Erstellt am: 15. 12. 2010 - 15:50 Uhr
Today's Webtip: Electric Literature
The last couple of decades have been fillled with the deafening screams of content industries in their death throes. We keep hearing about the death of (insert favorite dead media here), how terrible it is for the artists, how little money there is to be made, and so on and so forth. As a creative type we get to hear how little money their is to actually pay for the work they want done, and how those terrible pirates are taking bread off of my (our, your) tables.
Many newspapers have tried their best to reduce online jouralists to content providers, using that as a way to avoid union contracts and reducing pay. Book publishers have pushed to keep the price of ebooks about the same (if not more) than the cost of a hard cover, and things are just generally going to hell in a handbasket.
What we haven't been hearing about are the companies that have decided to take advanatge of digital dividends. The printers that have gone down to print on demand or just in time delivery. Publishers who have cut down the huge stack of middlemen in the licensing area and just distributed globally. Where are the companies trying to reduce costs for the customer while increasing the share that actually goes to the creator?
There are a few. Most of them have been in the music business, and many of them have had a massive fight on their hands.
One attempt at publishing from a new business model is Electric Literature. Here is how they describe their business model:
"To publish the paperback version of Electric Literature, we use print-on-demand; the eBook, Kindle, iPhone, and audio versions are digital. This eliminates our up-front printing bill. Rather than paying $5,000 to one printer, we pay $1,000 to five writers, ensuring that our writers are paid fairly. Our anthology is available anywhere in the world, overruns aren’t pulped, and our back issues are perpetually in print. We hope that this model can set a precedent: more access for readers, and fairness for writers."
They are also doing some interesting experiments in format. They have a series of short videos. Promotional animations not unlike Music Videos of yore. There are some nifty works, and it's an inspiring idea.