Comments on: 6Qs: Richard Eoin Nash, Social Publisher

By: Is Social Publishing simply Vanity Publishing 2.0? | Free Verse Media

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:39:03 +0000

[...] appearance. That’s a story for another post, though. [ETA: Check out my interview with Nash here.] Share and [...]

By: Five Highlights from SXSW Interactive | Digital Book World

Five Highlights from SXSW Interactive | Digital Book World — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 08:03:07 +0000

[...] Nash’s social publishing initiative Cursor is attempting to tread similar ground as social gaming developers, and it will be interesting to [...]

By: The Future of the Novel is… Social? Video? Print? | Digital Book World

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:28:28 +0000

[...] an interview on loudpoet.com (my personal site), Nash describes social publishing from the reader’s perspective: For the reader-as-reader, what “social” means is [...]

By: Freemium Blog - First things First — Freemium Blog

Freemium Blog - First things First — Freemium Blog — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:20:02 +0000

[...] Gonzalez’ great interview with Richard, and take a look at my issues with Richard’s model http://loudpoet.com/2009/09/29/6qs-richard-eoin-nash-social-publisher/ and, fair play to him, Richard’s answers) Richard Nash has wrong with his otherwise great-looking [...]

By: richardnash

richardnash — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:26:49 +0000

So very true, Will. I've certainly tried for years to demystify the
process, trying to help the writers I was publishing understand the
economics and politics of how things went from the editorial process
through to a customer buying the book. It was mind-blowing how little
my authors knew, even (especially?) those previously published. They
were really kept int he dark, in part because within corporate
publishing, few employees even had the big picture and could explain
to authors how things worked.

What'll happen when the veils completely lifted? I don't know. The
prestige may vanish. I'm mindful of how a brand like Red Lemonade or
any of the Cursor brands may be transitional. The consensus I've seen
so far is that most (though not all) people don't want to see it
vanish, providing they can be part of it. They want the VIP category.
But mostly so's they can be in it. That impulse might not hold up in
the long run. The consensus may drift away from that type of
validation...we'll see!

_____________________
http://RNash.com
twitter: @r_nash

By: Will Hindmarch

Will Hindmarch — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:38:33 +0000

I saw Mr. Nash speak recently at the Decatur Book Festival here near Atlanta, and one thing that stuck out to me was the disparity between the audience's notions of what publishing is and the rather simple assertions that Nash was trying to get across. People find publishing much more mysterious and secretive than it actually is, and I think they want it that way because it is somewhere in that mysterious back room of the publishing operation that the validation of one's work takes place. When publishing is revealed to be simple choices (made in complex circumstances), the illusion fades and it becomes clear: anyone can be published, depending on the publisher.

The question, to my mind, is how to maintain the prestige of being published when the mystery is swapped out for community. Will communal approval and praise fulfill the same validating effect? I'll be watching for Cursor to find out. Good luck, sirs.

By: richardnash

richardnash — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:44:53 +0000

Aha, I see what you're saying. Hmm. To be perfectly candid, what
you're describing is a process that has less traction with books than
with music. I'd love to see it gain more, but the reality is that the
ease of music sampling (30-60 seconds, 4 minutes at most) compared to
book sampling (an hour or more to get enough read), combined with the
equally radical difference in the overall amount of time require to
consume it, means that most readers look for a more intense and
reliable type of recommendation than what the cool kids are reading.
It's more about what your friend, whether s/he is cool or not, is
reading. Now, definitely, some books flow the way you describe—
especially ones that involve sex and violence, but most flow the way I
describe. And nothing I'm doing precludes the development of either,
and certainly we would do everything we could to get super-
transmitters to read and talk about the books—at Soft Skull I spent as
much time doing that as I spent pitching newspapers. Think of the
greatest super-transmitter int he area of books—Oprah. Her genius is
not that she's cool, it's that her audience connects to her as if she
is one of their closest friends. Or take Chuck Palahniuk—subject
matter and style a little closer to the kind of stuff you'd get music-
and fashion-esque dissemination of the type you're writing about.

I guess, basically, that I see the phenomenon, but I see it more as a
part of culture, rather than as a part of a business?
_____________________
http://RNash.com
twitter: @r_nash

By: richardnash

richardnash — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:01:04 +0000

Gotcha. Pretty porous. In fact, it is my contention that there was
always a level of porosity, especially amongst independents. With
hindsight, while I was making the decisions about what Soft Skull
would publish, I was really more of a conduit through which Soft
Skullness expressed itself. I never read a manuscript in a vacuum, it
always came with context, what other folks thought of it, where else s/
he published, studied etc. Interns and volunteers commented on it, etc
etc. My job was to interpret and channel all this opinion, since raw
voting just doesn't work with art & culture. So, in a sense, all this
does is make that process more efficient and systematic and
transparent. The editor and publisher and staff, their/our role is to
listen to and help express the will of the community... Ideally, in
fact, agents and established authors would submit through the
community but that just ain't gonna happen to start with, so we'll
have to have these two tiers, otherwise we'll lose writers I'm certain
the community would want us to be publishing...
_____________________
http://RNash.com
twitter: @r_nash

By: Richard Nash Pushes Social Publishing | Publishing

Richard Nash Pushes Social Publishing | Publishing — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:40:51 +0000

[...] questions about Cursor, his portfolio of niche social publishing communities, on Guy LeCharles Gonzalez’s media marketing [...]

By: The Future of the Novel is… Social? Video? Print? « Digital Book World

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:36:19 +0000

[...] an interview on loudpoet.com (my personal site), Nash describes social publishing from the reader’s perspective: For the reader-as-reader, what “social” means is [...]