The Word Cloud

One of the many things that fascinate me about digital publishing are the new possibilities afforded to writers. Traditionally, publishing has been wary of all sorts of stuff – short novels, short stories, longer novels,  novellas, and poetry.

In fact, for a first time author, an agent would rarely look at an adult novel unless it fell exactly between 80,000 to 100,000 words. They had all sorts of good reasons for this, the main being that this was the sweet spot, the intersection between printing costs and buyer habits.

However, the rise of digital publishing combined with the ability of the author to go direct to retailers such as Amazon (or even sell direct to the reader) has opened up new possibilities for authors.

Supposedly “dead” genres like Westerns and Horror are thriving, and writers are breathing life into long-neglected forms like one of my favorites – novellas – responsible for such classics over the years as Animal Farm, The Time Machine, and A Clockwork Orange.

Today, I got a chance to speak to digital poet and fantasy novelist Stephen Drennon, who is enjoying this new freedom to experiment with all kinds of things.

Read the interview here:
http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/interview-with-digital-poet-fantasy-novelist-stephen-r-drennon/