A Place for Multimedia Long-Form Stories

Add to your reading list a piece about the Atavist. Here's the opening blurb at Nieman Storyboard: 

Multimedia storytelling at The Atavist: One year in, how’s it going, Evan Ratliff?
It’s been a little over a year since The Atavist debuted as a groundbreaking digital platform for long-form multimedia storytelling. Narrative journalists had been bemoaning the shrinking storytelling acreage, so this app-based venue was met with substantial interest. “E-books are more than a publishing platform,” as New York magazine referred to the genre, “they’re a whole new literary form.”
So, is it working?

Read the whole interview. I plan to.

Happily Ever After?

You're thinking you'll be happy when you finally get that book contract? A post on a literary agent's blog will make you think again.

The Sigma Delta Chi Foundation is accepting applications for the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writing.

The Pulliam Editorial Fellowship awards $75,000 to an editorial writer to help broaden his or her journalistic horizons and knowledge of the world. The cash award can be used to cover the cost of study, research and/or travel in any field.

For more information, including application requirements and information about the 2011 Pulliam Fellow, click here.

Applications are due June 22.

For questions, please contact Awards Coordinator Lauren Rochester at lrochester@spj.org.

eBook Issues

The Internet is so tempting for a writer, isn't it: Unlimited space online! Inexpensive! Accessible!

And a whole 'nuther batch of issues to contemplate.

Here's an excerpt from Media Morning Newsfeed (put out free by Media Bistro):

Navigating A Tightrope With Amazon (NYT)
Last Tuesday, Buzz Bissinger hopped the Amtrak train to Philadelphia from New York, where he had done a bit of publicity for After Friday Night Lights, a 12,000-word eBook that had been performing nicely since its release. But when he opened his laptop to check his ranking on Amazon, he found the book was no longer for sale there. GalleyCat Through an Apple and Starbucks promotion, customers could redeem the book for free. To compete with the lowest price available, Amazon dropped its price to zero. Unhappy with this move, Bissinger's publisher Byliner.com pulled the title. Philadelphia Inquirer Bissinger wrote the eBook for Byliner, a publisher specializing in electronic "long-form" books (say, 5,000 to 30,000 words). Byliner published it through Amazon and other venues -- including iTunes, the Apple shop -- and priced it at $2.99. It's also for sale at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other digital stores. And it was doing pretty well. paidContent This means authors will have to make the decision: Will they gain more new readers and sales by having their book promoted in Starbucks, or will the sales lost through Amazon that week outweigh any Starbucks benefit?

Another venue, another factors to balance.

Lord knows, I don't have any answers. I just like to bring up the questions.

Has anyone used Byliner, as an author or a read4er? Just curious.