I agree that the first 50 pages as the place where the crucial read/no-read decision will happen. But only IF you can get the reader past the first 10 pages. I hadn't thought of the Two-Jump Effect. I'd love to know if anyone read the first episode, liked it, and the went back to refresh their memory on the first episode. Let me know! Ive been known to do that with TV.
Readers - a real job in Hollywood - rarely go beyond the first 10 pages. If they go past 10 pages then the script has made it to the next round (or the next reader).
I don't recall feeling at any point in my reading that I needed to go back to the beginning for a refresher. Just me maybe but if I invest in a character as a reader, I'm in it until the payoff.
I gave my extra copy to Michael you-know-who. I forgot to tell you he loved the paper - although it would never work for photographic reproduction, lol.
I'd love my son to have a copy.
If it's the last thing I do I'm going to discover a narrative that kid can't put down, and won't stop talking about, lol.
I will say about GenZ that I have noticed they seem to have an underdeveloped sense of story and narrative, and the data says they aren't reading very much for pleasure. Perhaps it can be explained by the Marvelization of films aimed at the cohort; short, formulaic, almost videogame-like stories in which the protagonists are routinely 'challenged', prevail, and then are challenged again. All in a very proscribed universe.
I've found through experience that there's a lot of storytelling in branding. It's not a great leap from brand to novels if you already know how to write. Now, as an indie author, I'm finding there can be a lot of branding in storytelling. If you believe as I do that a book isn't really a book without readers, then it's your responsibility to solve the whole problem, not just the writing part. It's all one thing.
Grabbed from the jump. First, the form was unique: narrator-less storytelling. More like a film script.
Re the headline question, I'm not sure it's publishing that's dead. It might be that the readers are dead (or dying). Found this and can't refute the data:
Finally, the bookselling strategy is terrific. I would ask whether or not as we try to figure out what to do with our dying shopping malls, there might be a business model to seek those spaces. Surely the per square foot rents of these spaces has dropped as vacancy rates have soared?
Shopping malls have space, parking, and great locations. They could easily be turned into schools while leaving some of the shops and restaurants intact. One of my clients was a large developer, and this is was the disruptive concept we came up with together.
In my town they are planning to bulldoze one completely and start over, and a portion of the other one will be retrofitted it seems for downtown housing.
I'm getting real "Logan's Run" vibes thinking about the death of shopping malls, lol. The film uses scenes set in an abandoned/ruined shopping mall to provide emotional weight to the self-inflicted destruction humanity endures. In sci-fi it's almost always a self-inflicted end for humanity. Except the ever-popular 'it came from outer space' (a meteor or Martians).
Dear Marty, now I am watching your session at Brand Builder Summit and I am so grateful that I found you there to remind me the important things in our life as a designer. Happy to subscribe you here. Thank you so much for your wisdom and perspectives, that is one in a million
Dear Marty, the most interesting happy-accident part of following you for me, is that when I was trying to understand branding, you were there, when I tried to learn if a brand consultant can turn to novels, you were also there, being the first one I know who has done it. We will never know each other, but thank you for being there, right at the frontier.
Possibility #1: The jump, assuming a storyline has one, would be more effective in print inasmuch as the reader can get lost in the book for the first 50 pages non-stop for the full effect of the jump to sink in (online the momentum could be lost when you (try to) pick up on the surprise a week later).
Possibility #2: The jump resonates more online because you pretty much get it twice - once in the first episode and then again when you remind yourself a week later what on earth went on at the start. Maybe you just invented the The Two Jump Effect (TM)!
I agree that the first 50 pages as the place where the crucial read/no-read decision will happen. But only IF you can get the reader past the first 10 pages. I hadn't thought of the Two-Jump Effect. I'd love to know if anyone read the first episode, liked it, and the went back to refresh their memory on the first episode. Let me know! Ive been known to do that with TV.
Readers - a real job in Hollywood - rarely go beyond the first 10 pages. If they go past 10 pages then the script has made it to the next round (or the next reader).
I don't recall feeling at any point in my reading that I needed to go back to the beginning for a refresher. Just me maybe but if I invest in a character as a reader, I'm in it until the payoff.
Fingers crossed.
My kind of reader. Do you have siblings or cousins who might want a book?
I gave my extra copy to Michael you-know-who. I forgot to tell you he loved the paper - although it would never work for photographic reproduction, lol.
I'd love my son to have a copy.
If it's the last thing I do I'm going to discover a narrative that kid can't put down, and won't stop talking about, lol.
I will say about GenZ that I have noticed they seem to have an underdeveloped sense of story and narrative, and the data says they aren't reading very much for pleasure. Perhaps it can be explained by the Marvelization of films aimed at the cohort; short, formulaic, almost videogame-like stories in which the protagonists are routinely 'challenged', prevail, and then are challenged again. All in a very proscribed universe.
Books are harder, I guess.
I've found through experience that there's a lot of storytelling in branding. It's not a great leap from brand to novels if you already know how to write. Now, as an indie author, I'm finding there can be a lot of branding in storytelling. If you believe as I do that a book isn't really a book without readers, then it's your responsibility to solve the whole problem, not just the writing part. It's all one thing.
Yes that's spot on. A writer needs to know how to brand himself and his work, professionally. And that's why you're so good at it.
Grabbed from the jump. First, the form was unique: narrator-less storytelling. More like a film script.
Re the headline question, I'm not sure it's publishing that's dead. It might be that the readers are dead (or dying). Found this and can't refute the data:
https://jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-the-post-literate-society-aa1
Finally, the bookselling strategy is terrific. I would ask whether or not as we try to figure out what to do with our dying shopping malls, there might be a business model to seek those spaces. Surely the per square foot rents of these spaces has dropped as vacancy rates have soared?
Shopping malls have space, parking, and great locations. They could easily be turned into schools while leaving some of the shops and restaurants intact. One of my clients was a large developer, and this is was the disruptive concept we came up with together.
In my town they are planning to bulldoze one completely and start over, and a portion of the other one will be retrofitted it seems for downtown housing.
I'm getting real "Logan's Run" vibes thinking about the death of shopping malls, lol. The film uses scenes set in an abandoned/ruined shopping mall to provide emotional weight to the self-inflicted destruction humanity endures. In sci-fi it's almost always a self-inflicted end for humanity. Except the ever-popular 'it came from outer space' (a meteor or Martians).
Dear Marty, now I am watching your session at Brand Builder Summit and I am so grateful that I found you there to remind me the important things in our life as a designer. Happy to subscribe you here. Thank you so much for your wisdom and perspectives, that is one in a million
So great to have you here, Arda.
Cannot wait for the Level C event
Dear Marty, the most interesting happy-accident part of following you for me, is that when I was trying to understand branding, you were there, when I tried to learn if a brand consultant can turn to novels, you were also there, being the first one I know who has done it. We will never know each other, but thank you for being there, right at the frontier.
On the 'jump': two ends of the same thought.
Possibility #1: The jump, assuming a storyline has one, would be more effective in print inasmuch as the reader can get lost in the book for the first 50 pages non-stop for the full effect of the jump to sink in (online the momentum could be lost when you (try to) pick up on the surprise a week later).
Possibility #2: The jump resonates more online because you pretty much get it twice - once in the first episode and then again when you remind yourself a week later what on earth went on at the start. Maybe you just invented the The Two Jump Effect (TM)!