One of my favourite lectures each year is to the creative writing master class at the University of Cape Town. The title of the lecture is The Writer as Digital Immigrant and looks at the impact of the digital evolution on creative writing as well as the business of book publishing. This year the subtitle of my presentation was Snapshots Along a Digital Journey and comprised 14 "snapshots" that looked issues such as thinking digital; the evolving digital landscape; storytelling in a digital, commercial arena; and from paper to pixel. Several of the slide need a talking head in front of them, but hopefully people will get the gist of the presentation.

1. the writer as
digital immigrant
creative writing master class
patrick collings
October 2012
photo by stephen poff

3. photo by jessica wilson
snapshots along a
digital journey

4. Thinking digital
An evolving
landscape
Storytelling in
a digital,
commercial arena
From paper to
pixel
photo by jyewenyi

5. Sn apshot #1
Our digital
liv es as a
river
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

6. photo by Al_HikesAZ

7. Sn apshot #2
The digital
landscape
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

9. Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and
Britney Spears have more
Twitter followers than the
entire populations of North
Korea, Australia, Chile…Israel,
Sweden, Greece,

12. In the time I take to
discuss online video,
100+ hours of video
will be uploaded to
YouTube

13. social video
50%
social video
95%
Today 2015

14. there is an app
for everything

15. photo by mattsantomarco
location is important
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here
I’m here I’m here

16. augmenting our reality

17. the third screen
is the first screen
photo by Drinksmachine

18. Snapshot #3
...a nd now a
story from our
sponsor
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

21. Snapshot #4
Bran d stories
prefer red over
ads
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

22. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20
largest brands are links to user-generated
content

24. Sn apshot #5
Content
curat ion over
creation
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

25. “If you write a book you are an expert”
- Dr Charles Martin

26. 764,448

28. Sn apshot #6
Colla borative
st orytelling
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

31. Sna pshot #7
Cons ciousness
of belonging
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

32. “all life is a performance”
has been extended offstage
photo by chris willis

33. the self is increasingly
becoming externally manufactured
rather than internally developed
by dana ocker

34. “On Twitter or Facebook you’re trying to express
something real about who you are. But because
you’re also creating something for others’
consumption, you find yourself imagining and
playing to your audience more and more. So
those moments in which you’re supposed to be
showing your true self become a performance.
Your psychology becomes a performance.”
- Sherry Turkle

35. Sn apshot #8
Cha nging how
we read
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

36. “The Web is good at creating short and
snappy bits of information, but not so much
when it comes to long-form, edited, fact-and-
spell-checked work”
- Nicholas Thompson

40. Sn apshot #9
All the news
that’ s fit to
sell
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

42. “Ms Lang talks about Time Inc. not as a
magazine publisher, but as a branded news
and entertainment company.”
- New York Times

43. “Many (magazines) are turning themselves
from mere carriers of ads into marketing-
service companies, giving their advertisers a
range of new ways to reach readers.”
- The Economist

44. Snapshot #10
Stev e Jobs is
still defining
our lives
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

45. 30%

46. Snapshot #11
Pu blishers
gettin g to like
digital
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

47. “Most of us publishers have seen big gains
from electronic books this year. We’ve seen
some tailing off of the print sales, but for
most companies, the growth of e-books has
been so great that there’s a lot of revenue
coming from the side that sort of gravy for
us. So we’re all feeling pretty good”
- Peter Ginna, Publisher
and Editorial Director,
Bloomsbury Press

48. Agency Pricing Traditional Wholesale
E-book price $12.99 Hardcover price $26
Return to publisher $9.09 Return to publisher $13
Less 25% of net sales
$2.27 15% author royalty $3.90
to author
$6.82 $9.10
Less digital rights Shipping, warehousing &
$0.90 $3.25
management production
$5.92 $5.85
Less returns and inventory <$5.85

49. The Wall Street Journal wrote that publishers
estimate that e-books could be as much as
40% of revenue by the end of 2012.

50. Snap shot #12
Claim ing a new
territo ry often
accomp anied by
b loodshed
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

51. “The only really necessary people in the
publishing process now are the writer
and the reader.”
- Russell Grandinetti, Amazon

53. Laurel Saville
likes Amazon

54. Penguin’s
Riverhead Books
didn’t like
Amazon liking
Kiana Davenport

55. HarperCollins Publishers and a former senior
executive fight over who owns digital copyright

56. “HarperCollins is trying to intimidate authors,
overturn established law and grab rights that
were not in existence when the contracts were
signed many years ago”
- Chris Davis, COO, Open Road

57. ?

58. “It’s a balancing act, because bookstores are
needed to generate excitement even though
the final transaction may be digital”
- Lorraine Shanley
Market Partners International

59. Snapshot #13
Writer’ s cramp
to g et worse
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

60. “The e-book age has accelerated the
metabolism of book publishing”
- New York Times

61. 1
Need to satisfy impatient readers who
have become used to downloading books
at the touch of a mouse button.
2
Need to hold onto readers being lured by
other entertainment which is available
non-stop and instantaneously.
3
Strategic use of short stories, timed six to
eight weeks before a major release, can
entice new readers.

62. Best-selling author Lisa Scottoline has increased her
output from one book a year to two books.
British thriller writer Lee Child is supplementing his
hardcover books with short stories published only as e-
books.
John Grisham has added an additional series,
Theodore Boone novels, to his annual output

63. Snapshot #14
Soci al media
a s a book
c ompanion
ph
oto
by
waki
ngp
ho
tol
ife

64. “...the Internet has allowed readers to enjoy
a more intimate relationship with their
favourite authors, whom they now expect to
be accessible online via blogs, Q. and A.’s
on Twitter and updates on Facebook”
- New York Times

68. In a feat that even the
best-selling writers might
envy, young-adult author
John Green's latest novel
is No. 1 on Amazon.com
and Barnes & Noble.com
even though he's still
working on it from his
comfy La-Z-Boy in
Indianapolis.
The Wall Street Journal
July 2011

69. In only a few short years, the ability to use
social networking as a literary megaphone
has gone from an afterthought to the focus
of most marketing and image shaping by
publishers. "Everyone is now focused on it,
because when it works, it can be a runaway
train," says Tim Duggan, executive editor
of Harper

70. “You can’t stop what’s coming.”