What is social crowd reading?
The "…reading, as?" immense it is something out of this world. Far from it: the genesis of the greatest publishing success of the last ten years, le 50 shades of gray, must very much at specifications di social reading and crowdreading. The sociology Israeli Eva Illouz, investigating the creative process of EL James, has reconstructed well there The Genesis "sharedof the novel.
La social reading and digital basically consists of exchange of views and reflections on books. It's actually much more, because It includes all organisers' activities that you unwind around the ebook thanks devices such as e-readers, smartphones and tablets and also through the social media.
Social reading e crowdreading are practically the same thing, only that the side “social” of the question mirrors the point of view of the users, while the "crowdmore echoes thevenal appearance of the through crowdfunding and therefore the perspective of those who make and sell books.
Today there are a number of platforms e uses which allow the readers di to comment e review ebooks; often you can interact with the same The authors and this is where the crowdreading, a form of preventive marketing which increases the chances of success of books by making them sooner to test ai potential clients, which they offer suggestions e improvements before the official launch. A'other strategy gives ample room for the opinion of readers who can download the first chapters for free so that the potential customer can decide to buy the book only after having tried a sample. This strategy mainly aims to activate reader sharing activity even without a purchase being made.
Il concept same as reading therefore begins to turn, reducing partly his size individual and introspective for to acquire a nuance community e social. In this sense the reading immense it would turn out altogether distorted, it is known that Fror centuries it was aorganisers' activities predominantly public, aimed at inentertainment of a audience or a group of listeners; but social reading offers so many other benefits, from adding Bookmarks and underlining reports, from personalized libraries to educational aids through which teachers can communicate with students by sending them links and annotations.
Even the concept of writing ne results deeply modified, pushing him away byatto creative and spiritual of a person endowed with an imagination out of the ordinary, to bring it closer to the act of one collective creation, shared and an outlet for group work. A dimension that brings it closer to the modern "scientific creation" which is always the result of a team and global sharing.
Read together
From the point of view of identification the fact of read a context very similar to model of social networks media is yet another technological prodigy, a miracle of progress, a revolutionary way to live the extensive experience of the read for pastime and for learning, sharing it in monitoring with people come on similar tastes (in terms of books). Virtual places are taking the place of the literary cafés of yesteryear, just as the square where one once met up with friends has been largely replaced by Mark Zuckerberg's virtual centre.
In the same way that Facebook e Twitter allow internet users to express their opinion on events of all kinds simultaneously and in full view of all (collectively reading and commenting on the statements of important or simply famous personalities), thus digital reading, in its most evolved conception, becomes a place of comparison, a comparison that many readers want and hope to make others participate some mental trips that it is normal to have when reading good stuff. The fact remains that perhaps the system does lends more to the non-fiction than to fiction, because it can actually be a nuisance to constantly interrupt a story to browse through other people's comments or elaborate your own.
Crowd – the crowd protagonist
The term crowreading echoes the collective financing (through crowdfunding) today closely related to theindependent publishing and digital: basically people invest money for support un project, reserving the right to investigate its developments. Similarly, the crowdreading serves to provide to The authors un reply direct on their own work, in order to maximize la quality of the final result through the support of the public.
Furthermore, thanks to collective reading, publishing houses (but also the start-ups that divide their services) have been able to rediscover how important the centrality of the readerthe fact of creating experiences in which the singles individuals can play a role active using smartphone, tablets and devices for reading ebooks.
In particular, interaction between the public and authors is encouraged by sites and platforms such as Wattpad, inkitt e WriteOn (of Amazon) or forms of publishing atvanguard including Advanced Edition, that offers previews for free of books to allow authors to make further changes to the text before publishing the final version.
I reading sites they work like real social networks: there is the showcase, there are the friends and conversations, to which, however, are added a series of functionality dedicated entirely to exchange of advice, comments and specific observations about the books. Everything is fine user has its own library and can take advantage of the "social" side of the platform to meet new people, already skimmed through the filter of literary taste.
The "social" value of the whole thing lies in fact in the value added of the "network on the net” which invests new commercial sectors every day, responding to a strong drive in the sense of community and to that almost compulsive instinct to share every aspect of everyday life, not with a few close friends, but if possible with everyone.
The best platforms
For those interested in living the fascinating experience of the social/crowd reading, here are some of them best resources di reading e writing collective present on the virtual square.
Among Italian startups more successful there is Bookliners. Electronic books, whose pages faithfully reproduce the aspect of paper, are equipped with video and audio links, can be browse through before ofpurchase and comment while reading. Access to the platform is quick and easy with all digital devices.
The Italian by adoption aNobii, founded in Hong Kong in 2006, has recently joined the group Mondadori, aiming to create a community of readers who can share and nurture their love of books. The site has had some success in Italy, where aNobii boasts a third of its million users.
Other platforms instead focus on writing and especially fiction, such as Wattpad, which is a perfect example of how i content can be generated by identification themselves. On this site, also frequented by famous authors, the stories are comment e reworked ongoing and identification can Post writings of all kinds (series, novels, poems, etc.). Wattpad books are available in over 50 languages and thanks to a handy application you can read and write directly on smartphones and tablets.
Su The iNCIPIT are the readers I was going to give shape to the story, because they have the ability to decide the developments of plot. Obviously all these sites give space to the most diverse genres, from romance novels, science fiction, fan fiction, detective stories, etc.
Goodreads is another very important social network, naturally already bought by Amazon, which largely exploits the Word of mouth and reports of friends. This mastodon with twenty million users has stolen quite a few followers from aNobii.
Gloss it's a'reading application on which you can also buy ebooks, with a catalog of 300.000 titles. The platform was created with the aim of building a community of readers who can interact since moment itself of reading, exchanging book recommendations and continuing to follow theorganisers' activities of identification of which "they trust” more, that is, those who formulate more interesting or more shareable annotations.
For collaborative writing, in addition to Wattpad, there are proposals such as 20 lines, where you write only a certain number of lines at a time, even if you remain anonymous, you comment, vote and, if you want, share everything on social media.
Finally there is the most interesting SIC (Collective Industrial Writing), all Italian, where stories are written by many hands.
There is therefore only the embarrassment of choice not only to read and share one's tastes and put oneself in the role of the critic, but to participate directly in the writing activity thus putting oneself in the role of co-author.
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Below we publish an excerpt from Eva Illouz's book "Hardcore Romance" also translated into Italian with the title "The erotic romance novel".
The consumer/reader/viewer
One of the most notable features of Fifty shades of gray is that its initial success occurred outside the reach of corporate radars and relied almost exclusively on groups of highly engaged readers interacting in the public sphere of the internet, a public sphere that mixes in an unprecedented way private and public, the non-commercial and the commercial. This could have happened because James (at the time again Leonard) wrote an early version of this book including fanfiction on a popular online fan fiction forum.
A fan fiction is an interactive narrative, usually related to popular books, television programs, films, written by professionals and non-professionals and with which the public can interact. In the case of Leonard/James the fans are those of the popular vampire book and film series Twilight Like many fan fiction writers, Leonard/James has uploaded his work online Masters of the Universe into episodes, a method that allows readers to interact as the story progresses and also allows writers to incorporate reader reactions into the development of the story.
Many contemporary books and television programs are characterized by the mixing of production and reception processes, which makes them virtually indistinguishable or, better, reception has become a part of the writing/production process that communicates directly with the imagination of readers and viewers. spectators. This process is called prosumption]. The consumer/reader/spectator who participates in the creation of the commodity he is consuming is one of the most significant transformations of the consumption process.
In the fan fiction internet version, Fifty shades of gray (like theThe Oprah Winfrey Show or reality shows) incorporated the suggestions directly of the readers, so that it can be assumed that the meanings and turns narratives pleasing to readers were incorporated into the narrative. Furthermore, writers can infer from number and tenor of reader responses which fan fiction is most popular.
In other words, these sites incorporate marketing research and audience research mechanisms. The writer can incorporate the wishes and expectations of the readers as he writes. In this sense it can be said that the text directly reflects the fantasies of the audience (Parks 2012). The narrative elements of the story, then, are closely intertwined in the novel's origin as a presupposition of a commodity – that is, a commodity in which the consumer does much of the work formerly done by the producer (for example, cleaning the food or assembling the furniture).
Subsequent comments about the sexual nature of the material prompted James to remove the story from the webpage and post it on his own site. Before publishing it in paper form James also removed the material from his site. The first volume, entitled Fifty shades of gray, was released in May 2011 by a digital publisher in Australia in ebook and as print-on-demand. For the first publicity, this virtual publisher relied mainly on blogs and the sales of the novel were supported by word of mouth. In January 2012, when the last volume, the trilogy of Fifty shades it was an example of very successful viral marketing.
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