Thousands of commuters every day are looking to fill in the boredom during their public transit, I know I am! They need short, snappy pieces that can be consumed in a day on the ride to and from work. It is this need, and the decline of in depth features in newspapers and magazines, that has seen the rise over the past twelve months in long form journalism, non-fiction pieces between 10,000 and 35,000 words that according to Mark Leslie at Kobo, are selling like hot-cakes through the online platforms. We’re not talking a massive reporting of the facts, e-book readers are after narrative non-fiction, a sort of evolution of the non-fiction article for e-book consumers. A half way point between fiction and non-fiction if you will. This has opened a huge opportunity for writers of all callings, from journalists, to non-fiction authors to fiction writers who pen travel, to memoir, to essays about writing. It is non-fiction’s answer to short stories and novellas.
At the end of last year, my writing mentor, world renowned fantasy author Isobelle Carmody, presented me with a challenge. Keep a diary of impressionist writing, describing my trip to Cambodia as simply as possible with as little judgement as possible – let the description speak for itself. When I returned and let her read through the entries she was astounded at what I had written, “This is possibly better than your fantasy writing, you should do some non-fiction pieces with this.” Then I spoke with Mark Leslie, touching on the rise of long form journalism, and suddenly my interest was piqued enough to seek out a podcast expert in this area! In this podcast I talk to new digital first long form publisher, Charlotte Harper from Editia about the rise of long form journalism and how emerging writers are using it as a path to professional publication.
Charlotte Harper covered the digital transformation of the book industry between 2010 and 2012 for Fairfax Media,Bookseller + Publisher and the EBOOKISH.com.au andBooku.com blogs. Charlotte is a former technology journalist, a Walkley Award-winning web producer (for her contribution to The Sydney Morning Herald’s online coverage of the 2000 Olympics) and ex-literary editor of The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. At The Canberra Times, she was variously chief sub-editor, features, online editor, and editor of firstly the Saturday news features section and then the Sunday magazine. Charlotte recently founded publishing companyEditia, which is a new digital first publishing business devoted to long form journalism and non-fiction shorts.
In this podcast we discuss:
- Why long form journalism is becoming so popular
- Why writers should look at it as a potential path to publication
- The length of a feature article in comparison to long form or a novel
- The rise of ‘commute’ fiction
- The potential for writers to make more money over time in comparison to freelance
- How long form publication could help increase your profile
- The importance of tying into recent news events when marketing long form journalism e-books
- Where the e-book revolution is going and how it will effect different genres
- The possibility of newspapers/magazines following Editia’s long form journalism path
- Thoughts on the future of newspapers
- Top 3 things an author needs to create a successful long form piece
- Elements of good research and interviewing
- The Key to being successful in this e-book niche
- The important difference between journalism for website/newspapers and journalism for e-books
- How to pitch long form journalism
- Marketing long form e-books
- Editia’s upcoming projects
- The top 3 tips for breaking into publishing via long form.
Enjoy!
Download this episode (right click and save)
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
I love hearing from my listeners! Please feel free to contact me or offer any feedback on topics you would like to see covered at: ebookrevolution (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Emily's non-fiction book E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-book success is now available at Kobo, Amazonand Bkclb (Australian e-book store).If you enjoy her tongue in cheek style you may also enjoy her comedy novel set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain: Photographer Extraordinaire also available from Kobo, Amazon and Bkclb.
The companion website for this podcast is http://ebookrevolution.podbean.com
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