More Than Books - Publishing Formats & Options

If we'll be able to publish player written content as books then how about other possible formats as well?

Newsletters
Flyers
Newspapers
Maps???

More complicated formats could be simplified by having a limited number of preformatted options to choose from.

Also different formats may have different options. You wouldn't really publish a 2nd edition newspaper. You'd publish it once for so many copies and then write a new one from scratch.

Why bother? Well lately my brain has been rather community focused or you may say culture focused and in order to encourage and promote community activity is the effective sharing of information. It's perfectly natural for communities to share information of interest in print form. The alternative is some poor crier standing in the middle of town losing his/her voice all day and what I'm talking here is merely an extension to book publishing which is already going in.

So how it could work may be something like so.. you buy a template for whatever format you like. This would include a title, maybe a date field or what have you. You fill in your written context and when you're happy with it you go the publisher or whatever the system is going to be and have X number of copies made.. (you pay per copy or per bulk copies). The process may use up your template (or wipe it clean).

It is then up to you to distribute. Sell them on your vendor or use an in-game mail system.
New Britannia Postal Services

I listed maps earlier which is a whole different topic as you'd want to tie it in with a cartography skill but it's still something that could be published. The trick for maps is being able to make your maps different some someone else's.

There was also an idea early last year about possibly being able to put maps in books which would be awesome and plays into the notion of publishing options. If you could produce maps with a cartography skill.. then you'd create maps of a specific size (that of a page in a book).. then have some way to drag & drop that map into your book while editing. The same process could be expanded upon if/when we get the option to produce paintings in-game and the like.

Yup.. think I need to start a new cartography thread..

 

Ok a couple more thoughts. We should be able to choose a limited number of options for books as well. Some possible book options..

Book cover & binding.. ie soft leather (flexible) vs hardback
cover color & design (limited)
Paper type (mostly just texture options)
etc..

 

I plan on doing some writing in game, hopefully there will be some sort of folio or single leaflet design so I could publish small amounts of work (poetry and such). Keep the ideas flowing Bowen!

 

Just thought of something else.. a standard parchment / single page or folded page format for letters as well as scrolls.

I look forward to collecting all manner of written material for my personal and guild libraries. I think it would only benefit authors to be able to publish more than just book formats.

 

Perhaps invisible inks as well, or maybe water dissolvable papers for secret messages and such (a little cloak and dagger).

 

I'm all for the cloak and dagger stuff but that might go beyond publishing options.

I also want to be able to learn and write in any in-game language in the same 'book' So you could in theory write in "common" (English), runic AND whatever other language is made for New Britannia in a single piece of work.

On that note, I wonder about supporting any other language the game is available in. I think that might be getting slightly off the intended topic though.

I don't want to be limited to just books. If I want to say.. write a single letter or say.. a set of rules to be posted in all guild houses.. then I would buy a flyer format let's say. Print X number of copies and put them up on the walls in the guild HQ and other facilities. That would be very cool.

If I wanted to send someone a personal message then I would get a folded paper and have it sent someone (say I wanted a record of the message or they just weren't online as the same time as me and I wanted to keep it in-game).

Some people like to specialize in in-game news and events.. how cool then would it be for them to be able to have a news letter to share in their home town or be widely published? You wouldn't want something like that as a book.

Yet the technology for all of it is pretty much the same. It's just a little more content to make the physical objects in-game.

 

Being limited to just books would be silly, and besides, books are the mark of the wealthy scholar (there probably shouldn't be a great deal of bound literature around). I think it would make more sense to have flyers and small folios/booklets that guilds and other organizations can pass around. There probably should be a mechanic that allows one to post a piece of paper (a note/wanted poster) to world objects.

All this being said, you should probably start a printing press in game! You seem to have a great many interesting ideas on the subject of print/cartography.

 

My personal interest in the subject stems from my own character's interest in scholarly topics like archeology and just being well read and knowledgeable but it's more of a hobby that supports his long term goals which are.. well let's say very different.

Having this stuff in game is something that 1: Would add a lot of good immersion as an RP tool and just in general and 2: would support my RP a great deal and that of others who have their own interests in creative writings.

Personally, I'm not a big reader in reality. My pledge level is high enough that I'll have a printing press (I think) but I'd probably never use it except for the guild. Though Bowen being a nature nerd and a fine cook he may be tempted to write a few books from time to time on those subjects.

 

Perhaps we'll see "The Art of Avatar Cooking" in the future? I think there will most definitely be popular authors in this new world of ours, especially with the Bard's College (not actually what it's called but I couldn't think of it off the top of my head) pushing so hard for in player made art/literature/song. I don't have a pledge level high enough to get into Dev+ but if you do, I hope you bring some of your ideas to that forum. Spread the word!

 

I believe you're thinking of the Poet's Circle... Their guild leader I believe being Holt who at once point (and probably still is) was very interesting in having an in-game bard's college. Actually a real school for bards in-game. Hopefully we'll see that happen. I'm sure they'll produce many fine authors.

 

Yes Sir, you are correct! Maybe you should hook up with them, get that press working.

 

heh.. I'm sure they'll have their own printing press or two. Anyway I have my own guild and interests to pursue.

 

Flesh?

 

Somehow when I plugged this thread earlier I knew someone would bring it up. lol

Not my first choice but still. Certainly whatever binding/cover options Portalarium sees fit to include. I suppose you couldn't write many necromancy tomes without it could you?

Though I probably consider it contraband material and not available through legal printing means. You could still write an original with illegal materials and publish legal materials.

 

I would submit the idea of flesh or hides (either animal or human) to bind and cover some of the less virtuous Grimoires.

 

So.... book publishing?
Im wondering... what if I publish a book about what happens at my work each day. "I drove up to work this morning and walked in and sat at my cubicle. Began waiting for calls in the headset" blah blah blah, and made some modern era story and published it in the world of new britannia! Would that be ok?

 

That's not really on topic here but I would imagine books like that could end up being removed but I don't see any way to stop anyone from doing that unless the game has an internal review process.

 

They may keep a bit of the Council of Scribes to oversee some of the in game literature.

 

I dislike that idea.

It is the sole reason I started asking those questions on that announcement thread.

How can I not write fiction, in a fictional world, however I want? Its fiction.

If I want to write about riding in cars and working in cubicles, how does a fictional, non-cannon work, affect the game?

We were told, on a number of occasions, we would be able to write and self-publish content, for giveaway or sale, in game.

Should there be limits on things like pron, or explicit horror/murder? Maybe, but I assume those to be fringe events.

Even that though, where is the line? Who is this council? And why should players end up watching players content?

This is a monster of a slippery slope to start having in-game players censoring other players.

 

I agree that this could be easily corruptible, though maybe this is why (if you have great feelings about the Council) you should join them. Also, the Council will be overseen by FireLotus and she gets her guidelines from her higher ups, so in the end, we operate in a world with certain rules (and these rules are made up by a couple of folks at Port). So the bottom line is that we must operate within the rules that we are given and the best we can do is attempt to change bad rules by talking with the Devs (or we could just not play the game).

An idea for if you want to write something that it would reflect our current world is that you could in fact call it a work of "science fiction," heck we've been writing all sorts of odd science fiction since the 1950's. If you were to do this you could choose a publishing format that people are already familiar with, maybe a novel or a comic book.