Digital Shorts

Go Read This | Why 2012 was the year of the e-single

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Much noise and heat generated by short ebooks (the kind of which, TheIrishStory.com has been selling for some time). Laura Hazard Owen’s piece over at PaidContent gets to the heart of it:

They don’t cannibalize other formats. It’s nearly impossible to find a magazine that will run a 10,000-word story these days (much less a magazine that will run your 10,000-word story — even if you’re a professional journalist). Many of these stories simply would not have been published in print, and that’s not because they’re not good enough. They just weren’t quite a fit for magazine or book publishers. Now the projects can come to light, and journalists who might once abandoned these stories because they weren’t sure how to pitch them can make a little money off them.

via Why 2012 was the year of the e-single — paidContent.

Ebury reveals Less Ordinary digital list | The Bookseller

Aside ~ ~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

There’ll be a lot more of this, or at least you’d hope there will be, as publishers look to profit from their existing content in more ways. This is a pretty good example of what an established player can do with a bit of application and thought:

Ebury has launched a digital imprint, initially focusing on abridged versions of Eburys narrative non-fiction titles, called Lives Less Ordinary. Deputy publisher Andrew Goodfellow is behind the new range of digital shorts, which has begun by releasing 10 titles. The titles will be from 3,000 to 20,000 words, and will be priced under £1.99 on a sliding scale, according to length.The launch titles comprise How to Understand Paul Gascoigne by Danny Baker, How to Win the Worlds Greatest Road Race by Mark Cavendish, How to be an NYPD Drugs Cop by Edward Conlon, How to Hunt an LA Gangland Killer by Miles Corwin, How to Seduce Marilyn Monroe by Tony Curtis, How to Escape a Taliban Ambush by Paul Grahame and Damien Lewis, How to Become an Internet Billionaire by David Kirkpatrick, How to Survive on Tour With a Rock Band by Stuart Maconie, How to Live Forever by Sue Nelson and Richard Hollingham and How to be a Modern Man by Danny Wallace.

via Ebury reveals Less Ordinary digital list | The Bookseller.