Pretty People Publishing

Unfortunately our time at Uni is drawing to a close, so I'm afraid it's time to thank everyone that followed or enjoyed our blog and say good bye as we sign off for some heavy exams and then a well earned summer!

Happy blogging everyone ! 

Digital Divides

This will be our final lesson summary, so we hope you all enjoy reading it!

This week's lesson summary is all about Digital Divides, and how digitalisation is not the same in all corners of the world.  Many people assume that digital models that work in the US and Europe can easily be applied to China, Latin America, and in other places in the developing world. This however, is not true, as many countries do not have the same digital capacity as others, which we will be looking at in a moment.

Digital Native Generation refers to people who were born in an era where they have access to digital technology, and it is widely used. These are people who were born in the mid 1990's and after, when the internet and other digital phenomenon's were just beginning to become an essential part of life. There are age barriers with technology as, people over a certain age are likely to find it difficult to use these technologies, as they were not born in this era.

Hemisphere Divides refers to a global divide which is often represented as Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere. Industrialised Nations have access to extremely efficient internet services and plentiful human resources.  This means that companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, or Sony are assumed as reference-points in the media and at professional events all over the world.

Countries are faced with two different options:

      a) Financing the instillation of platforms designed in the North

      b) Investing according to their concrete needs, expectations and             potentialities. 

An example of a developing country which has faced the digital revolution is India. In 1998 0.1% of people had access to the internet in India, whereas now there are approximately 4.2% of internet users in India.

Digital Natives are the generation of individuals born into the current digital age. Anyone born between 1996 to the present day would fall into this category.

Digital Natives have innate digital literacy (understanding of digital technology) which in many cases leads to cultural acceptance. 

Are you a Digital Native?

A quick and interesting news story today relating to gender in books, namely children's books.  A national campaign has been launched called 'Let Books Be Books', in an attempt to stop children's books being labelled as just for boys or just for girls.   There has been a petition aimed at publishers to "stop labelling books, in the title or on the packaging, as for girls or for boys" because "telling children which stories and activities are 'for them' based on their gender closes down whole worlds of interest," and it has now got over 3,000 signatures.

The main issues concerned with gender specific books, are the gender limitations that they evoke.  Many believe that children should not read books based on their gender, rather, they should read books based on what interests them.  

This campaign is the latest from the 'Let Toys Be Toys' campaign, which aims to stop gender specific toys being sold by retailers. (To find out mroe information on this campaign, visit their website: http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/).  

So what do you think? Should there be less emphasis put on gender in books, or is this perfectly innocent?

  Alternative Publishing

This week's summary is going to be on Alternative Publishing and the wider aspects of this term. 

In contrast to Legacy Publishing (the traditional format of publishing) Alternative Publishing can take the form of many different types of publication:

Self Publishing

Here, the author ultimately takes on the publication of their title themselves. The growth of digitization (digital technology) has encouraged the expansion of self publishing, although the cost of self publishing is never as low as you think. Authors choosing to self publish will incur costs for:

- ISBN number

- Copyright registration

- Cover design

- Copy editing (DO NOT be your own editor!)

- Cover photography

- Cost for a proof

It is estimated that to produce a half-decent publication as a self-publisher, it would cost you around $500. 

Businesses such as Smashwords and Lulu are often used by self publishers to help format manuscripts and word documents into eReader formats.  

Print-on-Demand

Print-on-demand publishing enables authors to produce physical books to sell in bookshops rather than through large warehouses that stock titles that sell through Amazon etc.

Digitization has lead authors to produce titles quickly and easily as many of the traditional processes are cut out (eg. collation process). Inventions such as the Espresso Machine are a good example of this as authors are able to produce their own title in a physical format quickly and easily. Many self-made publishers have also started up this way.

Vanity Publishing

Vanity publishing is essentially the opposite of traditional publishing.

As usual the author creates the title in manuscript form and sends this to the chosen publisher. The publisher then creates a formatted version of the manuscript and then sends it back to the author. It is then up to the author to distribute and sell the title.

This can be to the author’s advantage as well as their disadvantage depending on how fair the agreement is between author and publisher.

Why is Alternative Publishing a problem for publishers?

-       Lack of oversight

-       Changes the market predictably

-       Bad productions weaken the demand for books as a whole

Alongside our Word of the Week, we have also picked a Phrase of the Day for this moment in time. 

Following the common discussion of the death of the paperback it should be highlighted that wherever there is content, there will always be a means of publication. 

This is a brilliant news story that we have for you today, encouraging kids to write stories and allowing them to have help from real authors to do this!

Storycraft is an interactive tool launched by World Book Day, to allow children to write stories and get help on several different aspects of storytelling from 60 different authors.  This tool was launched back in 2013, however teachers reported back to WBD, stating that the children needed more step-by-step guides to make it easier for them to use this tool.

After its recent relaunch, there have been changes including themes for the children to choose from, and the fact that the children do not have to start writing at the beginning of the story.  Kirsten Grant, WBD director, stated that an author had told them that often they do not start writing stories at the beginning, and so this gave them the idea of creating this feature; stating that "children can begin wherever they like in the story then work around it".

We think that this is a great new tool worth talking about, as it creates a pathway for a new generation of authors, and encourages them to start writing from a young age.

We haven't done a word of the week in a while due to the Easter break from University, so we have decided to do two words of the week this week...

Self-Publishing and Hybrid Author!

After rummaging through Publishers Weekly, we came across an interesting article about self-publishing!  Take a look at what we found!

Author Hugh Howey is being described as a 'hybrid author' due to his self-published status, and discussed this at the 2014 London Book Fair. Although Howey is now being published by traditional houses, he did make money from self-publishing before this, and still advocates it now.  He said to a panel that he believes that self-publishing is important to authors as it is a way of connecting to their readers whilst perfect their writing skills.  

Howey also discussed the importance of giving away free copies of authors' works, and defends the stigma behind this by stating that "what devalues literature is having good books go unread".  Howey goes on to explain that the way an author would go about making money from their work whilst giving it away for free, is by creating a backlist.  

Although Howey does not fully agree with the term 'hybrid' to describe himself as an author (as he sees himself as just an author no matter how he chooses to publish his work), he says that he hopes that the self-publishing market will allow many different authors to find their own audience, and eventually help them to make some money from their work.