If you are in New York this Saturday, come see us at Self-Pub Book Expo. We have a booth there!

We published an article titled “The Ebook 2.0 Era Has Arrived” on TeleRead and ebookmagazine.co.uk yesterday.  I have included the full text here.  Please feel free to include in your blog, website or retweet.  It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.o Unported.

Introduction

In the early part of the last century when TV was first introduced, the format of early TV programs were borrowed directly from their radio predecessor. “Actors” were hired to fill the screen by reading from a visible script. It was only later when people realized there was more to this new medium and began to act out scenes in front of the camera that modern-day TV production took off.

Fast forward to the 90s when music was digitized en mass- First it was RealAudio and then Windows Media. But it wasn’t until Napster, iTunes and more recently MySpace Music came along that it created a whole new way to produce and consume music. Online video went through a similar evolution. In the beginning it was RealVideo and a slew of new companies. Then YouTube came along and created a whole new class of video creators and fundamentally changed the way we watch videos. Blogs, Twitter and other Internet technologies had a similar effect on the newspaper industry.

The trend is clear. When a disruptive force hits an old medium, first the consumption behaviour changes, followed by the production of the content. History is repeating itself for ebooks.

Ebook 2.0

2009 will be remembered as the year ebooks took off. Ebook sales are experiencing over 100% year-to-year growth. E-readers such as Kindle and Sony E-reader are selling like hotcakes. However, the way ebooks are produced has not been very different than that of paper book, which has changed very little since the Victorian era. Here are the steps for how a traditional paper book or ebook is typically produced:

Author completes a book and finds an agent

The agent finds a publisher who is willing to take the book

The publisher arranges everything, editing, cover design, etc. and delivers the final copy to the printer

The printer prints the books, delivers them to the distributor

The distributor delivers the books to the retailers and sells one to the consumer
As you can imagine, lots of intermediaries and lots of steps involved. The steps are completed in sequence rather than in parallel. Months, if not years, between when the first chapter is written and the book reaching its first reader. The first generation of ebook production just piggy-backs on this process and adds a final step; the delivery of the book in electronic format to ebook distributors.
The production of books is set to change. We at Wattpad coined the term “ebook 2.0” to describe this evolution and have already seen the shift happening. The era of “ebook 2.0” has arrived.

Ebook 2.0 improves on traditional ebooks in the following ways: real-time writing, collaboration between writers and readers, virality and writer empowerment. Ebook 2.0 has the following characteristics:

Real-time writing: Books are written and edited in real-time, often chapter by chapter.

Collaboration between writers and readers: Readers and writers are constantly interacting; reader feedback often comes in as soon as the first chapter or the prologue is written. Readers can help shape the writing process.

Virality: Books can reach mass readership in very short period time by leveraging word-of-mouth marketing in a way never before possible.

Writer empowerment: Empowering anyone passionate in writing to become a writer.

Real-time writing

Writers no longer need to complete the entire book before it is published. In many cases, writers upload a prologue to collect feedback first. The storyline and characters can be fine tuned or even completely modified before the first chapter is even written. The book is then published chapter by chapter. Fans can follow a writer and be notified when a new chapter is available, within minutes it can generate thousands of reads as passionate readers rush to read the new chapter.

This allows writers to generate instant feedback from their readers, which brings us to the next point ….

Collaboration between writers and readers

Because the book is written in real-time, unlike traditional ebooks or paper books, writers can collect feedback directly from readers as the book is being written. In addition, not only can readers participate in the editing process, they can also see their feedback affect the writing process. In fact, the storyline evolves continuously based on what the readers have to say. Readers can comment and discuss the latest chapter with the author or other fans and even suggest a plot twist or an ending if they choose. Ivan Yuen, one of Wattpad’s co-founders, sent feedback to the author of the book “The War Against Them – Battlefields” and he was “rewarded” by being cast as one of the characters in the final chapter of the story!

Virality

Unlike traditional ebook, ebook 2.0 is no longer a self-contained entity. As a book is created, it has the ability to “push” updates using most popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Readers interact with the “live” ebook and their interactions such as comments and votes appear on their social networks. It can help interesting new reads to spread virally. The following two writers (http://www.wattpad.com/user/Just-Krissy and http://www.wattpad.com/user/DamN623) are very good examples of successfully using Wattpad as a social network to promote her works. Their latest titles both generated over 300,000 reads within a couple of months. Their readership exceeds many traditional best-selling titles. Note that the second profile belongs to a young female writer from the tiny country of Brunei. Without “ebook 2.0”, it would have been very difficult for her to generate this level of readership around the world.

Writer empowerment

According to R.R. Bowker’s Books in Print database, in 2008, 276,489 books were published traditionally in the U.S. Today, monthly uploads on Wattpad are in excess of 20,000 and the number is accelerating. This year the number of titles published on Wattpad should exceed that of traditional publishing as a whole. This is a direct result of empowering authors to publish their work for free with complete editorial and copyright control. Just as YouTube created a whole new class of video makers, ebook 2.0 is creating a whole new class of writers.

Summary

Ebook 2.0 is changing both the self-publishing and traditional book publishing landscape in a significant way. We are seeing the beginning of a new kind of book creation and a new way for readers to consume it. Its overall impact is not yet understood; but looking at the way similar shifts have affected other media, we should not underestimate its potential disruptiveness. We are very excited to be at the forefront of this development and to help write the next chapter in this story.

Written by Allen Lau, Co-founder of Wattpad.

Just want to say a big thank you to our community translation team. Our Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia, Vietnamese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese sites are translated and live. Check them out!
To celebrate the launch, we are running writing contests for our Spanish and Indonesian users. If you have written any story in Spanish or Bahasa Indonesia, submit your works now! Check out http://www.wattpad.com/contests.

Earlier today we released our second Global Ebook Metrics Report.  This comprehensive report covers both country and handset/manufacturer data based on ebook usage of subscribers of over 600 mobile operators in 160 countries.  During Q3 2009, iPhone continues to dominate smartphone ebook usage while Blackberry reduces the gap to the front.

To access the full Q3 2009 report, please visit http://www.wattpad.com/metricsreport.  Check it out!

Update: This report is covered in a few places such as BusinessWeek and TeleRead.

We have been very busy! As some of you might have noticed, we have added a number of new features in the last days:

- If you have a Wattpad account, you can now link it with your Facebook account. Your votes and upload will be post to your Facebook status stream automatically. If you are “fanning a writer”, it will be posted to Facebook as well.
- If you don’t already have a Wattpad account, you can now sign in with your Facebook user id and password. Similarly, your Facebook activities will be posted to your Facebook status stream.
- You can now add your MySpace profile to your account settings. Your MySpace link will then show up in your public profile.
- There are a few enhancement in the account settings page, which gives you more control of what information you want to display.
- Last but not least, the public profile page sports a brand new look!

Check them out! Don’t forget to send us feedback and suggestions.

The long awaited update for iPhone and iPod Touch users is finally here! You will find some much appreciate improvements and new features. The tap controls in the reading view has been improved, it is now easier to toggle the auto-scrolling and the toolbar. You can rearrange the order of the items in your library, browsing by categories is also easier. The orientation lock is now saved when you exit the app which many of the beta testers suggested.

As always, be sure to send us your suggestions so we can make the app better still!

Special thanks to all of our beta testers who sent us their feedback. If you want to join us for testing future updates, please contact us.

Most of you have probably noticed a few not-so-subtle changes on the Wattpad website. Since we rolled out the fans feature a month ago, the response has been awesome. Nearly 20,000 fans have  been following their favorite writers!

But there’s a lot more coming. Each user now has their own message board that you can personalize, where fans and friends can ask questions. You can also send private messages if you want to share a secret. Writers and fans can also link to their twitter account.

So what’s next? Why don’t you tell us what you’d like to see!

As some of you have noticed, there’s a new option available on our website. When you find a good story or a writer you enjoy, you can now become a fan. This is a great way to support your favorite writers. You’ll be notified by email whenever the writer posts something new – you’ll be the first to know when a new story or chapter is available!

Keep sending us your suggestions to help make Wattpad better!

Update: In just 24 hours, we have over 1000 fans support their favorite writers! Way to go!

Do you have a collection of your written works sitting around on your computer? Maybe an essay, short story, screenplay, poetry or even a novel? Don’t you think it’s time you put them to good use? You can win $1,000 by uploading it and sharing it with others on Wattpad.

Submit your original written works to Wattpad and be sure to include the tag writingcontest. The grand-prize winner will receive $1,000 in cash, two second place winners will each receive an iPod Touch. The top finalists will be determined by the number of votes received, so be sure to tell your friends about it!

Visit our contest page for more info.

The winner of the Facebook fan iPod giveaway is Holly Gower Simmers from Memphis, TN. Congratulations, you will be receiving your prize, a new iPod Touch soon. We will be announcing other contests soon, so stay tuned!