Today BABS Organizer Anne Hill held the first BABS Hangout, a new series of lunch time meetings on Google+. Todd Sattersten, O’Reilly Media author, spoke about the whole process of self publishing as a way to develop your project. Here is an excerpt straight from the Hangout.
Todd Sattersten talking about “Every Book is a Startup” on the Google Hangout run by Anne Hill for Bay Area Bloggers Society.
I’ve never talked about it as a book. I call it a project. It’s amazing what happens when you say “book” and what meaning people bring to that idea. Definitive: all ideas completely thought out. I tried to be very clear up front that this was a work in progress and we’re changing it as we go along.
Is change intrinsic to the process I’m using? Yes. There’s no way to avoid the idea that I am not waiting until I’m done to get this out. I can’t say speed is driving it, because it’s taken more than a year. But I think what ends up happening is that ideas in their nascent state attract a certain kind of reader. They tend to attract innovators and early adopters. As you move through that phase, books that tend to scale and get very popular have to appeal to a wider audience. So there was a set of people that this book was not for them. They wanted something complete.
So we tried as much as possible to price it to reduce the risk for the reader. We started at 1.99 and then made the promise that updates would go to early readers for free. I don’t know how to get around the complaint “I want this thing fully baked.” It wasn’t the intent from the start, so I just take those with a grain of salt.
///
Much insight was offered in this thirty minute interview attended by BABS Members who gained entry via the BABS site here:
Tune in for future Google Hangouts with O’Reilly Media authors. The next one is in early September with Sarah Milstein, on Twitter for Authors. These are part of our year of Authors Go Public meetings supporting the process of modern publishing.
Watch the hashtag on Twitter for posts about these meetings. We are using #blogsoc, which is needing an adjustment as there is a new startup by that very name. Search also for #blogsociety for conversations among BABS members.
Suzanna Stinnett
Founder, Bay Area Bloggers Society