Writing Communities: The Publishing Industry’s Attitude Adjustment

The attitude in publishing for a long time has been similar to a king lording over his domain. A select few courtiers (or writers) are chose to fawn in the king’s presence for the right of publication, and then the king distributes chosen edicts (Novels) to a large number of readers who are expected to abide by (read) the edicts the king chooses to give. Now this does not mean the king is evil, just that the system has been in place for so long that the king knows no different. Then the revolution comes along, chops off the king’s...power and suddenly we all become like scattered ants scrambling around for some sort of organised path back to the hill.

It’s the old story of power to the people and while it has seen this industry flip out like a teenager in need of an attitude adjustment, it has also developed some fantastic new start ups that recognise the power of communities. I have blogged extensively about the importance of communities, both in increasing exposure for your e-book as well as being an invaluable tool for the workshopping of your work before you publish. One start up has caught my attention in the past couple of weeks, and that is the Red Lemonade community run by the Cursor platform, the genesis of one fantastically bright indie publisher, Richard Nash.

Nash, for almost a decade, was the publisher for the iconic indie Soft Skull Press. He has been noted as the number one Twitter user for changing the shape of publishing and has spoken extensively over the past year about the need to connect readers and writers together in more ways than just the simple reading of a sheaf of pages stuck together with a smattering of glue. Red Lemonade is the first publishing community launched on the Cursor platform allowing writers to upload manuscripts, participate in writing groups and readers to give feedback, make comments or annotate. The only thing it appears to be lacking is the ability to draw cartoons in the margins.

All these elements are invaluable when making sure you have a quality product to release to your market. The community also acts as a conduit for publishers to search through comments and discussions for manuscripts they wish to publish. If that is the sort of avenue you are more inclined to pursue rather than self-publishing, then this site is doubly for you. As with any community you need to make sure your manuscript fits in with the sort of genres that participants are interested in. Red Lemonade is a publishing community of fiction and highly narrative non-fiction. As stated by Nash, “We avoid labelling what we do but it tends to be risky, socially charged, misbehaving stuff. Red Lemonade is for the writers other publishers are afraid of.” So attempting to post your paranormal romance involving vampire rabbits is not recommended at this stage. However, it is worthwhile signing up for the Cursor mailing list as there are already plans in the works for the release of other communities powered by Cursor, for example communities dedicated entirely to science fiction.

For the moment - who knows how long - the entire thing is absolutely, 100% free. So strike while the iron is hot!

I had the privilege of interviewing Richard several weeks ago about his innovative approach to e-books and the future of our industry from a publisher’s perspective. I will pull out some golden bits of information from it for my next blog post; however, to sate your appetite a section of the interview regarding this new community is below.



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