This is something I've been thinking about lately, but I really
honestly know next to nothing about the subject. How easy is it to
make your website mobile-friendly? How much should we cater to phone
readers? (Which includes Kindle-on-your-phone readers, these days.)
Where do you guys see phonefic taking us? Is there a better/more
established term than "phonefic", which I clearly just made up? What
about monetization?
> This is something I've been thinking about lately, but I really
> honestly know next to nothing about the subject. How easy is it to
> make your website mobile-friendly? How much should we cater to phone
> readers? (Which includes Kindle-on-your-phone readers, these days.)
> Where do you guys see phonefic taking us? Is there a better/more
> established term than "phonefic", which I clearly just made up? What
> about monetization?
As I use wordpress.com all I've had to do is tick the "enable mobile
view" tickbox, and then when I logged in through my phone I could see
it looked alright.
I do think phonefic is worth investigating, particularly for those of
us who write serial fiction. Mobile phone fiction has taken off a big
way in Japan, as far as I'm aware, with readers subscribed to stories
and then paying per text. But it's run through a large central
publishers.
I have come across http://textnovel.com/ but have never really given
it a proper look, as I imagine one would have to write specifically
for that format.
I did recently upload the first chapter of DarkSight to Wattpad, which
has a built-in mobile phone software and app. This is what it looks
like online: http://www.wattpad.com/629635-darksight-mind-the-gap --
but I even read it online through my phone (nice big text, easy to
read, but formatting was very simplistic) and even downloaded it onto
my phone for offline reading.
No answers to your questions, but just a little rambling on my
experiences!
I think if you're not on the Kindle Marketplace with your fiction you
are missing out big time.
The potential there is huge.
It puts your work on all the major devices (PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone,
iPod, Android, Blackberry) very easily. Anyone can upload their
fiction to the Market at no cost.
Amazon even has a blog to kindle program so you would only have to
mess around with formatting if you're using a standard blog format for
your fiction. (more info here: https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com/)
Good point about the Kindle marketplace, Doug. That said, there is
still some conversion to do in order to get your book into a nicely
formatted EPUB file.
I believe there are also specific techniques you can code into your
templates to make them phone friendly, but I can't for the life of me
remember what they are. Will have to look into them soon, I suspect.
On Sep 16, 6:39 am, Doug <dougfu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think if you're not on the Kindle Marketplace with your fiction you
> are missing out big time.
> The potential there is huge.
> It puts your work on all the major devices (PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone,
> iPod, Android, Blackberry) very easily. Anyone can upload their
> fiction to the Market at no cost.
> Amazon even has a blog to kindle program so you would only have to
> mess around with formatting if you're using a standard blog format for
> your fiction. (more info here:https://kindlepublishing.amazon.com/)
As far as I can see from the Kindle blog publishing service, it is
pretty limited / biased towards those who own US bank accounts. Which
is a shame, as it seems like it would be a great way to publish serial-
blog-fics on the Kindle. Hm.
Of course, when I get my serial wrapped up into a tidy book and
formatted all pretty, I'll be sure to use the Kindle market place.
I've been on textnovel since June, and we could really take a good
look at it.
They have been well covered in the mainstream media, though I'm not
sure if they made
NYT yet.
You don't have to write Ketai (cell phone novels) to post there, and
my webserial that I host
on a regular blog has translated over nicely. In fact, the number of
readers on the site makes it
a really good idea for anyone with weblit to at least post part of
your serial there, you
can add weblinks to the main site in the descriptions and round up a
bunch of readers.
I did start a ketai after a few months, just to see how I liked the
format, ie: short, almost
poetic chapters that can be read in a quick text. It was fun, but I
prefer my longer serial.
Most of the stories on textnovel are not actually phone serials. Many
are full novels and the opportunity
for promo there is great. Folks can fan and follow and vote for your
story and get email notifications
instantly when you add a chapter.
I still keep the main blog, but I put every episode on textnovel as
well.
one more venue.
I've been looking for a system to publish ketai for a while now, but
nothing seems to exist (or does it? I can't tell). I think the
benefit of the medium is that it's like personalized broadcasting, and
it should (theoretically) be easier to draw more people in, because
the chapters are so short. I think you need to want to write for that
medium, though. And monetizing it appears to be all but impossible at
the scale we'd be talking about.
Still, I will keep looking. If anyone else knows of a ketai system for
webservers, please let me know!
On Sep 15, 7:33 pm, FrancesP <nep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been on textnovel since June, and we could really take a good
> look at it.
> They have been well covered in the mainstream media, though I'm not
> sure if they made
> NYT yet.
> You don't have to write Ketai (cell phone novels) to post there, and
> my webserial that I host
> on a regular blog has translated over nicely. In fact, the number of
> readers on the site makes it
> a really good idea for anyone with weblit to at least post part of
> your serial there, you
> can add weblinks to the main site in the descriptions and round up a
> bunch of readers.
> I did start a ketai after a few months, just to see how I liked the
> format, ie: short, almost
> poetic chapters that can be read in a quick text. It was fun, but I
> prefer my longer serial.
> Most of the stories on textnovel are not actually phone serials. Many
> are full novels and the opportunity
> for promo there is great. Folks can fan and follow and vote for your
> story and get email notifications
> instantly when you add a chapter.
> I still keep the main blog, but I put every episode on textnovel as
> well.
> one more venue.
I've recently started reading a lot of fiction on my phone (motorola
droid), and it's been a great experience. I started with an old pdf
I've been meaning to read, but never got around to, and that was ok.
Then I downloaded aldiko, which is great! It hooks up directly to
feedbooks (which does free public domain/creative commons works). I've
been reading Corey Doctorow there, along with some no-name authors
(and some older public domain works).
Aldiko also allows downloading directly from smashwords, O'Reilly, and
some romance-specific place.
All of this is done in the EPUB format, and it has been a complete
pleasure to read. I would personally enjoy having more of the web
fiction community's works available through feedbooks (I did read some
of MeiLin's latest novel from smashwords on my phone, though that
wasn't free).
> I've been looking for a system to publish ketai for a while now, but
> nothing seems to exist (or does it? I can't tell). I think the
> benefit of the medium is that it's like personalized broadcasting, and
> it should (theoretically) be easier to draw more people in, because
> the chapters are so short. I think you need to want to write for that
> medium, though. And monetizing it appears to be all but impossible at
> the scale we'd be talking about.
> Still, I will keep looking. If anyone else knows of a ketai system for
> webservers, please let me know!
> On Sep 15, 7:33 pm, FrancesP <nep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've been on textnovel since June, and we could really take a good
> > look at it.
> > They have been well covered in the mainstream media, though I'm not
> > sure if they made
> > NYT yet.
> > You don't have to write Ketai (cell phone novels) to post there, and
> > my webserial that I host
> > on a regular blog has translated over nicely. In fact, the number of
> > readers on the site makes it
> > a really good idea for anyone with weblit to at least post part of
> > your serial there, you
> > can add weblinks to the main site in the descriptions and round up a
> > bunch of readers.
> > I did start a ketai after a few months, just to see how I liked the
> > format, ie: short, almost
> > poetic chapters that can be read in a quick text. It was fun, but I
> > prefer my longer serial.
> > Most of the stories on textnovel are not actually phone serials. Many
> > are full novels and the opportunity
> > for promo there is great. Folks can fan and follow and vote for your
> > story and get email notifications
> > instantly when you add a chapter.
> > I still keep the main blog, but I put every episode on textnovel as
> > well.
> > one more venue.
Yeah, I make ePub eBooks manually of a lot of fiction and read them on
my iPod touch. It's really not a bad experience - I generally just
paste all the chapters in a text file, import into to Calibri and
export to ePub, send to Stanza. I have a somewhat neglected plugin
that makes eBooks from a WordPress category too. I wish I had more
time!
Making a site mobile friendly isn't really any more difficult then
creating a site normally. You can actually specify a CSS stylesheet
just for mobile browsers - if you can make everything a single column,
your site will generally be usable. With mobile browsers advancing
though, even non-mobile optimized sites are becoming easier and easier
to read. Still there is a bit of a technical barrier to doing this in
the first place and it's not really something authors without an
interest in this stuff should have to think all that much about.
On Sep 16, 3:30 pm, Bradley <zebatin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've recently started reading a lot of fiction on my phone (motorola
> droid), and it's been a great experience. I started with an old pdf
> I've been meaning to read, but never got around to, and that was ok.
> Then I downloaded aldiko, which is great! It hooks up directly to
> feedbooks (which does free public domain/creative commons works). I've
> been reading Corey Doctorow there, along with some no-name authors
> (and some older public domain works).
> Aldiko also allows downloading directly from smashwords, O'Reilly, and
> some romance-specific place.
> All of this is done in the EPUB format, and it has been a complete
> pleasure to read. I would personally enjoy having more of the web
> fiction community's works available through feedbooks (I did read some
> of MeiLin's latest novel from smashwords on my phone, though that
> wasn't free).
> > I've been looking for a system to publish ketai for a while now, but
> > nothing seems to exist (or does it? I can't tell). I think the
> > benefit of the medium is that it's like personalized broadcasting, and
> > it should (theoretically) be easier to draw more people in, because
> > the chapters are so short. I think you need to want to write for that
> > medium, though. And monetizing it appears to be all but impossible at
> > the scale we'd be talking about.
> > Still, I will keep looking. If anyone else knows of a ketai system for
> > webservers, please let me know!
> > On Sep 15, 7:33 pm, FrancesP <nep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I've been on textnovel since June, and we could really take a good
> > > look at it.
> > > They have been well covered in the mainstream media, though I'm not
> > > sure if they made
> > > NYT yet.
> > > You don't have to write Ketai (cell phone novels) to post there, and
> > > my webserial that I host
> > > on a regular blog has translated over nicely. In fact, the number of
> > > readers on the site makes it
> > > a really good idea for anyone with weblit to at least post part of
> > > your serial there, you
> > > can add weblinks to the main site in the descriptions and round up a
> > > bunch of readers.
> > > I did start a ketai after a few months, just to see how I liked the
> > > format, ie: short, almost
> > > poetic chapters that can be read in a quick text. It was fun, but I
> > > prefer my longer serial.
> > > Most of the stories on textnovel are not actually phone serials. Many
> > > are full novels and the opportunity
> > > for promo there is great. Folks can fan and follow and vote for your
> > > story and get email notifications
> > > instantly when you add a chapter.
> > > I still keep the main blog, but I put every episode on textnovel as
> > > well.
> > > one more venue.
That's a good point. I've found ToMU to be fairly easy to read on my
phone. It is definitely possible to read directly from the web. . .
but the dedicated readers seem to be much better.
On Sep 18, 12:06 pm, Chris Clarke <chriscla...@sorrowfulunfounded.com>
wrote:
> Yeah, I make ePub eBooks manually of a lot of fiction and read them on
> my iPod touch. It's really not a bad experience - I generally just
> paste all the chapters in a text file, import into to Calibri and
> export to ePub, send to Stanza. I have a somewhat neglected plugin
> that makes eBooks from a WordPress category too. I wish I had more
> time!
> Making a site mobile friendly isn't really any more difficult then
> creating a site normally. You can actually specify a CSS stylesheet
> just for mobile browsers - if you can make everything a single column,
> your site will generally be usable. With mobile browsers advancing
> though, even non-mobile optimized sites are becoming easier and easier
> to read. Still there is a bit of a technical barrier to doing this in
> the first place and it's not really something authors without an
> interest in this stuff should have to think all that much about.
> On Sep 16, 3:30 pm, Bradley <zebatin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I've recently started reading a lot of fiction on my phone (motorola
> > droid), and it's been a great experience. I started with an old pdf
> > I've been meaning to read, but never got around to, and that was ok.
> > Then I downloaded aldiko, which is great! It hooks up directly to
> > feedbooks (which does free public domain/creative commons works). I've
> > been reading Corey Doctorow there, along with some no-name authors
> > (and some older public domain works).
> > Aldiko also allows downloading directly from smashwords, O'Reilly, and
> > some romance-specific place.
> > All of this is done in the EPUB format, and it has been a complete
> > pleasure to read. I would personally enjoy having more of the web
> > fiction community's works available through feedbooks (I did read some
> > of MeiLin's latest novel from smashwords on my phone, though that
> > wasn't free).
> > On Sep 15, 11:30 pm, MCM <m...@1889.ca> wrote:
> > > I've been looking for a system to publish ketai for a while now, but
> > > nothing seems to exist (or does it? I can't tell). I think the
> > > benefit of the medium is that it's like personalized broadcasting, and
> > > it should (theoretically) be easier to draw more people in, because
> > > the chapters are so short. I think you need to want to write for that
> > > medium, though. And monetizing it appears to be all but impossible at
> > > the scale we'd be talking about.
> > > Still, I will keep looking. If anyone else knows of a ketai system for
> > > webservers, please let me know!
> > > > I've been on textnovel since June, and we could really take a good
> > > > look at it.
> > > > They have been well covered in the mainstream media, though I'm not
> > > > sure if they made
> > > > NYT yet.
> > > > You don't have to write Ketai (cell phone novels) to post there, and
> > > > my webserial that I host
> > > > on a regular blog has translated over nicely. In fact, the number of
> > > > readers on the site makes it
> > > > a really good idea for anyone with weblit to at least post part of
> > > > your serial there, you
> > > > can add weblinks to the main site in the descriptions and round up a
> > > > bunch of readers.
> > > > I did start a ketai after a few months, just to see how I liked the
> > > > format, ie: short, almost
> > > > poetic chapters that can be read in a quick text. It was fun, but I
> > > > prefer my longer serial.
> > > > Most of the stories on textnovel are not actually phone serials. Many
> > > > are full novels and the opportunity
> > > > for promo there is great. Folks can fan and follow and vote for your
> > > > story and get email notifications
> > > > instantly when you add a chapter.
> > > > I still keep the main blog, but I put every episode on textnovel as
> > > > well.
> > > > one more venue.
This is so topical for me. Since September began, I've been working
with three authors on Wattpad, who came to the site just because it
allowed works to be read on mobile phones. I still think eReaders are
too expensive for some and the demographic is much smaller than mobile
phones can offer.
Nina
On Sep 15, 4:44 pm, Ari Collins <colin.ja...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is something I've been thinking about lately, but I really
> honestly know next to nothing about the subject. How easy is it to
> make your website mobile-friendly? How much should we cater to phone
> readers? (Which includes Kindle-on-your-phone readers, these days.)
> Where do you guys see phonefic taking us? Is there a better/more
> established term than "phonefic", which I clearly just made up? What
> about monetization?
Yeah, I'm taking a look at the fluid design, too. Trying to craft a
mobile version of Loose Leaf Stories (my site) has given me an
unending headache. The fluid Hickdesign is BEAUTIFUL! Good lord, how
do I get me one of these? I'm afraid to even ask what it would cost me
to buy.
@Eli: The link you put up to Hicksdesign has absolutely inspired me. I
definitely lack the technical skill to craft something that good, but
I'm working on a single-column Wordpress theme that will scale
gracefully for phones. If I can come up with anything halfway decent,
I'll happily offer the theme to any interested authors.
Took some time to look at the code. How he did that is really simple - go look at the source, and then open up the CSS file. Look for:
@media screen and (min-width: 920px)
And other lines that look like that. What that says is - if the screen is at least 920px wide and larger, load that bit of CSS.
Similarly:
@media screen and (max-width: 500px)
which means, if the screen is less than or equal to 500px, load that bit of CSS. This is apparently a new (CSS3) spec, and ... well I haven't heard of it before, but I find it awesome.
He's also added a couple of other clever hacks to make sure this works in as many browsers as possible, but these are edge cases, and I won't go into them here.
> @Eli: The link you put up to Hicksdesign has absolutely inspired me. I > definitely lack the technical skill to craft something that good, but > I'm working on a single-column Wordpress theme that will scale > gracefully for phones. If I can come up with anything halfway decent, > I'll happily offer the theme to any interested authors.
I'm as likely to be able to make my site phone friendly as I am to
suddenly sprout wings.:) But that's not going to stop me from trying.
I'll just wait until there's an idiot proof version.:)
Seems like it would be an amazing format but with more readers out
there like the iPad and other tablets they would be able to go to the
normal websites anyway wouldn't they? I think the most important thing
would be to try to make our community more well known and close knit
together.
The tablets can access the normal sites, yeah, but there's still a lot
of people doing most of their browsing on their phones. A mobile-
friendly option is still important.
Not THE most important thing, though. Our community is far more
important :)
