Shirky: The only slide in the whole panel conversation: The internet is he largest group of people who care about reading and writing ever assembled in history.
Shirky: Getting 45 people to look and comment on your writing before it makes it to the printer fundamentally changes the content.
Shirky: the best feedback he's received on his book was from an IT guy who said "this is just the right size to hit my boss over the head with"
Shirky: finding stuff you didn't know you were looking for is still a problem
all the reasons you are writing long form, to create an idea, a story that lasts, etc. has nothing to do with delivery substrate -Clay Shirky
Shirky: Who's really gonna hate this? Who's really gonna be bored by this? As an author, I don't need to think about these people. The publishing house has really advanced knowledge about what's coming and what people in the world want to know about.
Shirky: what can we do to bridge the gap between what people who publish books know is coming and the people who don't know it exists?
Amazing the panel has devolved as soon as they openened it up. A stampede of angry people are standing up to offer tirades to the publishers on stage about this panel, their failings in grasping new media and failures to evolve. People here (the very ones responsible for the disruptive changes in media) are amazingly passionate about books but have huge pent up frustration against publishers. And no they are offering a lot pretty obvious sounding recommendations.
tips: "stop saying no to people who want to help promote your books, stop saying no to people who want to excerpt your books, give authors the tools and help to promote their own books through social media, build linkages to other media more.."
"when are you publishers going to come to jesus and give us a standard digital format? stop selling us the format, sell us the content, that's what we want"
"could you please get rid of the terrible typefaces and gold foil on the covers of your books" (much applause, laughter)
This is not a discussion of whether ebooks are killing treebooks, or whether it's possible to get cozy with an Amazon Kindle. It's about how participatory culture and the online world interact with good olde book publishing.Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, Deborah Schultz, and fellow panelists will share with the audience a variety of perspectives on what's going right and what's going wrong in publishing, assess success of recent forays into marketing digitally, digital publishing, and what books and blogs have to gain from one another. Audience members are invited to speak up about what they think book publishers could/should be doing to better provide relevant information and content to blogs, websites, and online communities. Come tell old media what you want and how you want it. Link:
#sxsw #sxswbp "let's talk about teenagers running home to write". Interesting topicby rodney_white via twitter 3/15/2009 10:14:04 PM
shirky making points about distributed peer review - reminiscent of henry jenkins talking about collaborative fanfic #sxswi #sxswbpby batcraft via twitter 3/15/2009 10:14:55 PM
author is no longer the sole source of long-form writing. (copy editing, pushback from editors). #sxswbp #sxswby ruralocity via twitter 3/15/2009 10:15:02 PM
Clay Shirky on a reader discussing books: "This is the perfect size to hit my boss over the head with." #sxswbpby yodiwan via twitter 3/15/2009 10:16:58 PM
long-form writing cannot be about right now, at speed of web. think long-term strategy. look at tension between selling & sharing #sxswbpby booksquare via twitter 3/15/2009 10:23:19 PM
#sxswbp editors are also consumers- they read books because they like them.by littlestgator via twitter 3/15/2009 10:23:27 PM
micheleperras