I started playing games with my sisters so I could have contact with them on an almost daily basis. When they sends me gifts and notes I know they are ok for that day. A funny thing happened. Through gaming I discovered cousins that I hadn’t seen or spoken with for over 20 years. I discovered cousins that I didn’t know I had. And I really like that. Social Media at its best. Then I found old friends on the same games. It recreates the gaming atmosphere of my teens when we would sit for hours playing whist and bridge.  “It’s ok not to have a lot to say. Let’s play.”

Many management courses that I’ve participated in use the game model to get the point across. Whether it is trust, conflict management, accountability, there is a game to play. Granted, these were usually done offsite, all employees of a particular group or division, similar ranking within the company. I don’t know if offsite training happens as regularly as it used to. I suspect not. It is too costly. Training now takes place online.

eLearning and its counterpart, mLearning (mobile), open up training avenues that are cost effective, easy to manage, and easy to coordinate. The individual takes a course online, tests online, and has his/her scores stored online. Management gets instant, unbiased feedback, and instant progression scores. Great. Except the community aspect of training is gone. Synergy is gone.

My question to research this year is how can we take the goodness of gaming (look at Second Life as a prime candidate) and the goodness of offsite training, mash it all together and come out with effective eLearning and mLearning systems? Is there a way to create a learning environment that lives and learns as the employee “goes up in levels”? And is there a way to instill boundaries in those games so that gaming does not become the primary focus of the employee?

“4. Most authors will be indie authors”
“5. Successful publishing companies will be those that put the most total profit in the author’s pocket. No, not the highest per-unit royalty percentage.”

It’s no new thought that the United States influences other cultures. Americans have been doing that since they settled in the foreign wilderness to take their chances with Native Americans and Nature rather than submit to an “un-G-dly” power. Rebellion is always fueled by the knowledge that an entire country was founded out of rebellion against its colonizing parent country. Horatio Alger wannabees, astronauts, freedom riders, strikers, protesters of all kinds take strength from knowing that the Independent spirit lives on, a whole nation of independents.

So when Mark predicts “most authors will be indie authors”, he’s got good solid footing for that statement. Traditional publishing depends on large teams of people from previewing, reading the manuscript through the production, distribution, and sales. Today that team is not needed. It is possible for an author to hire every single person on that chain, topnotch professional editors, readers, book designers, book cover designers, printers, distributors, and salespeople. The author can get these services for a fraction of the cost of a traditional publisher, there is no infrastructure overhead to account for. At this time authors already have to hire publicists to sell their books. What’s keeping them from hiring the whole team?

Imagine, I, Ms Author, write a book. I can’t get an advance from a publisher because no publisher has any money. So I support myself for the months it takes to write. Then I hire a great editor. Maybe even an editor from a well-known publisher. Why can I do that? Because the editor just found him/herself out of a job because the publishing company went under. Then I hire a designer for the interior and cover of the book. Granted, I’m footing the bill here myself. It means I need a nest egg of about $500. At this point I run out of money, so I use Print on Demand technology to print and distribute the book. I only pay the setup fees and shipping cost of that first book. Once the book is available I get out into the Social Media scene and I start to market my book.

A writer must be in the Business of writing today, just to survive. Tomorrow it will be so “rule of thumb” that I’ll do it because I get the greatest return on my investment by doing it myself, braving nature myself, pulling myself up by my own bootstraps.

And that’s what makes number 5 a reality. I learn that I can produce my own works, get them out there, and pocket the majority of the proceeds.

Chris very pointedly states, “This is the business value of this stuff, the blogging and the social media stuff. There’s a business value to understanding and building the relationships around the product. There’s a real business value in having people understand and have access and build affinity to people…[There is a] new currency in the world, currency of attention, currency of trust. And you need to worry about how you are going to get in front of people to actually care about your thing.”

This introduction to Social Media touched on many subjects which I won’t go into here such as understanding books as eco systems and book clubs as the new tribal system. What really caught my ear was when Chris began speaking about distribution and the Mafia. Books are a distribution problem. eBooks add to the problem even though they command a small piece of the market. Normal channels have a book traditionally marketed, carried by the brick and mortar places along with Online stores. The book is printed and distributed to outlets, bought by the customer, and then shipped. eBooks jump the queue. They are often sold directly from the publisher or even the author.

Just as the Mafia took over distribution systems to deliver basic services to the villages in the face of government corruption, albeit with their own interpretation of the law, the Mafia continued forays into society in other distribution channels. Their choice to distribute alcohol, drugs, slaves, and cigarettes may not be the distribution problem of a publisher, but today’s publisher needs to understand the basic common element. Publishers are not in the book business. Publishers are in the information distribution business. And anytime the distribution is bogged down by bureaucracy, “mafia-style” elements step in to ease the problem.

Social Media works like the Mafia – it sets up new paths, new mechanism to deliver information to the people who want it. And it’s not as complicated as drug traffic-ing. Information brokers need to do things in a “ridiculously different way”. Chris suggests mass customization based on shopping preferences and other information gathered about a customer. Product placement or settings in books can be used to draw people in, and it can be used to enlist outside forces in the marketing campaign. Social Media presents opportunities to work with potential routes that are not traditional marketing.

I choose to reorient my position in a “grassroots” movement instead of the Mafia. Social Media is not as coordinated or structured as the Mafia. It is, however, the perfect expression of the average person grouping together with other average people to effect change.

French Creek Press is starting a social media campaign September. I’ll be writing about this effort and any tips that I can pass along as a result. In the meantime, check out Chris Brogan. Who knows, maybe he’ll do a standup comedy routine to augment his salary.

Yes, traditional ad campaigns still have a place. After all, not everyone is on the web (are you kidding? – I actually know them!). Getting an author and a book name in front of a librarian is still very important. Getting that book onto the up-and-coming book review list is crucial. However, people do like to shmooze. And Social Media is nothing if not the expression of a grassroots movement – of any kind. Social Media personifies what make the Western spirit so strong – the gut-level knowledge that I as an individual make a difference. My one vote counts. In Social Media, that one vote spreads so fast through other one-voters that a movement is born in hours. What used to take months to develop is now almost instant. And in our instant culture, our social media culture, we zoom to the tipping point, and reach critical mass faster than traditional marketing could ever foresee.

In our sister division, Pixel/Point Press, we run a series of classes teaching people how to use social media outlets as marketing tools. These tools are free. The only expense is the time the individual invests in the tools. In the spirit of “rising waters raise all ships” we teach our students the hows and whys of Social Media Marketing. They benefit because they can create and implement their own marketing strategy, We benefit because these same students may want to outsource their Social Media Marketing campaign.

For more information about our classes click Pixel/Point Press classes.

The French Creek Press model for non-academic publishing is print on demand. We provide editing services to any author, we lay out the books, and then print each book as it is paid for. Yes, the per unit cost is higher than the per unit cost of offset printing. The benefit of print on demand reveals itself when the book sells in small quantities. No author should be forced to pay for 500 books if only 100 books will be sold. Is there a place for 100 books? Absolutely. Everyone has a voice. The beauty of print on demand is that the book can easily transition from the print on demand model to the offset print model, when the book becomes a high seller.

My passion kicked in when I began to tackle the academic publishing problem. The traditional model of academic publishing is the author writes a book; it then goes to a paid peer review panel; after peer review the book is revised and then published. Debt is incurred along each step of this model. The author most likely writes the book in his/her spare time. Each member of the peer review panel is paid a fee to review the book. The author then takes more time to revise the book. It may go back for more review and revision. Finally the book is printed; but the author is obligated to buy 500 copies of his book. Marketing doesn’t even enter this picture.

At French Creek Press Ltd, our academic division, Kenwood Academic, pursues a different model, Open Access. Open Access means free online access to articles that have traditionally been published in scholarly journals. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles. Articles are crawl-able for indexing, can be passed as data to software. The articles can be used for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, is to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited (from the Budapest Open Access forum and from Wikipedia). French Creek Press Ltd, Kenwood Academic Press division, fully supports Open Access review.

I can across two videos that underline the benefit of Open Access. These are from the Public Library of Science.

Barbara Stebbins, Middle School Science Teacher from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

Ida Sim, Physician Scientist from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

To market any of our literature published under French Creek Press or Kenwood Academic Press, Pixel/Point Press utilizes all social media outlets. In the same vein that publishing can be affordable, we believe that marketing published works can also be affordable. All the social media marketing tools are Open Source. It is up to the user to invest time and effort using these tools to market the information. At Pixel/Point Press we either create and manage the marketing campaign or we teach the author how to market his/her material.

I have found my place in the Open Source family. Through French Creek Press Ltd, Kenwood Academic Press, and Pixel/Point Press, I hope to contribute back into society. As my partner, Kelli Brown, says, “A rising tide raises all ships.”