Is Second Life still useful for authors and publishers? It depends how you use it, argues Adele Ward – who has recently used virtual contacts to make her new publishing business a reality.

I’ve probably tried as hard, or harder, than anyone to find out how useful Second Life could be for publishers and authors. There are serious obstacles that most publishers and authors are finding, and I’ll talk about them at the end. However, I’ve just started a new publishing company called Ward Wood Publishing together with business partner Mike Fortune-Wood of Cinnamon Press, and I have to admit that it wouldn’t have happened without Second Life putting us in contact.

Apart from getting me and Mike together, Second Life also led to a working relationship with the London School of Journalism (LSJ) who asked for my advice when they started their island. Now the LSJ have helped Ward Wood by financing our website, www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk, and I expect they’ll work with us more in future. So Second Life has been a greater asset than I was starting to think it could be.

This story probably shows how Second Life can work in quite unique ways. I could have ‘met’ Mike Fortune-Wood on other social networks like Facebook. But would we have got to know each other in a way that would have led to us working together? It’s hard to imagine that we could have achieved that. He lives in Wales and I live in London so we were extremely unlikely to meet face-to-face and learn what we thought of each other as potential work partners.

The difference on Second Life is that it really does feel like meeting somebody and even working with them. So you can get a good idea of the level of their professionalism and how compatible you are as working partners. I met Mike when I was organising free space for publishers and writers as I’ve always felt Second Life would work best if publishers, writers, publications and writing projects were gathered together. The writers bring traffic to an area because they like to have regular events, such as open mics, and the publishers can then offer tips and advice on submissions with interactive signs in their stores. This interaction leads to interest in the publishers’ displays and links to their websites.

Whereas in the past publishers invested in whole islands and created impressive builds to attract traffic, they seem to be realising that a small display with the right information in a busy area and the right target audience seems more effective. Although most send marketing people on to Second Life, there are smaller publishers with editors who come on, attend open mics, and have even offered publishing contracts. The standard of writing on Second Life is high. International contacts can also be made between publishers and authors.

Mike Fortune-Wood took one of the spaces I offered near two popular open mic and performance venues and we have got to know each other over a long period. We have both had a chance to see how the other one works, and we must have liked what we saw. I’ve sat with Mike in a virtual café and he has given me extremely useful advice at times about financing my own freelance writing work.

When Mike heard that I wanted to start a publishing company he contacted me immediately with an Instant Message on Second Life and said he would like to join me. He had already set out ideas on how he would like the company to run and told me all of them. As Mike’s skills complement my own I was interested immediately and went away to think about his approach to publishing.

I’ve worked for more than thirty years in writing and editorial work as well as press relations and had thought I would need to learn more about the production, distribution and financial side of the business before starting a company. Mike is expert in these sides of publishing and likes to work with an editor as he doesn’t want to be involved in that side. It was a perfect match, and I must admit that I have Second Life to thank for it.

We signed our partnership papers weeks ago and the website went live on the 4th of July, very apt as our first book will be launched in September and is a novel called A Clash of Innocents by American author Sue Guiney. We then have poetry collections coming out in October and November from Ann Alexander (previously with Peterloo and a poet with an impressive set of competition wins) and Mike Horwood who is also previously published. Social networks helped me to find the authors and to see that they needed a publisher, so I value them all, but Second Life worked in a different way to bring me and Mike together as business partners.

I’m not overly positive about Second Life. It has proved extremely difficult for publishers to use it as a sales tool as people don’t tend to buy books there. It’s also hard for businesses to justify the time it takes to do anything, even to build a fairly small display and update it. It’s almost impossible to attract traffic so it’s essential to locate yourself on an area with the right target audience coming to regular events near your display (they don’t move far from the stage or event venue). I think, most of all, the findings I’ve made show that it doesn’t work in the expected ways.

It’s best for the activities other social networks can’t manage – in particular interactive voice events like open mics, performances, talks, disussions and even classes. Added to that it lets you make contacts in a way that feels face-to-face no matter where you both are in the world, and can lead to a kind of networking you can’t initiate easily on other social networks where you need to know the people you approach with friendship offers.

The London School of Journalism is showing just how Second Life can be used to enhance online learning with a series of free lectures which are proving extremely popular. Unusual though it may look to anyone who hasn’t tried teaching or learning in the virtual world, SL offers advantages over other distance learning methods that make it feel more like a face-to-face environment. Lecturers can deliver their talk to students from around the world and receive immediate feedback and questions from their audience. The level of interactivity is somehow helped by the fact that each participant appears as an avatar, giving the impression of all being in the same room.

Although the lecturers use voice, the students can type their questions into chat so that they can be dealt with in an organised way. The LSJ’s own students go online to attend the lectures, and promotion across SL also draws in new interest from aspiring and practising writers, journalists and educators. More than 100 universities and colleges are on SL, although many haven’t managed to make full use of this platform yet, and the LSJ are showing how it can be used to best advantage while raising international awareness of their presence.

Although the LSJ hasn’t yet started giving workshops on SL I’ve also attended and organised workshops and discussion groups myself and the experience of sitting round a virtual table talking with a group is remarkably similar to a real life meeting. The possibilities for education on SL are undoubtedly going to make it increasingly appealing as a way of attracting students who want to learn online. The lectures and classes have so far mainly been free on SL, and I’m sure this will continue, but there is also the possibility of using private-access land and buildings which only allow students on fee-paying courses to attend. Over the coming year I believe more colleges and individual tutors will use this to add virtual workshops and lectures for their registered students, making education one of the main activities likely to have most success on SL. As education and publishing are so closely linked it’s worth building up a strong network of contacts and collaborating, especially as SL is relatively inexpensive and the pioneers will find it easiest to be noticed.

The LSJ arrived in SL last summer and established a presence quickly by talking with the organisers of main groups in writing and education and linking into already established networks rather than trying to go it alone. An extra bonus on SL is that events can be filmed and broadcast to a much larger audience, and these lectures have been videoed by Geo Meek. Here’s an extract:

You can find more on the LSJ YouTube Channel and Blip TV. I’ve been to the lectures and found them invaluable, taught to the kind of high standard expected from the LSJ and with questions of similar standard from the audience.

I heard that the LSJ have been so pleased with the way the lectures are going that they’re moving more of their distance learning on to SL to take advantage of the high level of interactivity with students. So I caught up with Titan Thorne, who organises the LSJ’s virtual presence, to ask about their experiences and future plans:

Adele: Is it right that you’re planning to move your online lectures to SL?

Titan: We are certainly hoping to move a great deal of our lectures to the SL format, however, not everything is SL compatible.

Adele: Did you have online lectures before and did you use other methods?

Titan: We used a very simple text box format on one of our websites which students would log into. The lecturer would type out his lecture, and the students would then interact with questions.

Adele: What do you feel are the advantages of using SL for online lectures? I remember your lecturer Andrew Knight enjoying the interactivity with students.

Titan: As you can imagine, our old system was not able to provide the same interactivity that SL can. The fact that the lecturer now speaks using SL voice is far more interesting and easy to listen to. Both students and lecturers alike agree with this!

Adele: Have you been surprised by the standard of ability shown by SL users who come to the lectures – many people think they’ll just find game players there?

Titan: I think SL can fall under an ‘online game’ type category rather too easily. So when I first came to SL I was definitely surprised to see how big online education was – with various open lectures/poetry and short story readings/literary competitions etc (the list could go on forever!). A year later, though, and I can still easily find the high standard of writers that I think many of us have become used to.

Adele: Could you explain the discounts offered to SL users who register for your courses and do you know yet if SL has helped you attract international students?

Titan: We are offering a 10% discount to any SL users who sign up on one of our distance learning courses. We have certainly attracted many people to our lectures, but it is too early to tell if people are keen to sign up – we’re only on our 3rd lecture at present. Hopefully in a few months time we might see some interested faces!

Adele: Do you intend to use SL for your courses in other ways?

Titan: We hope to hold tutorial classes in SL for our current LSJ Students. This will, as mentioned previously, increase interactivity between teacher and student with both of them using SL voice.

Adele: What do you think helped the LSJ make such a successful entrance into SL and make users so aware of your presence quickly, bearing in mind that many organisations have tried and failed?

Titan: Without sounding too much like a Hollywood movie – teamwork! By this I mean we have tried to get as many people from the LSJ into SL as possible. Most of our lecturers and administrators have got SL accounts which they try to use as much as possible. With everyone on board it was easy to start transferring our students across to SL, and with that, the lectures came too. As far as the SL side is concerned, a strong list of affiliates groups helped us to quickly establish ourselves. If anyone is thinking of setting up an educational group in SL, I would recommend working alongside the pre-established groups, and not against them! Each group brings its own ‘students’ and you can help each other grow by finding other events and groups that your students will be interested in. We are currently compiling a ‘Second Life recommendation list’ for our students which will point them in the direction of other useful people and places to visit.

Adele: How do you help students make the most of SL and find sims useful and safe for them, while avoiding the types of areas criticised recently in the press?

Titan: I think the best method is to talk to as many SL educational enthusiasts as possible, and try as much out as you can! Exploration is key in the SL world, and anything I find that I think is useful, I recommend!

For further information on the LSJ visit www.lsj.org and to explore their island in SL you’ll need to register for free at http://secondlife.com and go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/LSJ%20Student%20Union/23/117/32

A quick read of the newspapers recently for any Second Life articles could make you decide it’s not the place for anyone thinking of using this virtual world for serious business or activities. Like the rest of the internet, 3D internet contains all things, and journalists can find sleaze or high culture, and all the levels in between. I’m glad Jon has asked me to be a guest blogger so I can show why I believe 3D Internet is particularly useful for publishers and booksellers as well as authors and other creative people. I’ll use this space to show just how publishers, authors and educators are succeeding in SL, and what it is that makes others try and fail.

I’ve been on SL for two years, building up a project called the Written Word which I run with Peter Chowney (Hastings Bournemouth on SL). So far this project has aimed to help writers but we’re building a new area which gives free space to publishers. Over the coming months I’ll write about how publishers, authors and educators are using our area, and others, to show how SL can be used successfully by them to establish a presence in the virtual world, promote themselves, and guage the number of people linking to their websites to buy books, courses and services. As part of this work I’ll invite authors on to the Meet an Author show, an online televised interview show which you can see on http://slcn.tv on the Meet an Author page.

It has frustrated me recently to see publishers giving up on SL, leaving because they had invested and didn’t manage to use their presence fruitfully. I know it can be so easy for a publisher to make far more of SL and that books and publishing should be one of the biggest successes on 3D internet – this is what happened on the standard Internet after all. If I’m proved wrong on our Written Word area, and the publishers don’t find the right approach can create a high level of awareness for them on SL backed up by sales, then that will be made very public on this blog.

We’re taking no income from this experiment so that we can select good publishers to gather together in one area. Gathering together in one area helps publishers draw attention to their presence on SL, especially in a place with regular writers’ events, because writers are among the most active users of cultural areas. We take no income from this experiment, because by not charging rent we can select the good publishers and not mix them in with businesses they may not want to be associated with.

Publishers about to set up their free stores on our area are Macmillan (including Pan, Palgrave Macmillan and Nature), Cinnamon Press, Canongate, and Bluechrome. These publishers are giving something back to the writing community to become more involved: in particular they give guidelines on submissions, critique services, awards and competitions including some leading to book contracts. Canongate also has a website where writers can post their work. To see the area where these publishers are setting up stores go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cookie/9/245/22 – you’ll need to register with Second Life first.

The stores provided will have landmarks back to the publishers’ main buildings, if they have other land on SL, and this should overcome the problem of having a large, impressive but isolated building. Larger publishers want their own visually impressive presence on their own land, because visual perception is important on virtual worlds for any business. However, it would be too time consuming for publishers to try to attract visitors to their main land by putting on continual events. A central point is needed on a busy area like ours, where all the publishers are gathered and visitors can get links to the publishers’ main sites.

The publishers who have given up on SL, and I shouldn’t name them, have found themselves in areas where they had little traffic from visitors and not enough noticeable success from sales. In the worst cases they have paid agents hired on SL who seemed to have expertise in virtual worlds but didn’t promote the publishers or make the SL community aware of their presence. In the worst scenarios agents actually find it worth their while to isolate clients in case they find a better marketing service elsewhere. All of this is reminiscent of the early days of the internet when it was easy for techies to be hired by businesses who felt they didn’t understand the environment enough and trusted staff without checking if they had other successful clients in the same business.

Pop over to our area or reply to this post if you want any more information – I’m known as Jilly Kidd on SL (Adele Ward in real life). I’ll write about actual events and stories in future blog posts to show how the ideas in this post actually come to life and work for publishers, authors and booksellers as well as educators including the London School of Journalism. 2009 should be an exciting time for anyone in writing, education and the book business on SL, and I’ll be writing about it to keep you informed.

Well, the offices never looked like this when I worked at Macmillan. Last night, Nature Publishing Group unveiled the new enhanced Macmillan presence in virtual world Second Life at a champagne and canapé fuelled launch in London.

One of the questions raised in the discussion afterwards was ’should we make virtual worlds more – or less – like real life’? I’m very pleased to see that the new islands aren’t modelled on an industrial estate in Basingstoke. In fact, the Elucian Islands (not to be confused with Random House’s Elysian Isle), are rather lovely.

I had to read the email twice to realise that the launch was in Real Life. As anyone who has spent any time in SL will know, we quickly come to think of it as a physical place where one attends events. The RL event, however, did had a live video link to attendees in SL. We could see the Khufu Conference Centre full of avatars; they could see the speakers in London on an in-world video screen, and take part in the Q&A.

Speakers included Timo Hannay from Nature, Anthony Steed from UCL, and Eddy Shah from the union-busting 80s (remember him?). These days he’s an entrepreneur and author, and his forthcoming Second World (UK | US) is now firmly on my reading list. Timo Hannay said: ‘Though virtual worlds are still in the early stages of development, we believe that they have the potential to become an important medium for the communication and proliferation of ideas, a process that is at the core of our business.’

Nature’s business model includes hiring out virtual meeting rooms and conference facilities, and inviting sponsorship – some of the ways you can directly monetize your SL presence, in addition to using it purely as a marketing means to sell stuff.

I think Second Life is still a bit of a niche network for nerds, fascinated as I am by it. But it will become more mainstream. It already is in terms of press coverage and public awareness. Less so when it comes to actual usage, though there are some large communities of interest that can be tapped into – including scientists and writers. If SL is a place where your community hangs out, then so should you.

Inspired by the launch, I made a long overdue visit to SL when I got home, mainly to take a few photos to post here (see the Publishing Talk Flickr Group for more). I had the strange experience of seeing my name in some sample virtual pages from The Writer’s Handbook, in which I have a short chapter. Then I bumped into my old SL friend Jilly Kidd (quite literally, since I’d almost forgotten how to walk after such a long absence). She organises a lot of writing groups and events, and hosts the Meet The Author show on SLCN.

The biggest SL writing event of the year is taking place this month, the Autumn Writer’s Exhibition, organised by Jilly and Hastings Bournemouth. You see? Networking in SL works. I’ve made some new connections, found out about an event, and joined some new groups, including the SLociety of Authors.  So, if you’re a writer  – or a publisher – who has put off setting foot in SL so far, this is a good time to join. Hope to see you in-world soon!

Second Life may be a sort of social networking / instant messaging hybrid, but it’s wrapped in a complex 3D graphical interface that makes it harder to use than, say, Facebook. You have to learn how to walk, talk – and fly. You have to stumble around and bump into things, and hope your clothes don’t fall off with an errant mouse click.

For those of you who are feeling your way in the metaverse, this video should be horribly familiar. What if real life was like Second Life..?

I first heard about this at the Blogs and Social Media Forum last week, from Roo Reynolds, who rejoices in the title of Metaverse Evangelist at IBM. Voice has, in fact, been in beta since March. I gather it’s quite good, and even three-dimensional. So, if someone approaches you from the side, they ’sound’ in the right place. All sounds a bit freaky, doesn’t it?

Today, Linden Labs made the voice option available on the Beta grid. What is being called the Voice First Look Viewer is available for download to use in the live grid, meaning everyone can now speak in Second Life. It will still be in beta for a couple of months, but, following user feedback, it will then become a standard feature.

This has all sorts of implications for author readings, book launches, conferences, meetings and other events.

It has been suggested that we will still use a mixture of instant-messaging-style typing and voice. For example, voice for one-to-one conversations, readings or presentations, but text for larger group discussions. I’m looking forward to trying it out, anyway. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My avatar is currently having a bad hair day. I need to seek out Ina Centaur for an image makeover. But, once I’m in, I’ll let you have a teleportation link so you can come and chat to me. In text or voice.

Random House are also using their new Elysian Isle in-world for the virtual launch, and Tim Guest will be interviewed from within Second Life during the Hay Festival. And on Start the Week in real life.

Since my post on status updates, Facebook have made their API available to developers, resulting in a fantastic range of ‘mash up’ applications you can add to your Facebook profile – including your Twitter updates (or ‘tweets’). So you can have the best of both worlds.

Surely there is potential here for a good book recommendation app, which uses the data from ‘favourite books’ lists, allows users to rate and review them, and share them with their networks..?

Everyone is opening up their APIs at the moment, and getting far more relaxed about making their content available. More on that story later.

Finally, acquisition news.

Google bought three companies last week – de trop even by their recent track record. The more interesting one was Feedburner – a great free service for managing your RSS feeds – acquired for a rumoured $100m. I use it for my blogs, and it comes highly recommended.

And CBS acquired Last.fm for $280m – a site that creates a personalized online radio station for you. I’ve just added the new Last.fm app to my Facebook profile, which creates a radio station from my ‘favourite music’ list – genius!

Here is some comment from others on what these acquisitions mean:

• Publishing 2.0 | It’s Official: Google Has Acquired Feedburner And It’s All About Metrics And Advertising ROI
• TechCrunch | CBS Acquires Europe’s Last.fm for $280m

With websites such as Facebook and MySpace constantly being talked about in the media, it must be easy to feel like a 20th-century luddite if you aren’t already part of the in-crowd. Here lies a great disconnect at the heart of 21st-century socialising: either you’re in (and use every social networking website you can) or you’re out (and don’t use them at all).

• see what all the fuss is about at The Guardian 16 May 07 | Are You Connected?

I think this is an encouraging trend. Second Life is rapidly becoming a place where authors – and publishers – can interact with their readers, and reach a large, receptive market. Even digital avatars like reading, it seems. And social networks have always clustered around books, whether in real life book groups, Second Life or social networks on Facebook and MySpace. We’ve just never been able to tap into them so effectively before.

Second Life is a very book-friendly place. There are virtual bookstores, such as Coelacanth Books. Only last month we had the first Second Life Book Fair. Selina Greene, one of the organizers, owns ‘Book Island’. At the weekend, Jilly Kidd, another of the organizers, launched a literary magazine in-world called Anodos (initially called SLiterary General). SL magazines can reach a circulation of thousands quite quickly, and this one is another way to promote books, through its virtual pages.

Authors such as Chris Anderson have already appeared in avatar form for book signings. Ina Centaur has carved a niche designing avatars for authors, based on high-res photographs. Authors can also appear in SL in their real form in movies (another use for all those YouTube talking heads, perhaps?), including in the film studio at Anodos HQ. Podcasts allow for pre-recorded author readings, followed by live streaming for Q&A and discussion.

The Bookseller dismissed the SL Book Fair as ‘virtual insanity’ in its one-line write-up. To me, metaverse marketing seems an increasingly sane choice for publishers.

Second Life has a literate, adult population (average age 33). It enables authors to engage with readers in the way that MySpace enables bands to reach their fans. Is it too far-fetched to imagine that, while the social glue that holds MySpace together is music, parts of the SL metaverse might cluster around books?

See also:
second life book fair (no, really)
get a second life

In other blogs:
Books for Second Life on booktwo.org

Second Life Book Fair
20-22 April 2007

It’s the inaugural one. Organised by Poinky Malaprop, with involvement from Selina Greene, Neo Rebus, and Jilly Kidd, who are real book people, publishers, authors, editors, and booksellers.

From the call for participation:

The SL Book Fair brings together publishers, booksellers, authors, book developers, and readers to present and share their ideas around the use of books in Second Life. We are inviting members of the community to submit proposals for participation in the book fair in the following categories:

Presentations. Share thoughts, new ideas, or experiences related to books in SL.

Discussions. Lead a group or panel discussion exploring a particular issue such as copyright and DRM, usability, business models, or ways to translate books into virtual worlds.

Exhibits. Showcase your latest books, book technology, or service.

Events. Organize readings, parties, competitions, or other events to run concurrently with the book fair to promote your location or business.

…

I sadly can’t make it this weekend, but will make every effort to attend next year. Will you join me? Last one in’s a luddite.