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Shadowmarch Launched 26

Posted by michael from the Plant-killer dept.
myrkul writes: "Tad Williams (Author of Otherland and others) has finally launched his Shadowmarch project. It is an episodic fantasy work, release biweekly online. There will be supplementary work such as graphics, audio files, history, and biographies. As of yet, no payment scheme has been worked out, so the first chapter, as well as the prologue, are free, and available on the site already. In the future, a monthly or yearly subscription will be required, most likely under 20 USD per year. See the previous slashdot article for more."
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Shadowmarch Launched More

Shadowmarch Launched

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  • Typical, Why not go visit the site?

    This is not a passive book you are going to download and sit reading, this is an experiment in interactive fiction. The story is the key element and there will be 2 episodes released each month (on the 1st and 15th) but it has not been pre-written and set in stone. Tad will be taking oppinions from the message boards to get an idea of what people are interested in, if there are characters who are to be explored in more depth and what people don't like. It is not often you get the chance to communicate with an author of Tad's talent and be involved in the creative process.

    There is a hell of a lot more planed around the story, message boards, artwork (both fan and official), music, RPGs and whole virtual worlds. Sure you can rip off the words and pictures but that is only a fraction of what this project is about.

  • Once upon a time I cursed the fact that the Aussie dollar only bought US$0.65 and was estatic when it went up to $0.68 (time to buy more DVDs).

    Now I'm estatic when the dollar reaches US$0.52 .... sigh.

  • Comparing it to normal books .... (Score:3)

    by dustpuppy ( 5260 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @03:39AM (#180663)
    Now, I don't know how much books cost in the US, but US$20 in Aussie dollars is about A$40. And a 'normal' fiction book here costs about A$20.

    Therefore, for all the extra graphics/audio/extra bits, you're effectively paying an extra A$20 for it.

    Frankly, while I would pay a little bit extra .... I think double the price of a normal fiction book is a bit much to ask for a souped-up online version.

    But hey, that's just me - I do actually hope the guy succeeds - it's great to see people trying new methods of distribution ... I just think that charging a US$20 subscription is a bit overpriced.

  • No, King *thought* was a failure. The project brought in $80,000 US. That's *tons* of money for a short story.

    Good point. I'm sure Stephen King's noteriety has alot to do with that $80k figure. But considering Williams' modest goal is just for the project to be self sustaining, then I'll retreat a bit from my earlier stance of "it's unlikely [Shadowmarch] will succeed using the standard subscription model". I stand by my statement that the Street Performer Protocol would be a better approach.

  • I wish Tad Williams great success in his endeavor. However, it's unlikely it will succeed using the standard subscription model. A better approach would be to use the Street Performer Protocol [firstmonday.dk].

    The infrastructure doesn't exist for a subscription model on the Internet that effectively limits distribution to paying subscribers. Williams writes, "people start passing too many free copies of the Shadowmarch story around and we get to the point where it doesn't pay for itself anymore, then I'll have to stop doing it". In that case, Shadowmarch is as good as dead. We'll get a few good stories, then perhaps after getting involved and interested, we'll find out the experiment has been cancelled without completion. Why would I pay $20 for that risk? Perhaps subscribers would receive the remaining stories in print form. That would be less than satisfactory...a consolation prize of sorts.

    Admittedly, there isn't much infrastructure for the Street Performer Protocol, either. However, there is PayPal and the Amazon.com Honor System, as well as others. Furthermore, with the Street Performer Protocol, you want people passing out copies...that's free, even "viral" marketing.

    The trick is to keep people from altering the story, such as removing your attribution and instructions on how they can make a donation to support the public work. This is considerably less difficult a problem to solve than attempting to prevent "unpaid copies" from leaking out into the public. It's easier on a technical level and the incentive for cooperating with the protocol greater than the incentive to respect the copy protection of the subscription model.

    It remains to be seen if the Street Performer Protocol would generate enough revenue to support the project, but that's why it's an experiment. As others have pointed out, we've already had the "limited distribution on the Internet" experiment, i.e. Stephen King's "The Plant". It was a failure.

  • Looks to me like the RRP (including GST) of Tad William's most recent book in hard cover is $43.74 in Australia.

    Normal hardcover fiction costs around $40+ in Australia.

    When a book first comes out it costs more. Works that way in regular media, why wouldn't it work more in online media? You pay for the privilege of instant gratification. So I think you are comparing apples and oranges.

    Besides, it would help if you actually read the links that /. posts, the author says, "Just to let you know, the cost for a one-year subscription to story, site, etc. (and thus to various free giveaways, contests) will be well under $20 US, we just haven't finished the commercial stuff yet, so I don't have a final price."

    See that "well under" part?
  • "The trick is to keep people from altering the story, such as removing your attribution and instructions on how they can make a donation to support the public work."

    Illegal e-book distributers tend to be sticklers for attribution. Many even reproduce the copyright notices which explicitly forbid their actions :)

    "It remains to be seen if the Street Performer Protocol would generate enough revenue to support the project, but that's why it's an experiment. As
    others have pointed out, we've already had the "limited distribution on the Internet" experiment, i.e. Stephen King's "The Plant". It was a failure."

    No, King *thought* was a failure. The project brought in $80,000 US. That's *tons* of money for a short story.
  • I spoke to Tad, at a small gathering of the British Fantasy Society, in April about Shadowmarch. He has commited himself to funding the project for a year out of his own pocket.

    He would like to see a break-even or even a modest profit on the project. He is not really doing it for the money, he himself points out he could make far more money devoting the time to writing another conventional novel. He claims he is doing it because it is something he wants to do and it should be fun.

    I believe Tad thinks highly of his fans and doesn't think they are going to disapoint him or betray his trust.. I suppose we shall see how it all works out in 12 months time.
  • This will be popular until it dies in the middle because only 17 people access the paid part and 3 pay for it.

  • That he's possibly using this as a test to see what people want in order to give him ideas to capitalize when he writes his next book then. Smart idea. FYI I did go browse the site, maybe I'm just biased since I don't do the whole role playing, fantasy land gigs. Like I said I don't want to take anything away from anyone since I'd like to sincerely see things work out, however as a book, or even an interactive website book, it still doesn't impress me. I had more fun with those older books I had in elementary where you had to choose the page for the story to continue.

    Nothing fancy or high tech, but I would rather read a dozen of those and dish out money for them than someone's website. And especially since I'm ultra suspicious of security regarding distributing a credit card number over the net.

  • ebooks just dont cut it (Score:3)

    by joq ( 63625 ) on Sunday June 03, 2001 @03:41AM (#180671) Homepage Journal

    Sorry to sound like a pessimist here, but online books in my opinion are not that much to look forward to, well at least if I were an author I wouldn't look to creating an online book for simple reasons.

    We've grown into reading books not an entire online book so its sort of second nature to pick up a nice soft cover or hard cover to read. When you go to work on the morning for those who commute via say buses, trains, etc., your going to want to read a book, not turn on a laptop to finish up on a chapter you didn't finish or start a new one.

    When your going to lunch on a nice sunny day in the park, why would you want to lug around a laptop to read the book, when you could again grab a softcover or hardcover and enjoy the day without the added overhaul. This doesn't include having a network connection to connect to the site unless your going to fetch/wget the entire book beforehand.

    Also, how much real money can you make before people start sharing account information (username/passwords) and your thoughts of making money suddenly get shot down the tubes by some moron with a w4r3z page?

    What would be nice is a combination book with access to the online version so when you are at work and can't afford to be seen reading a book you could download a chapter, or maybe if your sitting behind your pc bored you could open it up, however an e-book I think will fail.

    Also note that recent studies have shown that online magazines and newspapers don't fare as well as `old fashioned' purchases of the original. People want true content some times not just packets. And finally, that shit'd hurt my eyes reading an entire book online. I tried with "The Big Breach [antioffline.com]" finally ended up printing the darn thing to read it as if it were a real book.

    Well good luck to the site, I hope its entertaining but you won't catch me there any time in this life.
  • I think he meant to post to this story [slashdot.org].

    "I may not have morals, but I have standards."
  • According to the about [shadowmarch.com] page,
    We hope the project will make money, of course, but we already know that we can make a living if I write regular novels. (I'm going to continue to write standard books as well as Shadowmarch - there will be announcements on the site about my other projects.) We're very willing to try this as an experiment. But if people start passing too many free copies of the Shadowmarch story around and we get to the point where it doesn't pay for itself anymore, then I'll have to stop doing it, and nobody (me included) will get to find out where it's going. But I don't want to put too much emphasis on that. Most net-users are honest folk anyway, and my readership has always been the best of the best in all ways.
    It looks like they intend to make money using the "please don't steal our stuff" model. It should be interesting to see if it works.

  • It never ceases to amaze me the way old industries try to force old business models on newer methods of distribution. Isn't one of the large alleged virtues of free markets and capitalism, the idea that with competition and innovation, prices are supposed to decrease, benefiting the consumer.

    I recognize that I'm in the minority of Slashdot readers now, in that I don't mind reading e-books all that much (Although I suspect you all would not mind it as much as you think). But there is absolutely no way in hell I would be willing to pay anywhere near the current prices for hardcover books, without getting the book! Where does the money go? Pure profit?

    Imagine that my business made you wait around a few more years, so that I could implement a system where my cost of production will plummet to around zero. This is the same thing that the record and movie companies are trying to do, but I think its much more dramatic because the cost of manufacturing books is vary high compared to music, DVDs, etc.. Anyone able to give more specifics on the economics of this?

  • This guy is one of my favorite authors. I hope he is more successful than Stephen King's online book experience was. I personally don't know if I'd pay for this though. I like to read books and not stare at a monitor then. I've tried reading on my palm pilot, but it's too small. The only real option I would have with this is to download and print out the text, but even that isn't in a nice book form. I've already bought the Otherland series, as well as that book about Tailchaser the cat. I think he does a good job, and hopefully he finds a way to make money from his work combined with technology other than just offering text on the internet.
  • Errr... Ummm... How did that get in here?
  • I'm a Canadian myself...

    One thing I've noticed is that there seems to be more used CD stores then ones for new CDs, and the used CD stores are better stocked. I've bought 20+ CD's in the last 12 months, of which 2 were new, and one of those new ones was onsale. It is extremly dificult to find albums I'm looking for (which often replace my MP3s) withount going for used.

    Could it be that sales are down because people can't find what they want, and when they do, don't want to spend $25 - $30 when they can spend $10 - $15 for the same damn thing, just used?

    I'd spend $5 - $10 for a high quality MP3 album if I could.
  • Could be worse. At least he's using the books to keep the Great Red Capitalistmobile tuned up, not the online crowd. Think of this as a subsidized experiment in honesty.
  • I just visited the page, and while I was not particularly captivated by the writing style, I must say that the "extras" like the artwork and seeing the developmental process really brought me into the world of ShadowMarch. I started out saying to myself, "There's no way I would EVER pay for a hardcover book (pricing model)!" but now I am convinced that this is MUCH more than just another lame Steven King attempt to use e-paper. This has the potential of interaction and subscribers have the option to email the author throughout development and help shape the world of ShadowMarch proactively. Perhaps there could even be a ShadowMarch MUD in progress for subscribers. This has what I would like to call growth potential. Sort of a "plugin" for a book.

    Cheers to Tad for having the insight and bawls to pull something like this off.

  • Hey, Try being on the other side of the Tasman!! Not only do we have a ground-airforce, but our currency is worth even less than yours.

  • Live or die, succeed or fail, Shadowmarch will at least be an original well-written tale. Anyone who has read the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy or the Otherland stories will be able to testify to that.

    I find it interesting that the two authors who have invested time and effort in online interactive publishing (Tad Williams and Stephen King) are two writers who both are guaranteed best seller success in print format. That they are passing up the opportunity of a sure thing elsewhere to try something new and different on the web should be commended and they deserve all of our support.

    I will be looking in on Shadowmarch and I hope many other /.ers interested in novel novels will too.

  • How so very awesome this literature is. I know I shall be following the girl with the white rabit on her back to the continents Xand, Xis and Eion very soon.
  • Hmmm.... perhaps you just are not yet aware that the universe you are living in is actually the simulated one!!
  • Well... if it werent for the embarrassing misforune that is the value of our dollar at present, I think that US$20 is quite reasonable for (as you say) extra gx etc and saving a little paper. But hey... I hear your pain. It is often that I get excited by the price of things online before the reality of our dollar sets in.
  • Not depressing that yours is good... just sux that ours is bad. Oh well... I guess you just look afetr your economy more "easylyer" than we look after ours.
  • As far as economics go, basic publishing costs are $25 startup for binding, plus about $2-4 per copy. Thus printing a large number of books reduces the cost quite a bit.

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