You know the term “four-hander” for a piano piece composed to be played by two pianists, right?
Our #FutureChat on Friday turned out to be the Twitteresque equivalent, and I was very glad to have my colleague Caroline Sanderson’s hands along to help engage in the conversation.
The FutureBook community seemed energised and welcoming, maybe even heartened by the debut of The Bookseller’s new Independent Author Preview, the arrangement with Nook Press that Sanderson is heading up.
Briefly, in case you’ve missed it, this monthly programme sees Sanderson selecting works of independently and self-published authors from a selection provided by Nook Press, the self-publishing platform of Barnes and Noble. While The Bookseller’s service to the industry for more than a century has included “shouting about” good books, as our editor Philip Jones puts it, the “indie” element is the distinguishing factor — this is the first time the magazine has created this sort of content for material outside the traditional publishing sector. And, if anything, industry readers may be among the most careful observers of this new showcase as it curates on a regular basis a collection of material that might not have been easily spotted otherwise.
Needless to say, some of the happiest folks who joined us Friday in #FutureChat were some of the authors whose work is included in this first preview. It was great to have them along, a chance to congratulate them on what Sanderson was careful to note is, in many cases, content “well edited, professionally presented and written with a flair equal to anything you might find on the list of a traditional publishing house.”
Because of the speed and volume of tweets the new preview triggered in #FutureChat — easily one of our busiest sessions yet — I’ll just grab key tweets from the discussion with a bit less effort at continuity this time, so I can give you a nice selection of reactions. We also had a negative response to the advent of the preview, lodged in a comment on our #FutureChat walkup (and this is good, we welcome comments as long as they arrive in a collegial and respectful tone). I thought that comment’s intent merited a longer look at the issue of quality in much self-published work, with this new showcase, in fact, arriving as another reason for authors to aim for highest marketplace standards in what they’re doing. So I produced a bit of a follow here at Thought Catalog on that specific subject.
Sanderson and I agreed on how glad we were that our #FutureChat turn into, in part, a discussion about quality and best practice, and with so much good input from so many folks.
On, then, to just a small number of the many tweets exchanged in #FutureChat, with gratitude to everyone who participated — do come back and join us each Friday at 4 p.m. London time (GMT), 5 p.m. Rome, 11 a.m. New York, 8 a.m. Los Angeles.
We’ll start with one of the first folks I heard from, the author J.J. Marsh, a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors (several showcased authors are members) — her honoured title (an editor’s choice, special commendation) is Cold Pressed, which has my vote automatically because it’s set on Santorini. Yassou!
By Porter Anderson | @Porter_Anderson
The FutureBook: Plunge taken: A #FutureChat recap on The Bookseller’s Indie Author Preview
Read the full post at: TheBookseller.com/futurebook
