Interview - Literature To Go
The article 'Literature To Go: The new net literature' has been online on fluter.de since yesterday. Kerstin Fritzsche was kind enough to interview me for the online portal of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. In addition to me, newcomer Tim Cortinovis also has his say in the article.
The new net literature | Kerstin Fritzsche | 31.10.2006
The major publishing houses are pondering how they can best conquer Web 2.0 - also known as the ›social Internet‹ - with its many formats and uses. Too late: many writers are already active in forums and blogs. The latest highlight: free literary podcasts for everyone to download.
If you want to become an author, you need a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of stamina. After all, very few people are “discovered” by a publisher, immediately land on a bestseller list, and earn a fortune.
No, normally authors have to send many manuscript copies to the publishers’ editorial offices for expensive postage, where the copies then turn yellow in a vast pile on a desk - or the publishers send them back unread.
In the gray zone
Two alternatives exist for this fate: either you attempt to secure a literary agency, which could connect you with a publisher in Hintertupfingen after a significant amount of time. By then, though, you will have definitely become poor. Or you can turn to what the industry calls a ›gray zone publisher‹. These are the ones that advertise everywhere with small ads like »We’ll publish your book!« But there you have to pay a hefty printing fee. So here, too, you become poor.
So if there’s no money to be made with literature, then at least it should be fun and accessible to interested parties. That’s what Christian Heinke likely thought. At the beginning of 2005, the radio journalist from Bochum, Christian Heinke, offered the manuscript of his radio play thriller ›Die Haut‹ (The Skin) to WDR, but they rejected it. »Another one for the drawer, I thought to myself. But shortly afterwards, I heard about this new ›podcast‹ thing and did some research. I noticed that many of the podcasters were trying to do ›radio‹, but no one had yet come up to tell a story,« explains Heinke. He sensed a gap in the market and put ›The Skin‹ online as a podcast.
Sudden success
Successful: »A short time later, Apple integrated the podcast subscription into their iTunes software. I added my podcast as a joke and forgot about the whole thing. But then I suddenly started getting emails from people who had listened to my podcast asking when it would continue. So I checked iTunes ... and found myself in the top ten between Tagesschau and Schlaflos in München. I hadn’t been able to generate reactions like that with my reading samples before!« says Heinke, recounting his Web 2.0 success story.
He also thinks it’s better than a traditional audiobook, because »every month my listeners eagerly wait to find out how the story of my heroine Katherine Williams continues. I think it’s great that the tradition of the serialized novel, as practiced by Dickens, Dumas, and Doyle, is being revived.« Tim Cortinovis from the authors’ group Tippgemeinschaft, who runs a podcast from Hamburg with his novel ›Herzfassen‹, agrees: »Literature is not bound to the printed word and should also make use of other formats. I like the fact that a text doesn’t have to be read on a monitor or printed out. Listeners can listen to stories on their computer or take them with them on the subway or jogging on a mp3 player. You don’t have to listen for several hours at a time - as with a traditional audio book.«
Heinke found a publisher for his thriller separate from the podcast, but »it certainly didn’t do any harm«, he believes. Cortinovis is still hoping for a publisher with the help of the podcast, because »several hundred or even a thousand listeners per week are a powerful selling point«. But aren’t you selling yourself short if everything was already available for free online? Heinke denies this; he does not put complete texts online.
He also believes that publishers lack the capacity to search for new talent online. Cortinovis sees the appeal and challenge more in combining lively literary forms such as poetry slams or club readings with podcasts. Publishers are always slower than the internet: »most impulses will probably come from the users and authors themselves. And the podcast cannot replace the printed book.«
Publishers are trying to catch up with the ›social web‹. Bertelsmann, Germany’s largest publishing house, is working on its own Internet platform like MySpace in order to tap into new, young target groups. It is now believed that they no longer spend their money on Bravo and popcorn movies, but on Internet offerings. Weblogs, wikis, and podcasts were an important topic at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October, with eight events and a dedicated book fair blog.
The young Dresden publishing house Voland & Quist has had its own blog for a month in order to ‘be closer to its readers’. Voland & Quist has its own account with a photo stream on the photo site Flickr. The publisher has clearly understood Web 2.0: Everything for everyone. It’s the network, stupid! Thanks to the Internet, Christian Heinke can almost make a living from writing. And with 2,500 listeners, ›Herzfassen‹ is now in sixth place in the podcast culture charts on iTunes. The up-and-coming authors of the future should therefore invest in a fast internet connection rather than postage.
Kerstin Fritzsche is literary editor of the Hanover city magazine STADTKIND hannovermagazin, which had a homepage from the start but neither a blog nor a podcast. But you never know.
