Over the past few years, I have not been devouring books like I once did. Mainly, because I absorb and reshape so much online content on a day-to-day basis, that the idea of leisure time reading now seems other than leisurely to me. Which is lame. Thankfully, I fixed the lameness for a time this week, when I cracked open Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson, and kept reading until I got to his last, and most important, sentence of the book: “Free may be the best price, but it can’t be the only one.”
There are lots of interesting places in Anderson’s text to focus. One I’d like to address in more detail here is something Anderson calls “The Penny Gap,” which is a pricing model that changes the score.
“There are really two markets: free and everything else. And the difference between the two is profound,” Anderson argues. “If you charge a price, any price, we are forced to ask ourselves if we really want to open our wallets. But if the price is zero, that flag never goes up.”
Anderson’s book is well researched and offers lots of economic theory. In his “Penny Gap” section, Anderson points to George Washington University economist Nick Szabo and his ideas on “mental transaction costs.” Szabo looked at micropayments and claimed that such systems are “destined to fail,” because the cognitive costs are too high. Or as NYU professor Clay Shirky said, “In a world of free content, even the moderate hassle of micropayments greatly damages user preference, and increases their willingness to accept free material as a substitute.”
All of which is a terrific argument to go ahead and charge a fair price for one’s paid offerings.
I started charging for my weekly email newsletter in March and set the opening price at $1.00/month, or a quarter per issue. Is that price too low? It’s not too high. I chose one dollar because that’s the cost of a song in the iTunes store, and something that’s very easy to agree to, but what I’ve learned is price isn’t the issue when charging for online content. The issue is getting people to agree to pay at all.
So here’s what I’m willing to do to boost circulation. During the month of July, you can subscribe to Hungry for Gumbo for free. Your subscription will last the life of the newsletter. Simply send me an email (db at davidburn dot com) asking for the free subscription and I’ll sign you up. If you don’t like receiving the newsletter you can always unsubscribe, which is also free.
How does this motivate you to pay me for my writing? It doesn’t. But it may motivate you to share my writing with others who will pay.
I’ve been tossing around the idea that my writing, editing and publishing “isn’t about me, it’s about you,” for some time now, and I have to admit it’s a tricky concept to wrap my head around.
The academic view is that writers, editors and publishers are people with something to say. But the definition is a lot looser when you ask people in marketing and media to weigh in on the ancient art of storytelling. Marketing and media people like to see storytellers as community guides or content shamans.
Programming instructor and game developer, Kathy Sierra, guest writing on Gaping Void, describes the need bloggers have to cater to their audience:
You do not want to be the guy that must ask constantly, “how can I get more comments on my blog? how can I get more followers and fans?†The real pixie dust is when you ask yourself, “how can I help my users get more comments on THEIR blog?â€. You want to be the guy who asks, “How can I help my users get more followers and fans?†And that is why I have always been such a fan of Hugh and Gary V and Tim Ferris, for example.
So it’s all about empowering the reader. That’s not hard to understand, unless you think about it for a minute…
Forget social media. Do great writers seek to empower their readers? Is that what Melville was doing with Moby Dick? Is that what Hemingway was doing with The Old Man And The Sea? Yes, the readers of these classics walked away from the book a better person for having read it–that’s central to the value exchange between writer and reader. But we’re talking about authorial intent. Was the intent to make their readers more popular, more well spoken, more knowledgeable? I have a hard time believing that. I think it’s much more likely that Melville, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Vonnegut and all the rest intended to tell a timeless tale.
I get that it is up to the writer to provide the canvas, the brushes and the paint so you, dear reader, can paint a picture. Where the logic falls apart for me is realizing that not that many of my readers, or yours, have their own blog or want to toot their own horn. They’re readers–people who like to consider, not reblog, the information presented. In other words, digital production and distribution of content has changed the game, but the fundamentals of storytelling remain.
Bottom line, there’s a difference between writers using story to connect with an audience and a marketer using story to connect with customers. I’m still working out just exactly what the differences are, but intent is a big one. Marketers intend to sell, and are judged by their abilities to sell, not by mastery of dialogue, suspense or plot. I know we all have to sell to survive, but writers first need something to sell and that something is the product of long and lonely hours–the very opposite of social.
“Sour beers certainly broaden the flavor spectrum,” Ron Gansberg of Cascade Brewing says, “and they should interest adventurous wine drinkers and beer drinkers both, because the beers are a sort of middle ground.”
And he is right. After facing the long lines at Portland’s first annual Fruit Beer Festival, we opted to head over to Cascade Barrel House on SE 10th and Belmont instead. It was our maiden voyage to the newly opened and much praised brewery, and after sitting on their sun-drenched patio drinking Sour Ales, we now understand what the excitement is about.
Check out these two part-beer, part-wine descriptions:
The Vine 8.3% ABV / $5.50 Glass This NW style sour blends soured tripel, blonde and golden ales that were then fermented with the juice of white wine grapes. It’s a delicious offering that appeals to both beer and wine drinkers.
Sang Noir 9.5% ABV / 8 IBU / $6 Glass This deep, dark double red was aged over a year in Pinot and Whiskey barrels, then blended with a barrel of Bing cherries. This deep and rich NW double red is one of our most complex winter offerings.
Both beers were surprising to our palates, complex and delicious.
“This is a journey,” Gansberg says of the Cascade ethos. “But we want everyone to be a part of it.”
Brady Whalen of The Daily Pull likes the place too. “From the location and the food menu, to the decor and the staff, Cascade Brewing Barrel House has managed to create an extremely accessible and unpretentious environment that works for sour beer enthusiasts and novices alike.”
I know I’m looking forward to my next Barrel House visit.
On Tuesday, Dawes’ new album Nothing Is Wrong was released by ATO Records.
The L.A. folk-rock quartet recorded the disc at producer Jonathan Wilson’s Echo Park studio late last year in between touring commitments. Jackson Browne appears on the record and band leader, Taylor Goldsmith, says the band was aiming for an “American rock & roll” sound inspired by artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Bob Seger.
I really like the first song on the record, “Time Spent In Los Angeles.” In an interview with Street Date Radio, Goldsmith is asked if there intentionally a California vibe to this album?
Goldsmith: It’s not an intentional thing, I just write about what I feel like I have a good concept of and everybody feels like they have a close relationship with the world that they come from…It’s not like I’m trying to represent California, I’m more just trying to represent me and I happen to be in California when I’m not on the road. “Times Spent in Los Angeles” (and this goes for anyone from anywhere, I just happened to use the town LA), but when there are a hundred people in the room and two of them are from LA, I believe that they can kind of pick each other out. I think that the environment that we all come from dictates who we are and I feel like there is a complicated quality to someone from LA. It is half cynical and half just devastatingly realistic and I have a complicated relationship with it. I think that exists anywhere and I love that.
Darby and I saw Dawes last year at this time, when they opened for Josh Ritter at The Wonder Ballroom. This is a band that’s making progress and I expect their new album to be well received by skinny jeans-wearing hipsters and old folk rockers, alike.
I just read some devastatingly good advice from one writer to another. It concerns one writer’s jealous nature, as she witnesses her peers get the book deals that are not coming her way.
I know it’s not easy being an artist. I know the gulf between creation and commerce is so tremendously wide that it’s sometimes impossible not to feel annihilated by it. A lot of artists give up because it’s just too damn hard to go on making art in a culture that by and large does not support its artists. But the people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity. They’ve taken into their hearts the idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artists, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too.
Most of those people did not come to this perspective naturally. And so, Awful Jealous Person, there is hope for you. You, too, can be a person who didn’t give up. Most of the people who didn’t give up realized that in order to thrive they had to dismantle the ugly jealous god in their heads so they could instead serve something greater: their own work.
I would say something about how perfect this line of thinking is, but there’s no need. The only need I see is to look inside and make sure that any ego-fed emotions are put in check so inspiration can travel at will.
According to The New York Times, Charles “Buddy” Roemer is exploring a possible presidential campaign from his RV, refusing any contributions over $100. His stance against corporate influence has left him with a paltry $55,000 in donations, almost half of which came out of his own pocket. It is fair to characterize him as the longest of long shots.
That may be, but I sure do like what Mr. Roemer has to say on the subject.
“I’d like to show America how to set the President free,” says Roemer. Which is a terrific reminder that the left/right division is a false construct. If you want to choose a side, choose to be on the side of the American people, or on the side of American corporations.
I don’t care what party he’s part of today, it’s clear that Roemer is the kind of radical this nation needs. Let’s stoke Roemer’s RV with small bills and give the man and his message a chance to be heard.
My cousin Joshua Cain Daugherty came to town last week with Wammo vs. Forsyth, an offshoot of the Austin-based band, Asylum Street Spankers. It’s fun to see Joshua in action as a rock and roll tour manager. For such a laid back dude, he gets the musicians where they need to be, when they need to be there.
Before the show, Joshua was hyping Guy Forsyth a bit, saying what a pro he is and how he practices a lot and has great stage presence. I wondered if I would see the craftsmanship on stage at The Alberta Rose, and I did. Forsyth, it turns out is a gentleman and a songster. He reminds me of an old-time kind of guy that rides the rails and tells the tales.
On Sunday night, I launched a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo, a site that provides a platform for small business owners, filmmakers, writers and others looking to launch and manage on online fundraising effort for their project.
It’s been a humbling 48 hours. As you can see from the following screen grab, we have plenty of “crowd,” but no “funding” yet. It stings a bit, but I want to share this stuff because there’s some good learning here that others looking for this kind of funding might benefit from.
This traffic report from IndieGoGo doesn’t indicate where the visitors are coming from, but I assume most of the views are the result of my promoting the “AdPulp Journalism Fund” on Twitter, Facebook and AdPulp.com. So, I have enough influence to drive people to click and consider, but I’m weak when it comes to motivating conversion.
Weak though I may be, I hope to improve and find new ways to go about raising money for AdPulp. One thing that occurs to me at this early stage is the need to go one-to-one with this ask. That means email, letter writing and in-person appeals. Somehow I need to establish a personal connection to the site for our most ardent supporters.
I want the campaign to work, and I want to learn what works and what does not. I also would love to see my paid email newsletter, “Hungry for Gumbo” take off. Right now, I have nine paid subscribers to the email. As you can see, it’s tough going, this path to the paid content mountaintop.
I’ve been invited to speak on the topic at GeekEnd in Boston in October. The title of my talk is “The Honeymoon Is Over And The Bill Is Due: Paid Content in 2012 And Beyond.” I’d like to be able to share a few personal success stories at that time, but I’m going to need to roll out some innovative new approaches in order to do that.
Sean Power, of Ottawa, Ontario is happily reunited with his stolen laptop, thanks to free tracking software called Prey.
According to HuffingtonPost, Power received a report from Prey indicating that his laptop was in use at a Brooklyn, NY bar.
Power called the police, but they said he had to make a report in person. Given that he was 800 miles away, that proved to be too tall an order. In the meantime, a woman who was following the action on Twitter, went down to the bar and got the laptop back.
Here’s a look at some of what Prey can do–it activates the built in camera and takes a photo of the perp, for one:
Amazon.com’s top 50 digital best-seller list featured 15 books priced at $5 or less last Wednesday afternoon. Louisville businessman John Locke, for example, a part-time thriller writer whose signature series features a former CIA assassin, claimed seven of those titles, all priced at 99 cents.
According to The Wall Street Journal, as digital sales surge, publishers are casting a worried eye towards the previously scorned self-published market. Unlike five years ago, when self-published writers rarely saw their works on the same shelf as the industry’s biggest names, the low cost of digital publishing, coupled with Twitter and other social-networking tools, has enabled previously unknown writers to make a splash.
“When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I’m as good as them,” says Locke. “Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me.”
Locke earns 35 cents for every title he sells at 99 cents. Amazon pays all authors who use Kindle Direct Publishing, the retailer’s independent publishing service, a royalty rate of 35% on digital titles priced below $2.99, and 70% on e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Altogether, Locke says his publishing revenue amounted to $126,000 from Amazon in March alone.
