Neil Stevenson launched a startup for a new book.
The author of the novels Kryptonomicon and Avalanche , whose work has given ideas for many startups (for example, for the game Second Life), now launches its own startup Subutai : it is a platform for publishing e-books.
Here the author can add additional materials to the text of the work: explanatory articles, a glossary of terms, photos, music and video. There are social features: readers can create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the site and communicate with each other. According to Stevenson , the system is best suited for science fiction: “I remember the first time I read Dune, and I started reading it with a glossary,” he says. “Any book with so many additional materials always fascinates me.”
The Mongoliad e-book on the conquest of Europe by the Mongols was released on the new platform. The first part has already been published, and further parts of this “series” promise to be released once a week. A subscription costs $ 5.99 for six months or $ 9.99 for a year. “Mongolia” is written by a whole team of science fiction writers led by Stevenson. They say that the book will end, but then there will be all sorts of sequels, so the project will live for a long time. Now in the App Store we are reviewing a program for iPad / iPhone, the application for Android is in work.
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The idea of ​​the project is to create a community around a literary work and to provide a heap of additional content so that the reader is not limited to “just text” from pirate libraries. It is impossible to fight against the distribution of pirated copies, but in the new system piracy becomes even beneficial for the author, since he attracts new paid subscribers to the site.
In other words, in the new conditions it is not enough for the author to simply write a book. He should think of the book as a project: how to create a community, for what features to take money, who to recruit as employees. Perhaps this is the future of publishing business. However, it is already difficult to call it "book publishing."
Here the author can add additional materials to the text of the work: explanatory articles, a glossary of terms, photos, music and video. There are social features: readers can create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the site and communicate with each other. According to Stevenson , the system is best suited for science fiction: “I remember the first time I read Dune, and I started reading it with a glossary,” he says. “Any book with so many additional materials always fascinates me.”
The Mongoliad e-book on the conquest of Europe by the Mongols was released on the new platform. The first part has already been published, and further parts of this “series” promise to be released once a week. A subscription costs $ 5.99 for six months or $ 9.99 for a year. “Mongolia” is written by a whole team of science fiction writers led by Stevenson. They say that the book will end, but then there will be all sorts of sequels, so the project will live for a long time. Now in the App Store we are reviewing a program for iPad / iPhone, the application for Android is in work.
')
The idea of ​​the project is to create a community around a literary work and to provide a heap of additional content so that the reader is not limited to “just text” from pirate libraries. It is impossible to fight against the distribution of pirated copies, but in the new system piracy becomes even beneficial for the author, since he attracts new paid subscribers to the site.
In other words, in the new conditions it is not enough for the author to simply write a book. He should think of the book as a project: how to create a community, for what features to take money, who to recruit as employees. Perhaps this is the future of publishing business. However, it is already difficult to call it "book publishing."
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/103300/
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