase the ways through which readers can share and discover poetry, specifically through integration with third party sites and networks, as well as through on-site advancements in how readers can personalize the Poets.org for their own purposes and interests.

3. What are the challenges you have faced, and expect to face in the future, in terms of technology?

The proliferation of web-based publishing has made us question much of how we obtain and promote content for Poets.org. Increased permissions costs, as well as a shift toward exclusive web rights, will continue to be a problem for a presenting organization that promotes existing content rather than publishing new work.

4. What other literary orgs do you feel use technology most successfully, and how?

I am most impressed by organizations which carefully select technologies that are most suited to their needs and the needs of their readers–and then who work within the limitations of what they’ve chosen to offer something robust and original.

I’m impressed, for example, by how Two Dollar Radio distributes their catalogs digitally, using the clickable PDF format as an alternative to static (and expensive!) print.

Not only can organizations serve their communities at a lower cost, but they can share their innovative spirit, become an integrated and real part of their readers’ daily lives, and sometimes exhibit the less public sides of their work.

5. How do you see the literary landscape in 10-20 years from now, given the possibilities that technology is opening up for us. How do you think technology might specifically effect literary orgs?

I cannot begin to fathom what the landscape will be like in 10 years, let alone 20. So much will depend on privacy, copyright, and intellectual property law for me to be comfortable even speculating.

I do believe, though, that as readers grow more and more comfortable with rapid, superficial distribution of links, status updates, and reading recommendations, the curatorial value of traffic analysis will increase–and it will be easier than ever to separate the lasting literature from language and reading that takes up most of the day.