Conclusion

The questions identified in the Introduction section are commonly asked by writers entering the field of writing in new media, or planning to use new media as a tool in promoting and growing their traditional media writing businesses. This guide has sought to categorise and answer these questions, or at least provide valuable insight and direction to help you find the answer for yourself.

Questions answered

Employment models

With more media and more stories, is there more work for creative writers?
Can I work as a writer on other people’s creative projects?
Can I finally give up my day job?

Revisit the New Writing Universe chart for a reminder of just how vast and diverse creative writing is in a new media context. Of course not all of these forms of writing are financially viable as income earning options, but many are and more will become so in the future. You might not be able to give up your ‘day job’ just yet but with some creativity, persistence and business nous you may be able to redefine it to include a lot more creative writing.

Employment insights

There is a huge range of employment options for creative writers in new media, but they will rarely come and find you. You often need to create them.
Working as a writer on other people’s projects is great way to learn new skills and break into the industry.
There are plenty of professional development options, seek them out.
Build good relationships with others in the industry. They may lead you to your next job or become a valuable mentor.

Craft and concept models

Will my literary writing skills transfer to the world of interactive media?
Can my existing works find new life as interactive content or games?
How do I know if my idea will make a good game?
Am I capable of developing digital native ideas?

Hopefully it should be apparent that writing talent is writing talent irrespective of which world you are writing in, new or old or both. But it should also be evident that this talent needs massaging to be relevant and you need to be on intimate terms with the medium you are writing for. No writer would consider changing genres, say from writing novels to writing for performance, without first being sufficiently motivated to do so by a passion for that form of literary expression and an understanding of the new craft challenges presented by writing in the new genre. Moving into writing for new media is no different. To be a successful games writer you must play games and appreciate and engage with them emotionally, in the same way as a screenwriter must appreciate what audiences see on the big screen and how it makes them feel. Knowing whether you have an idea that will work as a game or some other new media format is something that will only come with experience and a deeper understanding of that form of storytelling and story ‘reading’.

Craft insights:

There is a wide range of writing formats.
There is a role for traditional media with new media.
There are many writing roles in digital games and cross-platform writing.
Interactivity is a different way of writing.
There is a range of types of interactivity.
Game writing requires working with game-play.
Game writing requires expressive narrative through many elements beyond text.
Cross-platform writing has its own constraints and benefits.

Collaboration models

If my audience becomes co-creators, what about the integrity of my work?
I don’t know the first thing about websites or game engines. Who would I collaborate with, how would I find them, how would that work?

The two scenarios of collaboration, with your audience on the one hand and with ‘professionals’ on the other, are the main forms of collaboration that any writer in this space needs to employ. While collaborating with other professionals to get the job done is a necessity, collaborating with audiences and users is more a matter of choice. Writers need to understand however that user-generated content is not going to go away and many believe it will only increase. It will not be relevant or appropriate for every project, but the democratisation of production brought about by the cheap and accessible supply of every tool imaginable, from video camera to publishing platforms, means that audiences are increasingly demanding to be part of the conversation.

Whatever history has taught us about prophesising doom for media distribution channels, it has certainly taught us that ignoring your audience means eventually losing them. Trading at least a sliver of authorship to avoid obscurity may be the biggest challenge for writers in today’s environment, and may well produce new and intriguing creative writing offspring with as profound an impact on audiences as Shakespeare, Dickens and Joyce had in their day.

Collaboration insights

Collaborate early and listen equally to all members of your team.
Be prepared to wear more than one hat.
Build a team that balances creativity, business acumen and technical skills.
Seek advice about the best business and partnership structures for your project.

Marketing and distribution models

If I want to stick to writing for traditional media, does digital technology offer me more options to find and reach new audiences?
Who is my audience and with so much noise how will they find my work?

Audiences for new media content cross age, gender and geographic divides. They are globally dispersed and often potentially more numerous than for traditional media, but sometimes they are also tucked into small niches, so writers need to understand this new audience make-up and work with it.

Marketing and distribution insights

There are many ways a writer can market and distribute their fiction with accessible and free technologies.
Just having a website is not enough.
Social media requires certain techniques, time and effort.
There are many unconventional approaches to promotion.
Considering the experience of the consumer is crucial.
Extending the fiction across media and with specially-created experiences can be promotional in itself.
Getting your voice heard is about both creating the right noise and about doing it in the right place. Co-opt your audience, make them your ambassadors, contributors and critics. They will then become your advocates.

Copyright and business models

How can I stop people from copying and illegally distributing my work?
Should I just put my work out there and let it build me an audience?
How can I generate revenue from my creative content?
Who funds and invests in interactive media, websites and games?

For those serious about earning income from new media writing, it should now be clear that the previous model of passive dependency, where publishers and distributors take care of business, will no longer suffice. Writers need to be aware of the nuances of the multiple production and distribution platforms and how features like customisation (audiences choosing what, when and how they engage with content) and interactivity (playing with, remixing and mashing up content) impact everything from copyright protection to revenue models, and to embed this thinking into the creative process where appropriate.

As we’ve seen there are no hard and fast rules about how to generate revenue from your content and new business models are emerging all the time. The same goes for investment. The new media industry is incredibly diverse and as such can attract investment from any sector. All industries from engineering to education, health services, creative industries, the arts and government are stakeholders in this industry, as potential creators, consumers, re-mixers, publishers and distributors of content. So one can expect that business, investment and partnership models never dreamed of before might emerge from such an assorted playing field.

The only real rules are that there are no rules, so more than ever, writers need to be party to discussions around marketing, monetising and protecting their work.

Copyright and business model insights

Don’t be afraid of the commercial elements of new media – make them your own.
Sustainability, especially revenue sustainability, is not a dirty word. It’s how your passion can fund your life.
Use experts to help where you don’t know the answer. Don’t feel that you need to be alone.
Demand your rights, in terms of getting recognition for your digital content; and demand good quality digital content in return.
Understand some of the key concepts of the market – they will help you understand the power of the digital age.
Don’t discount mobile, and don’t think it is just another screen to the same Web service. Give it the attention that it demands – your audience is!

Looking for the Story of the Future

What does the future look like?

We can expect the debate around how best to provide high-speed broadband and mobile services to a distributed population across a massive landmass to continue to dominate discussions in Australia and have knock-on effects on the delivery of content for some time. It seems fairly clear that while building it is no guarantee that they will come, having a road they can travel down, be it fast Internet or ubiquitous 3G mobile coverage, is critical to them actually starting to travel.

Meanwhile more sophisticated and increasingly mobile-compatible content will continue to be developed by Australian producers in anticipation of better infrastructure and to service other markets with infrastructure already in place. Current media usage patterns suggest we can expect further growth in the creation and use of immersive and interactive social media such as virtual worlds and games, for employment, education, self-expression and entertainment. Audiences including students of literature will develop skills in analysing and critiquing new media writing, as is already happening with tasks like this one recently set for Year 7 high school students (around 13 years old):

Your friend has to read an engaging novel. She texts you about the novel you are reading. Imagine you are sending a text message to him/her about the plot of your novel. Tell your friend what happens in your novel in the short time and space that a text message allows. Don’t go into any other detail. Just concentrate on what happens.

When it comes to audiences, writers comfortably expect to look further afield than Australia for supporters. Given that what is being created, be it a game, website or even a book, can be produced, stored and distributed in digital format, exporting your work becomes an increasingly viable option. Aside from being able to exploit global distribution platforms to reach new audiences, digital content also offers other competitive advantages. It can be exported at a fraction of the costs incurred by industries such as manufacturing, and can be delivered to the other side of the world without producing significant carbon emissions. While territorial rights will remain a large factor in any export strategy, the tyranny of distance that has so long beset Australian companies operating in a global context does not handicap new media creators.

One can also expect Australia’s proximity to the large emerging markets in the world, China and India, to provide a further competitive advantage, this time over competitors from other regions, with fewer economic and social ties to these markets.

Business models and copyright provisions will warrant further debate, in a free market economy trends are set by how users spend their time and money. As such, one can expect that business models and copyright adjustments will cement as producers and publishers adjust the pricing and supply of content and services in response to the market demand.

The current ‘commoditisation’ of content – where digital publishers (new media companies) feel awash in a sea of content, mainly from legacy media such as newspapers, magazine and broadcast, needs to change. While it is true that many new media companies do not see the value of content created specifically for the digital medium (digital native content), consumers themselves are increasingly recognising the value of something ‘new’ as opposed to something merely ‘repackaged’. Indeed, research from the University of Southern California [http://www.digitalcenter.org/pages/site_content.asp?intGlobalId=22] indicated that since 2005, consumers have been willing to pay for quality digital content. For our part, as consumers of digital content, we also need to be willing to ask for more – and to pay for quality. How else can we expect others to do so?

All in all the future looks bright in the new media country and there is no reason why writers should not have a large claim in the land grab.

As for the final question: