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What would you tell this young, anxious student about the future of journalism?

Over at MediaShift, a New York University undergraduate journalism student Alana Taylor (studying, coincidentally, where I teach) wrote a critical essay about the online aspects of her education. Her essay was custom-built to stir up controversy (and boy, did it ever), but we should all check it out:

"[The professor] informs us that people actually get paid to blog. That they make a living off of this. For me this was very much a “duh” moment and I thought that it would be for the rest of the students as well. They should be fully aware at this point that blogging has become a very serious form of journalism. Furthermore, they should be aware that it is the one journalistic venture that requires little or no ladder-climbing."

Honestly, .0000001 percent of all writers actually support themselves completely online, and I am frank with all my students about that fact--and I give them suggestions about ways to cobble together more online experience with web writing, citizen journalism tools, and webby-videos.

Young writers are seeking answers to questions that won't be answered for another 50 years until after all the dust from digital publishing has settled. In the meantime, what's your advice to young writers? Chime in, and I'll collect the answers in a post this week.

Someday, I hope, web videos about writers will be as common as webpages. For my part, I've made writing videos about Felicia Sullivan, Smith Magazine, and Janice Erlbaum. Next week, I'll have a video featuring Christopher Hitchens. No joke.

As I slowly get the hang of it (especially my problems with compression and video quality), I'm starting to wonder what's the best way to present the material.

I'm looking for your suggestions. To be honest, this isn't a reviewing site--for books, videos, or whatever else. We specialize in giving you the tools and practical advice you need to be a 21st Century writer.

Luckily, I found this insanely comprehensive review of over 50 web video sites. Surf around a little bit, especially this obsessive chart that breaks down the individual stats.

Once you have your favorite site, start practicing. Then, when you publish your book, you'll be ready for the real thing--show us your favorite real-life locations or take us on a tour of your favorite writing spot.

That's some video I shot over the weekend, just for you.

I've been in a cheery mood ever since the Smith Magazine book release party on Saturday. I met people from New Orleans, Los Angeles, and, as my friend observed, every writer from Brooklyn was there as well.

We work in a world where freelancers can spend their whole lives holed up in their bedroom, and it's easy to forget how much contact with other writers can help you. You need to get out of the house every once in awhile--that's my writing advice for today.

The party celebrated the release of Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. This week I'm interviewing Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, the Smith editors who compiled the collection. Be sure to check that out.

In no particular order, here are the websites of the good folks in the video:

Artist Jace Daniels; writer Nichelle; comic journalist Josh Neufeld; writer and editor Sari Wilson; Young Adult Maryrose Wood; and the editor of Galleycat, the Internet-famous Ron Hogan.

If I missed anybody, please chime in, the comment section is open...

What should a book trailer look like?

Galleycat has an excellent essay about it here, giving a smart critique of a mystery book trailer by novelist Matt Beynon Rees. I appreciated the fun that this writer had with his video. 

If you want more advice, I blogged about this resource almost a year ago, but it still holds up. Bookseller Chick and her crew discussed how to build a better book trailer. Check it out:

"Then as I was searching for various things out there on the great, wide internet, I ran across this interview with Sheila Clover English who runs Circle of Seven Productions (the book trailer makers) about her novel series (which is marketing only through COS’s website)." 

Finally, I have some cool (and somewhat related) news to share. Short End Magazine picked my essay from The Believer magazine, “Skinning the Americans,” as one of the 40 Film Journalism Must-Reads of 2007. It's an honor to be included in that essay about film journalism--which is full of lots of ideas for budding book trailer makers.

What will web videos by writers look like in ten years?

I hope they won't look like Hollywood movies or trailers for Hollywood movies. It's so silly to have this new lo-fi, do-it-yourself medium of web video and pretend like we need to imitate Hollywood movies.

If you are a writer interested in web video, just do it. Don't wait until you can cut together the next Citizen Kane. There are plenty of real movie directors who will do that. Web video is supposed to be playful and short.

If you don't believe me, check out these creative and loopy videos from writers:

Brandon Scott Gorrell made a web short about his glamorous life of a young writer. Ellen Kennedy made a hypnotic video about a vegetarian meal for Ass Hi Books. Finally, Chris Killen created a flash love story about a computer and a bag of potato chips.

Thanks to Tao Lin for linking to all these writers. Look for some of my video work next week as Rachel Kramer Bussel stops to discuss The Best Sex Writing of 2008. It will be the steamiest Five Easy Questions feature, ever.

Last year I had a short conversation with one of my journalistic heroes, William T. Vollmann -- a novelist and reporter who always shot photographs to mix with his stories. 

After you read some of Vollmann's work, go check out the brilliant link-packed post "Be a Multimedia McGuyver" at Journerdism.

Check it out at this link. It's packed with information and contacts to build your web video toolkit--including wild ideas like Make a cheap submersible webcam and Make a remote controlled camera from a cellphone.

Your web journalism will never be the same again... 

One of the most popular thing on YouTube today is (ironically) a bitty video of David Lynch bashing movies on mobile phones. "You will never in a trillion years have experienced the film," he yells at cellular movie watchers, yelling as much as David Lynch can yell.

It's true. I dig mobile technology, I own a video iPod, and I love shooting little pieces for YouTube, but I still think he's right. The YouTube screen is not meant for big movie fare.

The only reason people watch big screen movies on mobile technology is because there isn't very much good content for the small screen. But there will be smallest-screen content soon, and you could be writing it.

Start thinking about movies, journalism, and videos that are meant to be watched on a YouTube-sized screen. If you can figure out how to tell that kind of story, you'll be leading the pack. 

Here's some links to get you started. This page will tell you all about Reuter's first mobile journalists. Poynter.com has a sweet essay about mobile journalism and the Media Shift Lab has a touching post about worldwide web video watching. Listen to David Lynch and write something new...

Is there anybody out there? Heeeeellllllllloooooo?

Who a I kidding? Nobody reads on the Internets at the end of the year. Including myself. The litblogosphere is a graveyard dotted with sign-offs and holiday wishes.

Before my own sign-off until January, I have two posts to spotlight. First, Maud blogged about the STUNNING New Yorker article/short-story combo about one of my favorite short story writers. Follow her links and see if you can answer her question:

"Why is the New Yorker article about Gordon Lish’s shaping of Raymond Carver’s early fiction unsigned?"

Secondly, Steve Bryant and Jeffrey Yamaguchi have passed along a funny link to two brothers who decided they would only communicate via web video. For a year. It's a lesson in good web video writing, and I think Steve nailed it with his post:

"Poor Ze Frank. Judging from the sheer number of imitators out there, his unique voice has metastasized throughout the Net, which has adopted his cadence into the Internet's own newscaster tone. Y'know that tone. The same one every TV newscaster uses to emote appropriately. Everyone's a talking head now."

Okay, it's just a story, but... 

Earlier this year I blogged about the new literary magazine, Please Don't. The first issue is on the web, and includes "a collaborative serialized novel," written by Pete Coco, Scott Stealey, and other writers. The first chapter cliffhanger ends with the question, "Did you just kill Axl Rose?" I still dig this pulp fiction strategy.

In real news, the Virginia Quarterly Review just revealed a new problem for fledgling writers in the digital age. They can respond to your submission at the speed of light. These figures are amazing...

"At least a few people each week are upset because they heard back from us too quickly ... we’ve received nineteen submission this morning, 232 submissions are recommended for declination by readers, eight are recommended for acceptance, 1,469 submissions are currently in the hopper and readers have made six recommendations today. September submissions required an average of 18.89 days for a final decision to be made, October averaged 14.84 days, and November is at 10.5 days."

Finally, if you are looking to build your journalism toolkit, check out Multimedia Shooter--a group blog with some practical, high-class advice that hopes to "reveal the ways hardware and software can improve our multimedia/storytelling skills." Dig it here...

Are you a fledgling writer or are you a robot?

That's the question I have to ask myself every time I moderate my comments, especially those strange spam haikus that sort of make sense but link back to Viagra websites.

Just in case you hadn't noticed, social networking and video sharing are crammed with spammers, robot posts, and sneaky marketing hacks. Over the weekend, one marketer wrote an essay about his alleged efforts to stir up attention for viral video--is Dan Ackerman Greenberg a prophet or a sneak? Steve Bryant has the skinny, along with smart links to other essays: 

"To judge from the 400+ mostly-outraged comments on the post, plus the slew of response posts on technology blogs, you'd think Ackerman had revealed the concept of Payola for the first time ... the dependably-rational Matthew Ingram, argued that it's hard to believe "that everyone is so shocked at this company’s 'astro-turfing' and 'sock puppet' approach."

In other publishing news, the next time you write a sex scene, don't write like a spammer, robot or marketing hack. You could end up on the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Thanks, Literary Saloon. 

Finally, Ed Park gets his very own New York Times profile for his work on New York Ghost. Look for his new novel next year. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, my Believer editor for the essay, “Skinning the Americans.”

Yesterday at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center, I pondered the future of web journalism with Michelle Kung from Huffington Post, Justin Fox from Time, Troy Patterson from Slate and Jeff Gordinier from Details. We sat there with some of the brightest writers in New York, debating for an hour and a half--but nobody knew exactly what to do next. 

I learned a valuable lesson at the National Book Awards last week, shooting Bloggers on the Balcony about the motley crew of web writers running around the National Book Awards last week and making another video interview with finalists Kathleen Duey and Sara Zarr.

As you can see from my work, I'm no expert. But I did the work, and I came back with a story nobody else had. Over the next few weeks I'll be unloading more footage of famous writers telling stories about their worst jobs--one night of video work will keep me in new content for weeks.

This is your moment. This is the time when fledgling writers can grab a videocamera, blog software, and a laptop. Go make some content. This confusion in the industry can help you find your audience and the stories you want to tell. Nobody will stop you. Just start reporting...

I'm typing this from the floor of the National Book Awards.

Here's a short web video about the first literary awards ceremony blogged by the LitBlog Army. More interviews to follow, plenty of interviews with writers--from Jim Shepard to Christopher Hitchens.

Tune in for the rest of the week for more exclusive footage.

Somebody is going to write a great book about how web video, blogs, and the non-stop cable news cycle rocked the 2008 presidential election. It could be your book...

If the topic interests you, head over to the Huffington Post's OffTheBus blog, where GroundReport founder Rachel Sterne did an excellent video piece asking CNN and Fox News reporters what they were looking for in the Democratic debates.

As new media tools unravel all the old ethical and operational rules of reporting, these questions are absolutely essential. (Thanks to Caitlin for the link)

If you want to meet some of those media folks--the bookish, not the political types--come out to the MediaBistro party for Jeffrey Yamaguchi and his new dark comedy handbook, Working for the Man. Happily, Yamaguchi will be stopping by for an interview here soon about the fine art of comedy book writing. Click here for details about Wednesday's book party.

If that's not enough writing mumbo-jumbo for you, Jeffrey will be the guest of honor on a great podcast series this weekend: 

"I will be on Felicia Sullivan's Writers Revealed program this Sunday (Nov. 11) at 6 pm (Eastern Time). She posted a nice item on the book, and is offering a free copy of the book to the person who leaves a comment with a question that is used on the program. So post your questions now."

What if community participation in your writing became just as important, if not more important, than the actual artistic product?

Over at Reel Pop, Steve Bryant gave two thumbs up to the soon-to-be-released web video show, Quarterlife. It will combine MySpace interactivity, web video, and blogs with an ongoing soap opera plot about a bunch of young writers and artists struggling to make it. If it works, the site hopes to create an actual network real-life struggling artists.

The show was created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the guys who made cheesy, lovable works like My So-Called Life and Blood Diamond. It's thrilling to think about writing across so many different platforms, and I think the most successful writers in ten years will be just as flexible as they are.

Do you think this can work? 

"Quarterlife isn't just a series. It's a media platform, complete with a vlog-based social network (quarterlife.com) designed to be a support network for 'creatives' fumbling through post-collegiate life. You couldn't create a more self-conscious show unless you spent 30 minutes pointing a webcam at your pierced navel."

How should good web video look? Nobody knows. The standards are being invented as we speak.  

Over at PBS's Idea Lab, Mark Glaser is exploring that conundrum, analyzing the work of Reuter's reporters who do multimedia reporting with a backpack full of fancy portable technology.

His analysis shows some flaws in the new program, but gives a couple helpful hints that multimedia journalists can follow as they improve their work. Check it out:

"The news service has given reporters a Mobile Journalism Toolkit, including a Nokia N95, a fold-up keyboard and directional microphones. The idea is that reporters could do video, photo, audio and text reports without having to use a laptop ... But if you peruse Reuters' special website to see the early reports from Reuters mojos, they are uneven, with blurry photos and choppy videos with poor sound quality."

While the jumpy, glossy camera lens looks odd on the convention floor, I think it looks pretty good in the heat of an angry toy store protest. Even though the form is still evolving, I tell my students that they should all be looking for jobs like this--blending print, video, and online publishing.

The future journalist will be a multi-tasking crazy person, and we have to start learning these skills. Don't waste all your time worrying about quality. Just start reporting (like Ed Champion and his new experiment), and figure it out as you go.

You think you're shy? Think you don't have enough money for a book tour? Think again!

Check out this homemade video project at The Bird in Snow. It's the launching pad for the world's smallest book tour. 

Ed Champion has just sent out a digital casting call for a brand new radio drama series, a hardcore recording project looking for a few good volunteers. My brain is already churning:

"I’d like to do an initial set of ten thirty-minute radio dramas — a tough and socially conscious (but not didactic) contemporary anthology series in the vein of Quiet, Please and Dimension X ... If you have a pitch for a story you’d like to write that would be acceptable for a thirty-minute production, email me and we’ll volley."

The Millions reviews a new book by Jesse Ball, and I gotta say, Samedi the Deafness sounds right up our hardboiled alley.

Check it out: "James Sim by name, witnesses an act of political murder that draws him into a web of intrigue (or, as my friend Colin's dad liked to put it, "a tissue of lies.") Confined to an asylum for compulsive prevaricators, Sim must ferret out the truth."

New rule: No writer should ever work without a video camera.

If you can shoot some simple footage to accompany your written stories, your value for a publication literally doubles. My buddy Adam B. Ellick demonstrated that concept this weekend, writing this NY Times story about a dying generation of dumpling makers in the East Village. It's a great print story that combines vivid details with a sad meditation on time and gentrification.

Shooting this video feature about the same story gave Adam a chance to actually go back, get more quotes, and see his subjects in a whole new perspective. I can't say it any better than Mark Bowden (author of the journalism classic, Black Hawk Down) in this essay:

"I advise young journalists today to learn how to use a digital video camera, and to get used to working in multimedia. Nearly every story I write today for the Atlantic, and every book I undertake, I do in conjunction with a documentary filmmaker. This results in a documentary version of the story, which can be marketed to TV but also compiles the audio and video needed to produce a Web presentation."

After a couple years stuck inside teenaged bedrooms and bolted to computer monitors, video storytelling is finally going on the road.

The good folks at the Goethe-Institut New York (who put together a fabulous screening and lecture with film-making madman Werner Herzog that blew my mind earlier this year) are sponsoring a motorcycle video blog trip by German artist Florian Thalhofer.

The press release sounds a bit stuffy but smart, describing his short videoblogged ramble through our states: "[Thalhofer] embarks on a “social experiment” that marries this legacy with technological innovation and harnesses the best of social media to determine and document his experience.  Influences such as Easy Rider, jazz, and abstract expressionism will become even more apparent as we discover what lies at the heart of America and how it continues to evolve today."

The show will document 1000 stories of Americans, and they are still looking for people to document. If you have written about or are a crazy American, you should answer their ad looking for interview subjects.

If you live in New York, the Goethe-Institut will throw the artist a farewell party on Thursday at 6:30 with DJ's and art. Let's see what happens with this crazy new art form... 

You may wonder why I get so jazzed about building video content for this site.

It's simple. I am surrounded, by chance or by fate, by wonderful video folks. In the interests of sharing resources (and full disclosure), I'd like to re-introduce my friendly neighborhood video journalists.

My lovely girlfriend Caitlin Shamberg is the multimedia editor at Salon.com. You can see her work at Video Dog. Here's her piece about plastic bag abuse, a cool riff on classic Salon reporting:

My buddy Adam B. Ellick is a video editor at The New York Times, most recently he finished a piece about Russian youth groups with some powerful ties to the government--The Putin Generation. 

Finally, my friend Steve Bryant runs ReelPopBlog, providing killer commentary about the video blogosphere.  

I'm not just plugging my friends here. The next generation of journalists must understand how a little bit of video can supercharge a piece of reporting. These people are the first responders, paving the way towards our future...

Anybody can put video up on YouTube. Does that mean we doomed to watch America's Funniest Home Video one million times online, or will we see something new?

That's up to the people who tell stories. One of my favorite journalists, Vollmann T. Vollmann has always shot photographs to mix with his written stories, and those pictures haunt his books like The Atlas. For the next generation of Vollmann-inspired journalists, we must consider web video as just another freelance tool.

If you want to get excited, read this essay about professional-style video journalism. Following the advice of journalist Regina McCombs will take you light years beyond the average, annoying YouTube videos.

Check it out: 

"Cameras should be DV with firewire. If not, you’ll need additional hardware to capture video to your computer. There are plenty of good microphones available for under $100. A tripod is important because keeping shots steady is critical for Web encoded video. Every change in pixels makes the encoder work harder and makes your picture fuzzier. A list of audio and video equipment options at several price points is available here on Visual Edge's site." 

After you survive that introduction to web video, check out the Online Media God guide to see the whole buffet of multimedia options you can add to your work. Thanks, as always, to Journerdism.

Private detective writers of the world unite!

There has never been a better time for hardboiled heroic narrators to guide us through our anxious world, and the 2007 Shamus Awards are celebrating the best private eye books of the year. Sarah Weinman has the roundup.

Ed Champion wrote a blow-by-blow account of the William T. Vollmann discussion last night, and Champion's essay included this ominous quote about the state of our anxious world:

"Vollmann stated that if he were to go to Iraq today, he would have to think about it. 'What good would it do? Would I have anything new to contribute?'"

Finally, Steve Bryant watches all the web videos so you don't have to. Today, he publishes an essential list of the six web videos that you should have watched. Do your YouTube homework!

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.

Where are we going? 

Last night I attended a conversation between one of my journalistic heroes, William T. Vollmann (a novelist/journalist who mixes vivid imagery with emotional close-ups of human suffering) and photographer Richard Drew (the photographer of the famous "falling man" picture from 9-11.

The event was hosted by the Whitney Museum, and they played a barrage of intense images on a movie screen during the discussion--a grim history of American photography. Afterwards, Vollmann asked Ed Champion, Marydell, Levi Asher, and I what we thought young, web-based journalists should do next.

I was a little speechless myself, but now I would say this--we should create web video content to go along with what we write.

Vollmann himself has always shot photographs to mix with his written stories, and those pictures haunt his books. For the next generation of Vollmann-inspired journalists, we must consider web video. We can electrify any online text with video, and anybody can shoot and edit the whole thing with their laptop. 

If you live in the Midwest, there's a great lecture series coming up about video storytelling coming up in Chicago. Video journalism educator Robb Montgomery has a simple goal: "Writers, editors, artists and designers will learn how to identify and develop the visual components of stories so people will actually read them in print, as well as how to take stories to new levels online."

If you don't live in the Midwest, check out the helpful Visual Editors website (which is run by Montgomery as well). It's packed with information and contacts to build your web video toolkit. 

Have you ever clicked on the iMovie (or other free film-editing program) icon on your computer? Most writers haven't, but they should.

The day is coming when the word "professional writer" will include a grocery list of abilities, including blog software abilities, digital camera technique, and video editing. You think I'm joking, but I can think of a couple journalists off the top of my head that have turned those abilities into crazy cool careers.

I've dabbled in the editing myself, but I'm always looking for more guidance. Cobbling together a visual story is a mysterious and difficult art for us text-based dummies like me.

Luckily, the New Videographer blog published A List of Key Video Storytelling Textbooks that can help us use these tools better. Continue reading...

Want to write a killer personal essay? Tell stories that evoke "that squirming in my seat feeling." 

That's the advice of novelist Liza Monroy. She mastered the fine art of the first-person essay (writing about it for MediaBistro, even), and is sharing her wisdom in a fabulous five-question interview at The Urban Muse.

If your personal essay turns out well, why not make a personal essay web video out of it? Steve Bryant reports how a couple kids earned $20,000 in sponsorship for their groundbreaking short film. Dig it:

"Four Eyed Monsters, the 71-minute film posted on YouTube recently, has garnered its creators about $20k in referral payments from Spout.com. The film chronicles the dating life of its creators."

And, if you want to turn your personal essay into a novel, why not self-publish? John Coyne has the scoop on Jan Worth--a Peace Corps volunteer who wrote a novel about the murder of a beautiful American worker. She just released a useful podcast about her self-publishing adventure. 

If you want to be a working writer, then you must understand web video.

Just like every newspaper has a blog nowadays, the time is coming when most media outlets will have video content to compliment text.

Everybody realizes that the potential for fantastic journalism exists in web video, but nobody knows exactly how to do it. Here are three easy ways to build some web video smarts. Continue reading...