1. FINDING A VOICE: DISCOVERABILITY
SELF-PUBLISHING AND THE SOCIAL
WEB

2. Publication process
 Origins
 Hand replication
 Limited automated production and
development of printing presses
 Industrialisation creates mass manufacturing
and global publication opportunities
 Gatekeepers and network control
 The open web, digital and technological
innovation increasingly places publishing
power in the hands of the individual
Premise: Digital opportunities creating a different
landscape in which authors function

3. Discoverability
Today, we’ll have a
ponder about:
 Blogging
 SEO and writing for the
web
 Social Media and reach
 Self-Publishing

4. Discoverability: Blogging
 Ideas outlined and
community engaged
 Readers attracted (almost
mirroring journal format)
 Revisions made and
concepts refined
 Online engagement with
other bloggers
 Web-based visibility

5. Discoverability: SEO
Ensures content is findable
 Search engines detect web pages
and list them
 Text, video, audio and images are
‘optimised’ to make them more
searchable and therefore findable
Constructing websites and content
with search engines in mind
 Dual role of developer and
content generators

6. Top SEO tips for writers
 Understand your audience – write for humans, not bots
and crawlers.
 Adopt the correct tone and linguistic approach
 Ensure the content is highly relevant
 Integrate keywords using a standard keyword tool. But
remember, don’t overdo it. Search engines are always
on the lookout for spam.
 Don’t use puns in headlines – they need to be easily
read by Google
 Build a strong architecture - this includes tags and
categories
 Update regularly and seek to spread the word using
social media. Through providing new pages that are ‘on
brief’, which are then linked to by people who pick up
your content, search engines will add additional value
to your website
 Archive that is searchable – don’t bury away your
content , or even remove it from your site [you should
also take this knowledge and run with it when being
employed by larger publishers. If they’ve hidden their
content – let them know they’re losing a valuable
resource].

7. Link Economy
 Readers seen as valuable
commodity that travel
around the web
 Blogging communities of
interest are formed
 Social bookmarking sites
drive traffic to writers
 Provides transparency and
resource for readers and
writers

8. Discoverability: Social Media
 Provides reach
 Expands audience
(potentially)
 Prompts conversation and
engagement
 Analytic information
increasingly available
 Kred
 Klout
 Furthers individual’s online
profile and presence

9. DIGITAL FRAGMENTATION: Jeff Jarvis,
EvgenyMorozov and the Public Parts digital
debate
 Public Parts
 Conceptualisation
 Idea refinement and debate
 Multiplatform publication
Digital
 Reviews and counter response displacement:
 Here Where can you
 Here find Private Parts?
 And Here

10. “Product into process”
Nieman lab: In a networked
world, can a book go viral?
“Most idea-driven books tread a well-worn
path: Book pitched, book bought, book
written, book published, book shelved,
book reviewed, book ranked, book
removed from shelves.”
"Our assumptions about information itself are
shifting, reshaping “the news” from a
commodity to a community, from a
product to a process. The same changes
that have disrupted the news industry will,
inevitably, disrupt the book
industry; Public Parts hints at what might
come of the disruption. Books as
community. Books as conversation. Books
as ideas that evolve over time — ideas that
shift and shape and inspire — and that, as
such, have the potential of viral impact."

11. Alternative value streamS
 Crowd funding
 Donations
 Advertising
 Referred eyeballs
 Enhanced reach and
market penetration

12. Discoverability: Self-publishing

13. In 2011: “Transformation of our industry has brought on a time of rich
 Self-published books increased by innovation in the publishing models we now have today. What was
287% since 2006 (Bowker) once relegated to the outskirts of our industry—and even took on
demeaning names like ‘vanity press’ is now not only a viable
 Total self-published e-titles hits alternative but what is driving the title growth of our industry
235,000 today,” said Kelly Gallagher, Vice-President, Bowker Market
Research.
 Self published books represent
43% of US market
“From that standpoint, self-publishing is a true legitimate power to
 Print accounts for 63% of self- be reckoned with. Coupled with the explosive growth of e-books
published titles and digital content – these two forces are moving the industry in
dramatic ways.”
Publisher 2011 ISBN count
BiblioBazaar 773,857
General Books LLC 249,871
VDM Verlag Dr. Mueller e.K. 68,509
CreateSpace 57,512
International Business Publications, USA 14,294
Kessinger Publishing, LLC 13,395
AuthorHouse 10,644
Literary Licensing, LLC 9,721
Xlibris Corporation 8,152
Self-publishing: th
US example

14. A selection of self-publishing
success stories
 John Locke – million e-books plus
 Stephen Leather – 2000 ebooks a day
Industry response: Faber Academy to run Bring Your Book to Market
“There is a huge amount of interest in self-publishing at the moment, and we would
want to make the most of that, and help them realise their ambition if that is their path
. . . I think as a publisher, if we are worried about self-publishing, the solution is to
publish people.”
Jason Cooper, Faber Academy director
There's never been a better time for an author to publish a book. There are so many options
available today, starting at publishing for free, using assisted self-publishing, and even getting
picked up by traditional publishers, although that market is shrinking. Where Author Solutions fits in
the continuum is we are an assisted self-publishing company.
Kevin Weiss, CEO of Author Solutions

15. Author tools
 There’s an increasing number
of self-publishing services that
authors can elect to use. These
include, but are not limited to
 Lulu
 Author Solutions (iUniverse,
Authorhouse, Wordclay)
 Createspace
 Kindle Books
 iBookstore
 Blurb
 The above offer a relatively
diverse set of revenue streams
and author royalty packages

16. “Author-publishers”

17. I, author

18. Digital publishing within a
multilayered platform
Key Factors:
 Conversation
 Thought propagation
 Collaborative writing/editing
 Diversifying funding streams?
 Publication options
 Peer-to-peer marketing and the link economy
 Sales
 Peer-to-peer review and recommendations
 More sales

19. Digital ecosystem

20. Flickr
 re:publica 2011EvgenyMorozov
 re:publica 2011 Jeff Jarvis
 lisby1 Rochester
 johnharveytolson Platform 3
 Darwin Bell Book drop
 Fazen Hiding Cat
 Fabi Fliervoet American flags
 NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Earth
 Social Media webtreats
 DanardVincent Websites
 JD Hancock Stormtroopers
 ed_needs_a_bicycle Writing
 Timothy Greig Cat and computer

21. Resources
 Background: Http://reviews.cnet.com/self-publishing/
 European expansion: http://www.bubok.co.uk/blog/bubok-opens-its-online-self-publishing-platform-in-uk-
sweden-and-norway
 A news story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/24/self-publishing
 When a book is a book is a book: Private parts: http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/public-parts-and-its-public-
parts-in-a-networked-world-can-a-book-go-viral/
 Self publishing review: http://www.thebookseller.com/feature/depth-self-publishing.html
 Bowker's facts and figures:
 Author Solutions: http://www.authorsolutions.com/Home.aspx
 John Locke http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/8589963/Self-publishing-writer-becomes-
million-seller.html