Why it’s time to reboot books for the digital age
Books have hardly changed since Gutenberg. It’s time to turn books into conversations and use the power of the internet to make them better than ever.
If I was going to write another book, I would self-publish it and release it on the internet one chapter at a time.
That’s what I told Lyndsey Gilpin — who became my co-author.
I wrote a couple books a decade ago, and was so frustrated by the process that I vowed I would never do it again. It was too slow. The author has too little influence over the final product. And the publishers, distributors, and bookstores keep most the money, while the author does most of the work.
I wasn’t going down that path again.
So, even though my second book had convinced me that writing narrative nonfiction was my passion, I went a long time without writing a book. I channeled my love for narrative nonfiction solely into writing long form articles.
Until now.
I’m finally working on the kind of book I’ve dreamed of doing. In fact, it’s even better than that, because I found a brilliant co-author and together we’ve refined the concept into something infinitely better than what I originally imagined.
This week, Lyndsey and I launched Follow the Geeks, a book about the future of work featuring 10 digital entrepreneurs who have discovered how to build new kinds of careers in the internet age. And since we’re writing about such innovative people, it feels fitting that we’re publishing the book in a new way.
One of the challenges with non-fiction is that it can take a year or more to write a book and then another year before it gets published, and the world moves so quickly today that by the time the book gets into the hands of readers, the information in it can already be outdated.
So, starting in early 2015, we’re going to be serially publishing Follow the Geeks by releasing one chapter at a time, with each chapter being available to read for free online for a few weeks until the next chapter comes out. This will get the book into the hands of readers much faster and give them a chance to try before they buy. We’re betting that if people like a chapter enough, then they’ll want to buy the whole book. Once we’ve serially published all of the chapters, we’re going to wrap them together into three different editions: ebook, audiobook, and hardback.
Along the way, we’re also going to solicit feedback from the people who read the chapters and ask them to submit insights on the subject of each chapter. Then, in the final version of the book, we’re going to include the best insights at the end of each chapter.
Because we’re self-publishing, we’re also crowdfunding Follow the Geeks. Instead of taking an “advance” from a publisher, we’re making ourselves accessible and responsible to our most loyal readers. The 60-day campaign launched on Indiegogo on December 1 and it reached 25% of its $10,000 goal in the first 48 hours. So, it’s off to a great start.
A lot of the credit goes to Lyndsey. She’s brought so much energy, intelligence, and style to this project. It would have never gotten off the ground if she hadn’t told me that it was a project worth doing and that it needed to be done NOW (oh, and that there were a number of things that needed to be done differently and better). She’s a force of nature and an amazing writer and her passion to do great work is the fuel that’s powering this project.
To put it all in perspective, here’s the video of Lyndsey and I summing up the mission of Follow the Geeks:
You can find the Indiegogo campaign here: igg.me/at/follow-the-geeks
