While WIRED magazine deemed him “one of 25 people helping to reinvent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood,” filmmaker Lance Weiler calls himself simply a story architect, one who isn’t married to any specific medium.

And, in today’s fragmented media landscape, the ability to simultaneously deliver an entertaining or informative tale through print, cellphones, TV, the Web, and whatever technology comes next is more than mere innovation — it’s survival.

Weiler has been pushing boundaries since about 1997 when he experimented with alternate realities — building a seemingly real case with court documents, 911 calls, and missing person flyers — for his film The Last Broadcast. His recent endeavor, Pandemic 1.0, appeared as part of the Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier and unfolded for attendees over several elements including film, mobile, social gaming, data visualization and real-world interaction.

Now there’s a name for Weiler’s work: transmedia, a term loosely defined as storytelling across multiple platforms. And, for this award-winner, the key to his success — and that of any content producer, really — is engaging the audience as collaborator.

What made you start experimenting with transmedia?
What was interesting to me — and you can see it across the work that I’m doing — is how technology or the connective world that we’re moving into can break the fourth wall. How can we put people into the shoes of the protagonist, extend the story and make them experience it in more than one form? I’m interested in how storytelling can evolve in the 21st century. How can I tell a story in an efficient manner where the audience becomes more of a collaborator in the work that I do?

Some feel that transmedia is becoming another generic buzz word. What do you think?
Transmedia is a transient term. Media, by its definition is going to be fluid. It’s great to have a term that people understand, but whether there was a term for it or not, I’d still be doing it.

With any term that becomes hot, a lot of people gravitate towards it and try to own it. The terminology doesn’t matter as much to me as it does to tell stories and develop work richly in a way similar to software releases where you’re doing rapid prototyping and putting it out to the world to see what people think.

But there’s a lot of movement in the category that’s legitimate. Guillermo del Toro opened a transmedia studio. The creator of CSI [Anthony Zuiker] started Level 26. Fourth Wall Studios secured financing and will be doing original transmedia projects and co-productions with studios. There’s a lot going on in Europe, South America and Asia.

“How can I tell a story in an efficient manner where the audience becomes more of a collaborator in the work that I do?”

What was the conceptualization process like for Pandemic 1.0?

It was born out of the desire to tell a rich world of what is essentially a Lord of the Flies tale. I built this universe that has various touch and entry points, multiple ways that the story can be pervasive. I wanted to extend and tell a story where adults have contracted a sleep virus and youth are left to their own devices.

I wrote the screenplay called Hope is Missing (HiM) that went through the Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab. It was the first time that a feature film and transmedia project went through the lab. Pandemic starts with an initial outbreak that spreads across the world. We’ve raised financing to shoot serial content and stage transmedia events in London, Barcelona, Berlin, Rome. I’m very interested in seeing the story told from multiple perspectives around the world. HiM takes place 90 days after the initial outbreak in a small town in the United States.

I had a lot of room to do R&D around the story. In the lab, I put together a conceptual way of how I could tell the story in the real world. I shot a short [film] that was a style guide of what we would do in various cities. I crafted an extension that would sit in the real world and would involve a game layer.

What does story research and development involve?
The vast majority of films are underdeveloped. Story R&D is an amazing opportunity to richly develop the stories that I want to tell. It allows you to go through various phases, seeing if the story works, getting feedback, building relationships with audiences. I try different things to see what they like and what they don’t like. That’s not to say that I only do what audiences like, but it’s a great way to rehearse with actors, get a sense of the world, build the experience, collaborate, and try something in the real world and online, a better way to develop the story world. There’s a level of complexity to transmedia, so it’s a way to refine the process. Transmedia isn’t just a checklist — here’s the mobile, the game, the social media. I want to understand each of these elements and how they fit into the story — what makes them stronger not just as individual pieces, but as a whole.

How do you decide which platforms to use to best tell the story?
I design from a standpoint that whether it is on a device or platform, each should have a beginning, middle and end. I want to create an emotional connection to something. It’s really great to have someone on the edge of the seat. If I can do that in the world, lure someone into it, create that sense of thrill, I’m happy.

Whether it’s mobile, online, in the real world, in the cinema, or on the screen in the middle of the living room, it’s not about having just a series of things where you can’t get the answer unless you do this next thing — I want the story to build. If each part delivers, the more likely that more people will want to consume it.

I also work from story themes and the burning questions from characters, building across the story arc. If I’m going to do mobile, for instance, I have to find a way that a new application makes sense to the story that I’m telling. There might be amazing technology out there, but if it doesn’t reflect the emotional tone that I want, the theme I’m trying to uncover, or fit within what the characters are engaged in, I won’t use it. It’s kind of like what you do when you write and ask yourself, “Is this serving the story?” I apply that to my transmedia project.

There were so many moving parts with Pandemic when you introduced it at Sundance. How were you able to maintain the quality of the experience?
We developed software to help us schedule and time things out. I’m very interested in how data can be used within storytelling and how contextualized storytelling can facilitate more efficient delivery of story and bridge social connections. We modeled different cinemas after cities around the world and, when people checked-in, the virus would spread. We wrote an algorithm that would measure certain things, so that the story would ebb and flow based on real world applications.

How is transmedia transforming the audience experience?
In my personal work, I’m interested in that relationship. I’ve benefited greatly from social media and networking. I pay it forward a lot; that’s what I try to do with [the creative network and conference] DIY Days and the Workbook Project. I work hard to try to make things a little more accessible in an industry that’s been shrouded in secrecy, to uncover Oz working the levers.

Building a relationship with an audience that is real only helps me as a storyteller. It creates a checks and balance system. They feel like they are invested, and it sparks something creative within them.

One of the things that we’ve been doing that’s in closed beta is a mobile Android app that puts people in the shoes of the protagonist. We found that people are using it the way that they want. The players start to define it. But I want the participation to be in a filtered way. The stuff that really rises up, we reference and bring back. Working with the audience, seeing what sparks through story R&D efforts, and then bridging those gaps, gives the story more of a face. The relationship with the audience becomes more fluid.

Lance Weiler’s tips for getting started with transmedia storytelling
1. Test your story. “Start with using transmedia as a way to develop your story. Create simple extensions to your story using something like Twitter. There are a lot of free tools.”

2. Check out what others are doing. “For anyone emerging, check out The Workbook Project. We have a lot of transmedia practitioners who come through. Also check out jawbone.tv to see what’s out there.”

3. Expand possibility. “Release yourself from the literal translation of what you’ve seen. Free yourself from the confines. Then play and experiment.”

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Nelson George, Writer, Producer and Filmmaker?

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Felicia Pride is a content producer. Visit her at feliciapride.com or @feliciapride.

Whether it’s Associated Content, Suite101, or Demand Studios, so-called “content farms” are a hot topic of debate in the media business. How can seasoned journalists stay afloat financially and professionally when every Joe Blow amateur is willing to fire off “stories” on everything from “What is a Cat?” to “How To Brush Your Teeth” for pennies a post?

“I understand how those folks feel,” Examiner.com CEO Rick Blair says. “Having worked with many journalists, I can identify with them.”

While Examiner.com does bring in millions of page views like others in its category, Blair says his site is more than just your run of the (content) mill. He describes “examiners” as specialists in old-school and new media reporting with a local flair.

“We’ve rarely been compared to as a content farm. I think it’s a definition made up by traditional journalists,” Blair says. “One guy described a content farm as ‘any website generating mass amounts of low-quality content with the intention to drive search traffic.’ By that definition, I think more businesses might be engaging in this activity than we realize. We definitely don’t generate that mass amount of low-quality content.”

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Name: Rick Blair
Position: CEO of Examiner.com
Resume: Started as a CPA at Deloitte Haskins & Sells. Then spent ten years at Knight Ridder Newspapers, holding various positions at Presslink, Inc. and Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Served as vice president of sales and marketing and vice president of content management at Picture Network International. Helped launch Aol’s Digital City before landing the top position at Examiner.com in 2009.
Birthday: March 11, 1953
Hometown: Ironton, Ohio
Education: B.S. in business administration at Ohio State University
Marital status: Married
Media idol: Ted Leonsis. “He knows how to grow, scale and maintain business like no one I have seen.”
Favorite TV show: The Daily Show
Favorite Book: Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra “with my grandson”
Guilty pleasure: Pinkberry
Twitter handle: @Examinercom

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So, how did Examiner.com begin?
Well, our primary investor purchased the San Francisco Examiner and launched the Baltimore Examiner, which are free distribution newspapers. After that, they started the Examiner.com websites. I had been involved as a consultant. They had this idea that there would be a way to take passionate people who are very knowledgeable about their subject matter from different towns, cities, boroughs, and neighborhoods across the United States, and scale that, yet maintain the quality that you needed to have a good publication. Prior to our start of May of 2008, we built an infrastructure to handle the anticipated influx of all these writers. Our methodology was to super-vet them by having them fill an application online in which they provide us editorial samples. We review those samples and accept or reject them along with giving them a criminal background check before they can become an independent contractor for us. We started out with eight cities. Since that time, we’ve had substantial growth. In January we’ve had 25 million overall unique visitors, 70 million pages and over 70,000 examiners that produce anywhere from 3,000 to 3,500 hundred articles a day.

One of the things we knew that we had to do is to combine human power and technology power. We have 25 people who work on directly recruiting and vetting examiners through the pipeline. If I had to describe our mission in one word, it would be “examiners.” We want them to simply write articles that their audience would want to read.

There are a number of competitors such as Suite101 even Yahoo. What makes Examiner.com different than all of them?
All but about 8 or 9,000 of our examiners write locally. We’re all about the local perspective, from where are the best places to park during a baseball game, to hot yoga places for young moms, to what’s going on in a certain town. We do this high vetting process very similar to what Associated Press does. We’ve rarely been compared to as a content farm. I think it’s a definition made up by traditional journalists. One guy described a content farm as “any website generating mass amount of low-quality content with the intention to drive search traffic.” By that definition, I think more businesses might be engaging in this activity than we realize. We definitely don’t generate that mass amount of low-quality content.

“If I had to describe our mission in one word, it would be ‘examiners.’ We want them to simply write articles that their audience would want to read.”

There is a lot of debate on what classifies a journalist and what classifies a blogger. Do you see a difference between the two and if so, what do you classify your examiners as?
Well, I do see difference between the two. I look at bloggers as amateurs, though in some cases they are journalists. I don’t even know what the definition of a content farm is anymore. Journalists, and I know, having been involved in the media for most of my life, when they write for the local media, they are the watchdog, teachers and conscience of a community. We’re not trying to do that. We’re a mix of both. We do have really good journalists too though, including someone who writes for The New York Times. Though, for us, she writes about riding bicycles in New York. In other cases, we have bloggers who blog about things they’re passionate about like local government. The “examiner” is a title which describes neither a professional journalist nor an amateur. They’re writing about a subject that they are passionate and knowledgeable about.

Does the Examiner own the content that the contributors compose and if so, how can a writer use the Examiner as a way to expand their platform or to create a brand and turn it into some form of revenue?
That’s a great question and that’s what we really want them to do. Now, we pay our examiners based on the secret algorithm that we use. We encourage them to have links back to other articles on our site and, with the training that we provide, we teach them how to distribute their content across the board. We do own all the rights to the content on the site and we do tell folks, ‘don’t quit your day job’ because other than a few of our examiners, they’re not going to make thousands of dollars from us. But if they take this as a stepping stone and add this to their portfolio, it’s very easily done for them. For example, they can have a constant link to their book on Amazon. We want them to be happy and successful and write more often.

What are your thoughts on the recent sale of Huffington Post? Do you think that it’s fair for them to continue to profit off of writers without sharing the wealth?
I think it was a good acquisition for Aol. They needed somebody to hold it together. When I was at Aol, we helped launch the local initiative. I think they needed a property for them to rally their content around. In that instance, with the bloggers, if you’re going to give away your content and you’re going to allow them to publish it, and something happens where they benefit from it, unless you have some kind of a deal upfront, it may not be a very good idea. I understand how those folks feel and having worked with many journalists, I can identify with them. I will say this, all those bloggers at Huffington Post who posted for free, we’ll be happy to invite them to Examiner.com, where we pay them.

You have 70,000 examiners. How do you maintain the quality of the content and without overworking your editorial board?
The first thing we set up was Examiner University. Once examiners are accepted, we give them some 40 courses where they learn everything from how to upload an image to how write in the third person. We’ll teach them how to write better headlines, how to socialize their content — all of it is covered. We also have a community of examiners that self-police and they are wickedly objective about their counterparts. We don’t edit each post. We compensate by our lack of editing with our substantial upfront review and training process instead.

“I will say this, all those bloggers at Huffington Post who posted for free, we’ll be happy to invite them to Examiner.com, where we pay them.”

With your recent partnership with Reuters, do you see the contributors or the examiners’ fees increasing?

Yes, our examiners’ fees in total increase with our success. So, as we become more successful, examiner fees will become more successful. That is the part of the algorithm and is one of the principles that we assure our examiners are compensated in terms of dollars and in terms of the satisfaction they get by sharing their information and the significant amount of press that they get. They are referenced by hundreds, if not thousands of press every month.

For those who are considering creating their own forms of user-generated if not curated content sites, what is your advice for them to stand out?
You have to maintain a level of quality and you have to strive for an even higher level. You have to make sure you have the resources to train folk and give them feedback. For every 9,000 applications we receive a month, we only accept less than 50 percent of those.

What is your vision for Examiner in the coming years?
We want to be the go-to website for all things local and we want people to come there because they want to read our stories, not because we have a lot of them; that our stories are valuable to help them in their everyday lives. We’re advertising-based and the base strategy has pretty much stayed the same, but we’re growing faster than we anticipated.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Brian Farnham, Editor-In-Chief, Patch?

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Jeff Rivera is a GalleyCat contributor and the founder of HowtoWriteaQueryLetter.com

Together with his co-author, Dr. Jack Canfield, Dr. Mark Victor Hansen has launched the most popular nonfiction book series of all time, Chicken Soup for the Soul. (Ever heard of it?) To date, the self-help titles filled with relatable anecdotes and wisdom have sold over 167 million copies worldwide and launched a brand that includes more than 100 licensed products.

Although, many authors would have retired at this point, Hansen continues to speak and to write. He describes his latest book, U R the Solution, as his way of giving back in order to make a “significant impact on the world.” Hansen spoke with mediabistro.com about the creation of his empire and the costly business decisions that could have initially derailed his career.

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Name: Mark Victor Hansen
Twitter handle: @markvhansen
Position: Author, speaker and entrepreneur
Resume: Lost over $2 million virtually overnight in a faulty business decision, had to do labor work for $2.14/hour in order to make ends meet. Bounced back as a speaker for the business market. Collaborated with friend and fellow speaker Dr. Jack Canfield on what would become Chicken Soup for the Soul. After being rejected by 144 publishers, Hansen and Canfield were published by a small publisher Health Communications, Inc. and the book series went on to sell over 167 million copies.
Birthdate: January 8, 1948
Hometown: Waukegan, Illinois
Education: Honorary doctorate from Southern Illinois University and a Ph.D. from Golden State University
Marital status: Engaged
Favorite TV show: Boston Legal
Guilty pleasure: “Eating delicious desserts”
Media Idol: Peter Guber, “because he’s a mensch.”

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Where did the idea for Chicken Soup for the Soul come from?
Jack and I have been friends for now almost 30 years, but for five years we were helping each other with [speaking engagements]. He did the educational market; I did the business market. One morning, he was [speaking] at the Beverly Hilton and I went up there to talk. I said, “What are you doing?” and he said, “Well, I am writing this book about happy little stories.” I said, “Well, that title sucks and since I gave you all these heart-touching stories, let’s do it together.” So we did.

There are a lot of self-help books around, but it seems like one of the reasons for the success of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series is because of its name. How was having a great name really important?
Don’t even write a book unless you’ve got a great title, because no one’s going to open the book unless you’ve got a great title. We had a crummy title. We both studied the work of Erik Erikson, a hypnotherapist and psychiatrist, and he said, “You know, before you go to sleep, repeat in your respective beds, in your respective homes 400 times a day “make a bestselling title,” “make a bestselling title.” And Jack called me at 4:30 in the morning and said, “Chicken Soup!” and I said, “for the Soul!” and I said, “holy crap! That fits!” I had goose bumps. Our respective wives said, “That is the stupidest idea ever,” and then 144 publishers said, “Hit the road, Jack.”

What is the process like when collaborating with Dr. Canfield? And what would you say are the keys to a great co-authoring partnership?
Jack and I are still close and see each other all the time. When we were writing the book, we basically lived together for three years. If we weren’t talking and traveling with our own families on trips, we were together. We exercised together, we talked together. I don’t want to write with an enemy. I want to write with somebody I really enjoy working with, laughing and joking with. You have got to be a great friend, first. In other words, Jack and I had a deep friendship. We were like-minded; we both wanted a book that would change lives.

You were rejected by over 140 publishers when pitching Chicken Soup for the Soul. How did you keep going when it looked like you should just give up?
We were inspired by so many other authors, some of the greatest that were rejected. We interviewed so many bestselling authors before writing the book. John Grisham had A Time to Kill in the trunk of his car for six years and went from bookstore to bookstore, giving it to them and signing them. The same with Stephen King, he was rejected too. Nora Roberts, they all were rejected. The thing is, Jack and I had a platform. In fact, we had 20,000 copies of little coupons that we had people fill out saying that they would buy the book once it came out and still we were rejected.

“Don’t even write a book unless you’ve got a great title.”

What is your new book, U R the Solution about and how is it different than the Chicken Soup for the Soul series?
My co-author in this new series is Bill Froehlich. Froehlich has done 10 major television series, including MacGyver which he wrote, produced and directed. We talked about inspiring people as to what they could do right now in the world. We really wanted to use our imagination because of the deep problems that face our nation [that were] largely created by unscrupulous people from Wall Street. So, it’s a fable that encompasses that idea. Our thought was to do a whole series, not unlike the Chicken Soup for the Soul. I had read in George Lucas’ book where he said, “Don’t do anything you can’t prequel and sequel,” so I thought we would do a series.

What would you say were some of the things you did initially to set the foundation for your success?
Well, it took us three years to write this book, because it took us awhile to create a formula that worked. We developed seven things that each story needed in order for it to be included in the book. First of all, it’s got to cause instantaneous behavioural change. It’s got to be something the readers connect with instantly. It’s got to cause happy tears. It’s got to cause your stomach to flip flop in a positive way. It’s got to cause goose bumps, God-bumps, chilli bumps, those seven things. And so we read a thousand stories to find one, and we re-edited it until it had all those elements. Every one of those stories got read and edited seven times or so.

If authors are interested in building a brand or an empire as you have done, what should they do first, before writing a single page?
They’re going to need to decide to create a brand that commands. A brand that commands has three things going for it: first of all, repetition is important. Authors have to keep the customers’ mind. The customer is going to need to see that brand over and over again and eventually you build up a rapport and a trust with them. For example, with our Chicken Soup brand, it’s everywhere so the customer thinks to themselves, “Oh, yes. I trust Mark and Jack. These guys have honesty and integrity, and I see them on TV and I have seen it in commercials.” Secondly, you need to create a brand that the customer identifies with. People identify with Chicken Soup. People can relate to the topics that are in the books. And finally, you need conformity. Apple is a perfect example of that.

What did you do to market the book that didn’t work?
What didn’t work was hiring a lot of the consultants especially about social media, who say they know stuff and for the most part, they do not and they charge a lot. In my experience, all of them are making money selling their experience, but they are not turning it into dollars. I had to figure it out by myself which is probably the best way. Go to the seminars, listen to what they have got to say, and then figure it out for yourself.

NEXT >>

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Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady (Grand Central) and and the Founder of HowtoWriteaQueryLetter.com

If you flip to the Today show on most days, you’ll see a familiar face. Jean Chatzky is the expert on everything personal finance, dispensing practical information about how people can get out of financial ruts and mishaps. But when Chatzky first graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and took a position at Working Woman magazine, her goal was never to write about personal finance; instead she was interested in business.

“That’s where I learned about companies. I found that very interesting,” she recalls. “And what I really wanted to do more than anything…was go be a fact-checker at Forbes.”

After a detour on Wall Street as a business research analyst at Dean Witter Reynolds, Chatzky eventually landed at her dream publication and later joined SmartMoney, where she parlayed her money know-how into regular gigs on Today and SiriusXM’s Oprah & Friends show. But what makes her so well-received is that she previously struggled with her own personal finances. Now, the author and financial whiz opens up about how she created her empire using multiple media channels — and how you can, too.

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Did you ever have to take courses in finance to learn more about the technical things, or is all the knowledge you have gained from your personal experience in the industry?
It’s really what I learned on the job. I was an English major in college. I took some marketing classes. I took econ. When I was at Dean Witter, I learned how to read balance sheets, do taxes. SmartMoney, when it launched, launched with the idea that it would be a new and different personal finance magazine and be about the lives of people and not just their mutual funds.

So when did you come to a position when you realized you knew what you were talking about? When did the books come?
It was kind of a natural evolution. When I got to SmartMoney, we had a very aggressive PR effort to just get it off the ground. They launched a segment on the early morning version of the Today show. So they got this segment that was supposed to be once a week. So it just rotated. Whoever had a story to talk about would just go do this segment, and I went one week and they just liked me. I did that for about three years, then I ended up over at Today. And the book and the speaking just elbowed from there. But you know, I just made sure to do my homework whenever I had a story to talk about; I would make sure I knew it cold.

At that time are people saying, “You should just write a book,” or is that something that, as a writer, is that something that you innately wanted to do?
I think I would have eventually come around to it, but no, I got a call from a publisher that said, “You should write a book.” And I got a call from a speaking bureau that said, “You should speak.” So I wish could say that I went out and I got all these things, but…the Today show opened a huge number of doors and, you know, I’m forever grateful. I have worked with different publishers. I have worked with different agents. When it became clear that I was going to be a regular on the Today show, then they said they were going to offer me a contract, I got an agent. When the publishers came around and said, “Let’s write a book,” I got an agent.

When did all of that kind of happen…the books, the speaking. What year?
1997.

A lot of people will call themselves experts nowadays, but you’re obviously the person in everyone’s living room [on TV]…their source for money information. When did you realize you made it as an expert?
I think for me truly understanding that I could stand on my own didn’t really happen until I left SmartMoney magazine.  And that wasn’t all that long ago, about four years [ago]. When I left SmartMoney magazine, I remember having a very long drawn-out conversation with my boss at the Today show, because SmartMoney was my home for five years and I understood that I was very much associated with SmartMoney. And I was being offered a great job…and I wanted to take it. But I also wanted to make sure that this was not just the magazine.  I had some expertise that was not associated with any magazine I was at.

Jean Chatzky’s tips for making money in media:
1. Diversify your portfolio. “The more well-rounded you are in terms of being able to write everything from a blog post to a long story to shoot your own video and edit it, the more employable you’re going to be.”
2. Watch those pennies. “If you can get a grip on where your money is going, then you have the power to change where you put it and to use it to do whatever you want, whether it’s saving or paying down debt, or funding retirement or renting an apartment.”
3. Write the book on it. “It really helps to write, to put your thoughts down on paper, whether they’re in a book or in a blog or a magazine article. Because then there’s something to talk about.

NEXT >>

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 Kristen Fischer is the author of Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life. Visit her at www.kristenfischer.com.

Publishing couldn’t be changing faster. Whereas even a few short years ago, the stigma attached to self-publishing might have caused literary agents and publishing houses to turn their noses up at certain aspiring authors, today, agents are steadily perusing literary communities and platforms for the next big eBook author. Some notables, like Joe Konrath, have even used the technology to re-launch their careers.

One such company that is on the forefront of this new incarnation of publishing is Wattpad. Nina Lassam, their marketing evangelist and a speaker at mediabistro.com’s upcoming eBookSummit, speaks to us about the rapidly changing marketplace, the success of authors using Wattpad to land book deals and why no form of technology will ever replace the literary agent.

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Name: Nina Lassam
Position: Marketing evangelist for Wattpad
Resume: Dabbled in journalism before pursuing grad school at the Marshall McLuhan Institute at the University of Toronto. Later worked in the marketing department at Ceryx before joining Wattpad.
Birthday: January 31, 1984
Hometown: Toronto
Education: BA, University of King’s College; MA University of Toronto
Marital status: Not Married
First section of the Sunday Times: “Sunday Style and Magazine – but online, so I usually read them the Friday before”
Favorite TV show: The Wire
Guilty pleasure: “Baking in my tiny kitchen”
Last book read: “Print: Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann. Digital: Tattoo by Abigail Kirk.”
Twitter handle: @wattpad

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There are many sites that are trying to mimic your success. What is it about Wattpad that is so unique compared to the others?
Wattpad is a unique platform because of how social it is. Readers love that they can interact with authors who’ve shared work on the site. Until recently, readers used the Wattpad message boards and forums to comment on stories, provide feedback and recommend work to one another. In November, we introduced Wattpad Chat which has been incredibly popular and allowed even more interaction. We see a reader comment on a story once every 6 seconds on Wattpad, which makes it appealing for writers as well who are looking for feedback.

Some literary agents and publishers are frightened that if more writers use services such as yours and publish their eBooks directly, that this could cut them out completely. What do you have to say to them?
What I see on Wattpad is quite the opposite. Authors looking to get published do not know how to approach publishing houses, and the consolidation in the industry has made it even more intimidating. The uncertainty in the industry has also made it challenging for authors to establish what constitutes for normal. I think agents will continue to have a role in publishing books and helping authors profit from their work. The status quo keeps changing and, as long as agents continue to work for an author’s best interest, their role will remain valuable. We know of many agents who have created Wattpad accounts to look [for] talent on Wattpad and if they aren’t subtle about it, they are inundated with questions and requests.

What success stories are you most proud of from writers who’ve started their professional careers using your site?
The most exciting moments in the office come when we see the authors accomplish their publicly stated goals. It’s great to hear from younger, aspiring authors how supportive their families are and how much confidence their success on Wattpad has given them in their writing. Of course, we are delighted to hear that the site has garnered more sales for authors or helped them secure a publishing deal, as well.

“I think any medium that enables more democratic access should be celebrated.”

What was it about Wattpad that made you want to be a part of it? Certainly someone with your background could have chosen any platform.
Actually, I had been trying to work for Wattpad for a while. I think any medium that enables more democratic access should be celebrated. Wattpad has no barrier to entry; as long as you have an internet connection, it is completely platform agnostic. I think that is so important and when I see the demographics of Wattpad users I think it has a valuable real-world application.

Some people say that sites such as Wattpad allow the lowest common denominator of writers to get published. What have you done to separate the wheat from the chaff so that readers can discover quality over quantity?
Any site that is made up of user generated content is going to have a huge variety of content and quality; just look at YouTube. Some days the most popular video is an incredibly moving dance performed at a busy intersection in the rain, and other days it’s a cat who walks around with a box on his head. The same occurs on Wattpad. Because Wattpad deals predominantly with young adults, it’s easy to spot what’s trendy among the age group. For example, last summer werewolves were so popular we had to give it its own category. That being said, a good story is a good story and will always stand out.

Some of the things we’ve done to help encourage readers to look beyond the most popular titles is added a “Featured” section where we promote titles for a limited time. Additionally, if a title has been recommended by a third party such as a magazine or blog, we have a section called “As Seen In.” This way, readers can find titles recommended by sources external to the community.

You mentioned last summer that werewolves were popular. What trends are hot now and which ones seem to be on the verge of breaking?

Historical fiction, especially set in the Victorian Era, is gaining steam. No pun intended.

Besides writing great material and promoting on Facebook and Twitter, what can writers do to build a fan base on Wattpad?

Knowing your audience is extremely important. If you are writing a self-help book, visit forums and organizations that deal with the topic you are writing on. If you’re writing a book for businesses, use business-specific social media, such as LinkedIn.

Additionally, authors should start marketing early. Putting in six months of work before your book comes out may seem like you’re over preparing, but it will make a huge difference. It takes time to build up followers on Twitter, Facebook and your blog, beyond your existing network. The longer you give yourself, the more effective your marketing efforts will be.

Lastly, your marketing efforts should focus on awareness of your book and also on making fans – which means letting readers get to know you, not just your writing.

“Putting in six months of work before your book comes out may seem like you’re over preparing, but it will make a huge difference.”

You have a new self-published writers program. What is that all about and how does that differ from companies such as Author Solutions?
Wattpad is a marketing platform for self-published authors to find readers. We do not publish books or have any commerce on the site. Authors are invited to share their self-published work with readers and create a fan base that they can direct to a point of sale, which might be Amazon or a self-publishing site such as Lulu or Smashwords. With our program, we encourage self-published writers to contact us directly for guidance on how to make the most of marketing on Wattpad. We are also working with PW Select.

I went on your site and found numerous copyrighted materials under different titles. What are you doing to protect author and publishers rights?
I certainly hope you reported them! We have a zero tolerance policy for piracy. In addition to being user-moderated, we have a content filter block that blocks potentially copyright material. We receive ONIX files from publishers to help us identify these infringing uploads. It is not perfect, but we have generated more false alarms than misses — by design, just to err on the safe side — and our filters continue to improve. Currently, Wattpad is also working with the Association of American Publishers or AAP to refine their anti-piracy best practices.

Bookstores are closing, and many say we’re about to see another tidal wave of lay-offs from New York publishing houses. eBooks are taking off, but still represent less than 10 percent of revenues. Where do you see the future of book publishing going?
I see eBooks continuing to increase their market share as they become the new norm for reading. On Wattpad, the majority of readers and writers are teenagers, and I think most parents are encouraged by how much more interested in reading young people are when they can do so on their mobile phones or personal computers. I think the success and mainstream popularity of YA titles has also contributed to the acceleration of eBook adoption.

What future developments can we expect to see from Wattpad?
More social features are the most requested features from readers and authors and will continue to be an area of focus.

NEXT >> Hey, How’d You Use Social Media to Crowdsource A Cookbook, Food52?

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Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady (Grand Central) and a GalleyCat contributor.

With 56 bestsellers to his credit, including the popular Alex Cross series, and the distinction of being named the highest earning author of this year by Forbes, James Patterson can’t miss.

Yet despite his commercial success, he hasn’t been without his criticisms. Some have said Patterson lost his touch by using a slew of co-authors, and even Stephen King once called him a “terrible writer.”

Patterson, however, says he’s never been interested in being a literary type who engages in a “show-off prose.” His m.o.? To write books that the masses will be interested in. And, from the 170 million copies he’s sold thus far, that strategy is indeed working.

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Name: James Patterson
Position: Author
Resume: Started as an advertising executive at J. Walter Thompson before dabbling with writing his first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, which won an Edgar Award. He followed that with Along Came a Spider, launching his career as a thriller writer, and 56 New York Times bestsellers followed.
Birthdate: March 22, 1947
Hometown: Florida
Education: Graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Manhattan College and summa cum laude with an M.A. in English from Vanderbilt University
Marital status: Married
Favorite section of the Sunday Times: “The Book Review or the obituary section.”
Favorite TV show: 30 Rock
Guilty pleasure: “Walking the golf course three or four times a week around 7 AM.”
Last book read: The Glamour of Grammar by Roy Peter Clark and Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue

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How did your background in advertising prepare you for becoming a bestselling writer?

Well, I met a lot of serial killers working in advertising so… But seriously, I think it made me aware of thinking about the kind of audience with whom I’m talking to and what they might be interested in. I have a 12-year-old and it is something I talked to him about now and that is, when you sit down with people you’ve got to think about who you are speaking with and what might they be interested in.

You were at one time a midlist author with your first title. How did you position yourself into becoming one of the biggest authors of our time?
I didn’t. I don’t do any of that. It is all emotional with me. [For] the first book I wrote, I was 26-years-old and I won an Edgar. I think what happened, more than anything else, was that I was with a woman who was dying of cancer and she was sick for about three years. And that is when I think I was sort of in purgatory in more ways than one. It was a terrible time and then after Jane died, I said, “Okay, well now I wanna sit down and try to write a book that a lot of people will be interested in reading.” And it was soon after that that I wrote Along Came a Spider.

What is the difference creatively in approaching your novels for the masses compared to writing a literary novel?

I probably wouldn’t try to write a literary novel. I think I can write an acceptably good novel, but I am not particularly interested in talking to that audience. I think a lot of the things that are praised are just kind of show-off prose, which is just not my thing. I can appreciate it, you know. I’m a big reader and I read all kinds of things, but it is not something I want to do.

“I write books that people really want to read. That is what I think is the brand.”

One of your latest agendas has been creating books “for boys.” Why do you feel we’ve lost so many boy readers, and what type of titles are you creating to change all of that?
Well, one of the things that’s gotten me busy up to my ears now is that I have a lot of young adult books such as the Maximum Ride series. I was nominated for children’s author of the year at the Children’s Book Awards. My agent at the time felt that my style would really be a good start for kids because it is very fast-paced. I believe that probably the best way to get most kids reading is to just give them books that they love. There’s millions of kids in this country that haven’t read a book that they like, and that’s not a good idea. And it’s even worse for boys because they are more impatient. They don’t like to sit, you know. The Witch and Wizard is actually the biggest kids series by far that I’ve done, and we have a movie coming now.

With so many titles being released under your name, how do you avoid diluting your brand? And what can other writers who enjoy writing different genres do?
I write books that people really want to read; that is what I think is the brand. So, whether it is a romance or a young adult or whatever, if you pick up one of my books, the pages are gonna really turn fast and that’s the connection that I have with the readers. I think that people have to write stuff that they have some passion for. My success revolves around the fact that I am fairly analytical, logical, have a pretty good IQ but I’ve got street smarts too. You know, a lot of people who have nice IQ’s are just dumb as a brick when it comes to thinking about how other people think and what they might like and how to act in public and things like that. I think I have, you know, gifts involved of those areas. I mean, if I am writing a story that kids are supposed to not want to put down, if I don’t feel it, then I don’t think kids will feel it. If I don’t think that the pages are moving in the story and the characters aren’t involving, then I’m going to assume that the people reading it won’t.

You recently formed a film production company which will self-finance some of your own pictures. Why was this important and what challenges have you had to overcome?
We have an entertainment company and right now there are a few video games we have, such as with the Women’s Murder Club. We have a kind of a big mass audience game with Sony coming in the fall called Catch a Killer, which is kind of fun because I haven’t really played around in that area. We have comic books with IDW called Murder of King Tut, and they are going to do comics of another series that I’m working on as a book. We have a TV deal with Fox, a TV movie with Lifetime and Sony, which is shooting in September, and then we have two features: one Alex Cross and one Witch and Wizard. Alex Cross is supposed to start shooting in first quarter and we have David Twohy who wrote The Fugitive script. Idris Elba is going to be Alex Cross, looks like. He is really, really good.

“Just write a terrific book that has some kind of a hook or uniqueness that people are going to respond to. That’s really the best advice I can give most people.”

Your character Alex Cross is African American. Many authors wouldn’t have dared to write about a character of another race, particularly one of color. What prompted this decision?
Well, I think part of it is I grew up in a town that had a very large African American population living in New York and still is a troubled town now. It was just the murder capital of New York state, and now the problem is between Mexican gangs and African American gangs. My grandparents owned a restaurant and the cook was a black woman. She was having problems with her husband, and so she lived with us for three or four years. During that time, I spent tons of time with her family, who I loved. I loved the food; I loved the music. I thought that they are a very wise people, and that experience to some extent gave me some of the feelings for the Cross family.

What do you do marketing-wise to promote your books effectively, and what can a beginning author do to make an impact from the very start?
Write a good book; that is what most authors can do. Just write a terrific book that has some kind of a hook or uniqueness that people are going to respond to. Write it in a way that people will not be able to stop reading it, and that they will compulsively read. That’s really the best advice I can give most people.

With the market shifting to eBooks, why have you chosen not to create your own publishing company and sell directly to retailers?
If I were to announce that, I think certainly initially it wouldn’t be looked at as a good thing. You know, it is something you think about every once in a while, but my life is good. I like the publisher and the people there and am not interested in hurting them. And I don’t particularly want to do something that would create more upheaval to people in the publishing business. I think it is an important business. I think it is dealt with kind of unfairly by the media at times.

NEXT >> Author Alliances: Pool Your Book Marketing Efforts

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Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady (Grand Central) and the founder of GumboWriters.com.

“Pack your knives and go.” Gail Simmons did just that — and hasn’t stopped since. Fresh from college, all she wanted was to be a food writer. But the Toronto media scene was lacking, so she packed up and headed to New York. Her ambition propelled her through culinary school, two grueling kitchen jobs, a ‘stars aligning’ stint as food critic Jeffrey Steingarten’s assistant, and a job handling events and PR for chef Daniel Boulud — and no regular bylines. But when her behind-the-camera experience with Boulud helped her land a role at Food & Wine back in 2004, she couldn’t have anticipated the next course: a screen test and a plane ticket to San Francisco to judge the first season of soon-to-be Bravo sensation Top Chef.

Fast forward a few years, and Simmons is a household name and host of her own show, Top Chef: Just Desserts. Ahead of tonight’s season finale, we caught up with Simmons to discuss whether every magazine needs a TV presence to compete, her plans to pen a book, and her tips for a stress-free Thanksgiving.

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Name: Gail Simmons
Position: Host, Top Chef: Just Desserts; special projects manager at Food & Wine
Resume: Got her start as an intern for Toronto Life, then wrote for a newspaper in Toronto before moving to New York to attend culinary school. Worked as a commis at Le Cirque 2000 and Vong. Served as food critic Jeffrey Steingarten’s assistant for two years, through whom she met chef and restaurateur Daniel Boulud. Worked as Boulud’s special events manager for almost three years. Joined Food & Wine in 2004 as special projects manager. Became a judge on season one of Top Chef, and began hosting Top Chef: Just Desserts in 2010.
Birthday: May 19
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Education: McGill University in Montreal; the Institute of Culinary Education (formerly The Peter Kump New York Cooking School)
Marital status: Married
First section of the Sunday Times: “I would say the Style section. But, really the Wednesday Times is more important to me.”
Favorite TV show: 30 Rock
Last book read: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. “The book I’m reading now is called The Last Fish Tale by Mark Kurlansky.”
Guilty pleasure: Spicy chicken wings. “In New York, when I’m having a craving, the best I have found are at this place Wogie’s.”
Twitter handle: @GailSimmons

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What do you think makes a good food writer?
It’s all about the research. If you do your research really well, it will sort of write itself. It’s not just about just going to the library, but research means tasting, and tasting, and tasting again. And trying, and learning, and being adventurous, and keeping your eyes and ears open, and knowing both sides of an argument, and retasting. And then retasting again. I don’t think that anyone can write about food without knowing about food. I’m not saying that there’s one way to become a food writer. There are so many ways, especially in this amazing age of digital technology, and so many ways to go about a job, or getting a job. But you have to understand food beyond just liking to eat.

How has your role at the magazine evolved since the franchise with Top Chef has really taken off?
It’s totally changed in every way. When I first started Top Chef, my role at the magazine really was running the event department, which means I was directing the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. After three or four seasons of juggling both the Classic and leaving for large periods of time to film Top Chef, we realized that that didn’t make much sense.
My role at Food & Wine has really become more of an ambassador for the magazine because Top Chef in all of its incarnations takes up so much of my time. But I still do a lot of other appearances for Food & Wine. I do a lot more cooking demos and on-camera stuff for them, not just for Top Chef but the Today show, The Early Show. I work really closely with the editors on a number of content projects. I try to write a little bit for Food & Wine, as much as I can and time allows.

“You can’t just live on a piece of paper, just like a chef can’t just live behind a kitchen door anymore. To really expand, you need to be multi-dimensional.”

Do you think that magazine brands now need to have a TV presence to compete?
I don’t think they need it; there are certainly many that don’t. No matter what your brand is, whether it’s a magazine brand, whether it’s a restaurant brand, whether it’s a product brand, I don’t think that in this moment you can be two-dimensional in any way. You can’t just live on a piece of paper, just like a chef can’t just live behind a kitchen door anymore. To really expand, you need to be multi-dimensional. Food & Wine isn’t just a magazine anymore, it’s a brand. Obviously there’s our big TV component, and we’ve been so grateful for that relationship with Bravo, and how well that’s translated.

Bravo really was the first network that really successfully, at least as far as I can remember, integrated magazines into the television experience in a really organic way that gave Bravo credibility and gave the magazine credibility and didn’t feel forced. Food & Wine, from a publishing standpoint, had to become not just two dimensional, not just three-dimensional by adding that TV layer, but four, five, six-dimensional in that now there also needs to be an incredibly strong online presence, an incredibly strong iPad application, which we just launched and we’re super proud of.

Bravo puts a lot of effort into engaging all of its fans on Twitter. How do you use it to connect with your audience, to promote your projects?
It’s an amazing tool to have this live, real-time experience with people who are looking to you for information, people who are interested in you. And it’s so reciprocal, right? Because there’s people that follow me but there’s also people I’m following, and I am following all of these people for the same reason that people are following me. My kind of test is, well, what do I want to know from my favorite people who I follow? And how can I give people who follow me that experience? I really try to only use it as a tool to connect with people who aren’t living in New York City, necessarily, and want to know like, “What’s Gail doing?” I give information I think is relevant and interesting, and obviously if that means I’m going to be making a public appearance I want people to know because if they want to join me, I want to have them there. If I am in an article that I think is relevant, or if I’m doing some kind of event or a charity, if I have a product or a brand. Ultimately I’m hoping to do a book.

Like a memoir?
Well, I can’t really discuss it yet. We’re just at the beginning of figuring that out, and so obviously — if people are looking for information from me in the short format, I hope that they’ll want to know more in the long form when that comes out.

Let’s talk about Top Chef: Just Desserts. What was going through your mind when you landed your own show?
We just felt like the time was right. We’d had so much response from our viewers and from pastry chefs coming to us saying, “When are you going to let pastry chefs show people how to make a good dessert, for once?” We were all talking about it, and Bravo said, “We’d like you to think about hosting it.” It just seemed like the right progression for me, too, because after so many seasons of doing Top Chef, my role in the show had been well established, and I’ve worked really hard at creating for myself a voice that the audience can trust; a voice that’s somewhere between our viewer and Tom [Colicchio], that translates the kitchen experience for every person who isn’t a professional.

“Everybody who applies for a job with me has their own food blog. That shows they are committed and interested, but how do you differentiate between 65 food blogs? You need to have a point of view.”

I wanted a challenge, and it was just a perfect way to move to the next step and to try hosting, but hosting in a way that for me, felt really safe. Because it was the brand I knew, the show I loved, same format, same producers, and it was for Bravo, who have basically become my roommates. I knew I had support, but that I also could go into a new role with a new formula, with a new show that I could also make my own.

So many of the competitive reality shows want contestants to showcase their personality. What are your tips for someone who wants to show their personality through their work?
You need to have a point of differentiation. What makes you unique, especially because we are so saturated in the media world with content. Everybody who applies for a job with me has their own food blog. That shows they are committed and interested, but how do you differentiate between 65 food blogs? You need to have a point of view, but that point of view also has to be open to other people’s experiences and open to you learning every day, and you can’t hold too tight, just like a chef on the show. When chefs on Top Chef hold on too tight to an idea and aren’t able to adapt that concept, ultimately it always fails, because if they don’t execute it perfectly, and they’re not able to adapt it to the specific challenge, their dish is going to fail.

Is there a season two lined up for Just Desserts

I do not know that; that is a question for Bravo. So if you get the answer, will you let me know?

If there is a season two, was there anything that you would change about your approach? Or are you totally satisfied seeing yourself on TV?
I blog about the episodes and I work with Bravo on a lot of content for [them], so I certainly have to see them. As much as I would be happy not watching them sometimes, I’m not one of those people who can say, “Oh, I never watch myself.” I don’t have that choice. And I can get nitpick-y, but from that kind of macro level, there’s not much I would change. I’m really proud of [the show], I’m so proud of the characters, and that’s the X factor in any reality show: the casting. We really struck gold.

What are your tips for a stress-free Thanksgiving?
Full disclosure: I’m Canadian, so I haven’t been celebrating American Thanksgiving all of my life, but it is certainly my favorite adopted holiday. Stress-free is being organized. That includes, you know, days before plotting out how many dishes you’re going to need, what the menu is, where is it coming from, buying your ingredients a day or two in advance if you can so that you know you have it, so that the day there’s no disasters because you run out of limes and all of the stores are closed. And asking for help; I recently overcame that fear. I was one of those people who entertain at home and want to do everything myself. Then you’re spending your whole day in the kitchen, and you miss out on what the experience of Thanksgiving actually is, which is being with all the people who you are thankful for in your life.

NEXT >> Hey, How’d You Use Social Media to Crowdsource A Cookbook, Food52?

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By Blake Gernstetter.

Although eBooks were once thought of as just a passing fad, today there’s nothing that has created more controversy and praise in book publishing. Even other industries are beginning to take notice of the format’s possibilities, looking to it as an opportunity to expand their brands and profits.

One such visionary is CSI creator Anthony Zuiker. His latest book, Dark Prophecy: Level 26, is his second foray into what he is calling the digi-novel — a fusion of interactive and traditional reading. By allowing readers to follow the tome’s plot through film, social media, mobile apps, and the traditional printed page, Zuiker hopes to reach the “ultra level of convergence in entertainment.” Here, the creator of the biggest franchise in television history and former Las Vegas tram operator explains how and why he did it.

What gave you the idea to expand your brand from television to novels?
During the writer’s strike, we had some downtime. I always loved the publishing business and so I decided to create Dark Prophecy as a digi-novel. I’ve been so infatuated with technology and I want to incorporate publishing, motion pictures and the social communities wrapped into one experience in terms of the ultra level of convergence in entertainment. So, with the digi-novel there are a couple of things I wanted to accomplish: 1) to be able to read a book cover-to-cover to maintain the traditional experience; 2) With every 25 pages that you read, you would have an option to log into a website, enter a code, and watch a piece of the motion picture footage to sort of bridge you from one chapter to another. There’s about 20 of those in book one; and 3) When it was over with, you’d be able to join the Level26.com social community to have direct access to Anthony Zuiker and have extra content in blogs, profile pages and etc. for levels of engagement.

Your first digi-novel in this trilogy was Dark Origins. How well did that do and what did you learn from the experience?
We made some mistakes for Book One because it was so new, we were trailblazing. We had a very masculine graphic novel cover, which didn’t help things. We had the first bridge more like a snuff film, which is much too dark and had a lot of sexual deviance in the book, which was not really up the alley of my CSI audience. And we began to sit back and go, “Let’s try to right these wrongs because we really want to figure out what the rhythm is for the digi-novel experience.” We also made it inept for the iTouch and iPhone, and I feel like when you have to put down a book you’re reading to log in, enter a code and watch the bridge, that’s somewhat of a clumsy experience. I didn’t want to take the book out of the reader’s hands.

So, how is this new eBook a different experience than the first?
With Dark Prophecy, we decided to make some major changes to try to figure out the rhythm of the digi-novel that I created in that it has a much more commercial cover, [and] the merit of it is much more protagonist-based — it’s really the coming out party for my hero, Steve Dark, who is a special part of the CSI group, which deals with the world’s worst crimes. We shot a one-hour motion picture that can be watched and enjoyed separately from the book so they didn’t fight each other in the narrative. And we’re able to have CSI, for the TV show, extract a villain from Book One and put that villain in the television episode and have the storyline continue in Dark Prophecy which drops the same day. So, it’s like the ultimate cross platform of the television/publishing experience.

How did you crack Hollywood’s notoriously closed doors without any family or personal connections?
Well, this is true. I’m an only child, so I have no known ties with Hollywood. They say all great things happen by accident. I was writing monologues for a friend in college for forensic speech. He in turn took those and auditioned in Hollywood trying to be an actor. And when Jenny Delaney, who was a literary agent at William Morris, happened to ask, “Who wrote those monologues?” he said, “a friend of mine, Anthony.” She called me up and said, “If you can write me a screenplay, I’ll represent you,” which in my naive opinion meant that if I wrote something she could sell it. I wrote a movie called The Runner, which she ultimately did not represent but it did circle around town. It caught the eyes of my manager, Margaret Riley, and I signed with CAA based on one script. There is no one way into the business. There are tons of spotters out here who are looking for fresh material, fresh faces.

What was your career path like from screenwriter to creator of your own series?
Well, my manager had the smarts to convince me to take lesser money on a smaller project because she said if I did a horror sequel, I’d end up being out of the business in three years. You can’t really expect to spread your wings as a literary giant if you’re doing cheesy horror films. Fast forward to 18 months later and [the smaller project] never got made, but it did end up on the desk of Jerry Bruckheimer. As timing would have it, he was trying to start his television company. He liked the writing. He liked the voice. He called me in. I pitched him CSI, and we’ve turned out as the biggest franchise in TV history.

You have expanded CSI to include Miami and New York. What other spinoffs can we expect?
There’s no spinoff plan right now. You know, there was a rumor about the movie but again, it’s very complicated. However, my company sold a bodyguard show about Kimberly Penn, the famous female bodyguard for Shaquille O’Neal, Bill Gates, and Mick Jagger. Then, we’re working with CBS on four or five more great shows. So, I’m sort of doing double-duty as a developer of our company on top of the fact that I’m on CSI full-time, while launching a book, a father of three and a husband and talking with you. It’s kind of my complicated lifestyle.

You famously worked a day job as a tram operator in a Las Vegas casino before creating CSI. What advice do you have for aspiring writers who are juggling a day job while pursuing their dreams?
You have to find a way into the castle. You know, I think that when I drove a tram back and forth, there was a part of me that was angry, part of me that was frustrated, part of me that was thinking, “What did I do in my life to deserve all this?” There I was working for $8 an hour and I had two college degrees and worked in a tram. There’s so many talented people out there that can do what I have done on CSI, if given the opportunity. There are spotters in this town that are looking for fresh faces, the fresh producer, you know, the unique story teller. So, pursue the dream and stay the course, ’cause once you give up, it’s over.

What is your writing process like?
It’s a lonely process. In terms of me writing a pilot, it’s me sometimes sitting in a deli pathetically from 9 to 4 ordering a ton of coffee so they don’t kick me out of there, and you know, taking 10-minute breaks every four hours. You know, I laugh ’cause I see myself and my sweats with cold coffee and ice cold eggs at the Broadway Deli in Santa Monica, trying to figure out what the next scene is going to be. It’s really a non-glamorous lonely Hollywood scenario, but that’s just how it is.

What do you think about the claim that shows like CSI negatively affect the real life police process?
Have we done things in the show before that let out the police secrets? Yeah, sure. But for the most part the show becomes bigger than us, and I can’t even tell you the ratio of people that have gone on to graduate with PhD’s and graduate study degrees in criminal justice and criminal science. I have been asked about what the perfect crime is and I have a couple of ideas but they’re not really sound because it’s just really and virtually impossible to get away with anything.

Anthony Zuiker’s Tips for Aspiring TV Writers

1. Have some level of talent.

2. Be able to sell your vision verbally through pitching before you get to the written word.

3. Know how to execute your ideas.

4. Go to New York and Los Angeles to get in front of the decision makers. You have to then try to convince them that your piece of material can be profitable and is worth fighting for.

5. Do your research. There’s plenty of story points that bailed me out because of research. I’m not that creative to make things up, so thorough research and creative leads are pretty much the bread and butter of how I have survived in the business, besides having a unique voice.

NEXT >> Making an eBook: Getting Started

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Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady (Grand Central) and a GalleyCat contributor.

AOL has some lofty goals for its expansion into content creation, including becoming the number one employer of journalists. A large part of this plan involves the growth of Patch, its network of community-focused sites. By year’s end, the company expects Patch to have spawned into 500 towns across the nation.

But with this quick growth has come criticism as local bloggers question the site’s editorial oversight, while some Patch editors have complained about long hours. Then, throw in a couple plagiarism complaints for fun and dumping on the set of community sites has almost become in vogue. That hasn’t forced Patch editor-in-chief Brian Farnham to pull off the breaks, and, in fact, he seems to take the small setbacks in stride. After all, he’s just dealing with issues established media companies handle everyday. At least, that’s how he likes to look at it.

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Name: Brian Farnham
Position: Editor-in-chief of Patch
Resume: Started out as a fact-checker and writer for New York. A year later, joined Sidewalk.com, Microsoft’s online city guide, to write movie and tech reviews and to edit the book review section. Freelanced for New York publications and wrote a book about iWon.com, a site that received $100 million in funding from CBS. Moved back to print in 2000 as associate editor for Details; promoted to deputy editor four years later. Named editor-in-chief of Time Out New York in 2006 and editor-in-chief of Patch in 2008.
Birthdate: Sept. 14, 1971
Hometown: New York, NY
Education: AB, Bowdoin College; MFA, Columbia University
Marital status: Married
First section of the Sunday Times: “I read it online or iPhone, so no section per se; [I] usually start with Frank Rich.”
Favorite TV show: Modern Family
Guilty pleasure: Apocalyptic sci-fi novels
Last book read: The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
Twitter handle: @brifar

What’s it like managing such a large network?
It’s a combination of awesome and intimidating. The growth that we’re experiencing right now is phenomenal. We’re hiring about 30 people a week to hit our goal of 500 plus markets by the end of the year. And, obviously, most of those are journalists — the editors that we are hiring to run these sites. So, given the recent events in the industry and all the news and reality of the economic downturns, but also newspaper woes and people losing their jobs or taking buyouts, it’s obviously incredibly gratifying to be able to be apart of something that’s growing that industry. So it has kind of been a thrilling ride so far.

How much interaction do you have with the community editors Patch currently has?
Well, in the early days I had a lot, right. We had a handful of sites, and it was pretty much me and a couple other people managing them, so I was very hands-on, and loved that. And then as we grew, I became less and less hands-on, but that was always the plan. The way we are structured is we hire regional editors who oversee 12 local editors, which is what we call them. So we have a local editor, [and] then there’s a regional editor managing 12 of those bundled together. And then just under me, we have four editorial directors who oversee large swaths of the country. So everything kind of rolls up to them, and then to me. I have contact with them through a variety of calls and meetings that we do.

“All of our content is produced locally, right, so it’s in no way a farm. It’s really a network of independent media outlets.”

Do you welcome the title “content farm?”
No, I don’t think it applies to us at all. Content farm generally applies to the sites that, well, the mainly the ones that have big networks of disaggregated freelancers who sort of opted in to be tapped when things are needed. We’re not that at all. All of our content is produced locally, right, so it’s in no way a farm. It’s really a network of independent media outlets is the best way to think about it.

Patch has come under fire for its lack of editorial oversight for unseasoned journalists. What’s your response to those cries?
Yeah, you know I think that is kind of an unfortunate stereotype really of our people. We have now, a couple hundred editors. The average experience for the editors is nine years of journalism experience. So it’s not as if everyone is right out of school. I think those things have been overstated a bit. Yes, there have been this and that incident, but not as many as I think some of the echoing in the blogosphere makes it seem like. Every newspaper or media company that deals with journalism and human beings deals with mistakes at some point. The real thing is how quickly you respond to those and correct them and how transparent you are about them. So that’s what we are really concentrating on.

Are the stories fact-checked before they run, or do the writers work on an honor system?
They are fact-checked by the reporter or editor. So any freelancer who writes for us, the editor is editing that copy. That’s not going live without someone seeing it. And when the editor writes something, usually the regional editor is looking at it beforehand again, but not always. But the editors all know to fact-check their own work.

How does Patch get implanted in a new community?
The most important I’d say, just because it’s sort of the first and most powerful, is whenever we launch a site, we send a team in — a three-person team of freelancers, and the local editor is actually a part of that. What they’re doing is building up our directory. We go around to every organization, every business, every park and government agency and we hand-collect that data. We put it into structured fields. We take numerous photographs. And then we build up that database and it becomes a really rich yellow pages for us.

“The local editors are all basically chief marketing officers of their sites. They are the ones figuring out how to promote it day-to-day.”

But then after the launch… We just do a lot of grassroots outreach of the editor constantly. The local editors are all basically chief marketing officers of their sites. They are the ones figuring out how to promote it day-to-day. So we help them with the overall strategy, but they are really the ones out there pounding the pavement, handing out flyers, and just meeting everyone they can.

How do you manage your relationships with the local blogosphere, especially since you and the other top editors are spread so thin?
We tell everyone that the local editors are masters of their domain. So that includes the content and the markets themselves and the people in that ecosystem, whether they be bloggers or the weekly newspaper, radio station or whatever. That means that we want them to sit down with the bloggers and share content and figure out ways to work together. We look at it as we are coming into a new market, and we are not going to assume we know more than [the local people] do or that we are bigger or better experts for that community than they are. We have an open linking policy if we didn’t get something we want to point our users to it, and hopefully other sites want to do the same.

In light of the plagiarism accusations, what guidelines or rules has Patch put in place to avoid them?
We put a number of rules in place before. We definitely had a zero tolerance policy for plagiarism. Everyone knows what not to do. I think, the incident you are referring to, one was actually a freelancer; it wasn’t a full-time editor. And you know, the other was an unfortunate mistake. It was really kind of, I’ll say understandable just because of the way sometimes [things] happen online where you will have a photo that in this particular instance was actually a public domain photo. It was a police mug shot, and you know it was definitely the wrong thing to do to take it. It shouldn’t have happened, but you know, I think there is a lot of gray area online, I’m not saying that this is an excuse, it’s something you have to navigate. But these things, every media company in the world, again, deals with these mistakes, and it’s something you see from time to time. And the best you can do is use them as lessons, and remind people what the standards are, and move on.

Patch has received a lot of heat from the blogosphere regarding the pay and hours of community editors. But why would a journalist want to work at Patch, and what’s there to like about the gig?
I think there’s a lot to like. I don’t want to speak for all the editors, but having talked to a number of them, I know that one thing I hear is first it’s ownership. It is really a chance to sort of run your own ship. And a lot love that. And the other thing is the flexible schedule. We try to structure the jobs so that people can find the time they need to take off whenever they need it, and we certainly put a lot of things in place to help people, whether it’s a freelance budget so they can pay people to help them… You are getting a site, and it’s your job to fill it. And we are not telling people what they should write about. In fact, we always say, ‘You are the local expert, you tell us.’ And I think the majority of our editors really get that. They really love the autonomy that they are given. They’re also marketing, and they’re also learning to sort of run this small business to some degree. So there’s many aspects of it that they can sink their teeth into. I think it makes it, obviously, fast moving, but it’s also really interesting.

Besides being local, what is Patch’s editorial niche?
Our philosophy is that we are not a news site. We are really a community site that’s got news and information and that the entire purpose is to digitize small communities and to give them experience online that people in bigger cities kind of take for granted. I figure niche, if anything, is really creating a complete hopefully comprehensive experience of the community online in a way that that community would recognize and doesn’t feel like it’s being served from somewhere else.

NEXT >> Relocating For Your Career

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Ryan Derousseau is a freelance writer in New York City, You can find him on Twitter at @ryanderous.

When Janet Evanovich left her publisher of 15 years in July, word in the book biz was that she inked a new deal with Random House‘s Ballantine Bantam Dell for a cool $50 million. Although the author denies the reports about her huge payday, the truth is, her success as a novelist is already solidified: 45 books, millions of fans, and a Katherine Heigl movie based on her title One for the Money in the works. The New York Times also recently reported that Evanovich made $16 million in 2009 alone.

But Evanovich isn’t in it for the money or the fame. The now bestselling author once languished in obscurity as a struggling romance writer for a decade, because, she says, she was unwilling to place business and financial needs over her craft. “I had the attitude that you create art for yourself and if someone else sees something in that, that’s fabulous,” she said. “But after 10 years, it wasn’t getting me anywhere and it probably wasn’t who I was. At some point you realize you could be the most fabulous writer in the world, but if no one is reading it, it isn’t any fun.”

With her latest release Wicked Appetite now in stores, Evanovich discusses with
mediabistro.com the challenges of being a woman in the business, her new co-author program and why she feels the media ‘lies’ about her.

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Name: Janet Evanovich
Position: Author
Resume: Began her career writing romance novels under a pseudonym after failing to sell her first three novels. Gained international fame writing the Stephanie Plum mystery series, with 16 landing on The New York Times bestsellers list. Sold the movie rights to the first title in the series for $1 million.
Birthday: April 22, 1943
Hometown: South River, NJ
Education: BA from Douglass College
Marital status: Married
First section of the Sunday Times: Doesn’t read The New York Times
Favorite TV show: Bobby Flay’s Throwdown
Guilty pleasure: Mac ‘n’ cheese
Last book read: A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O’Reilly
Twitter handle: Doesn’t use Twitter

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With the eBook revolution threatening to overtake print books permanently, what are your thoughts about how this could affect your revenue?
Yeah, I love eBooks. I think they’re great, and I’m not sure how they are going to affect my revenue. I’m not sure anybody knows. I think we’re going to have to wait and see how it shakes out. What I know is that they are not going to go away. The kids have come up being so comfortable on the screen, and now even all ages are buying into the Kindle and iPad. eBooks are here to stay. I think that anything that expands the market, anything that encourages people to read, anything that enhances the reading experience, makes it easier, makes it cheaper, makes it more interesting — fabulous, I just love it. I think we haven’t even seen the beginning of eBooks. All kinds of great things are going to come out of it.

“I go to NASCAR races, and I hang out with my crazy relatives, and I prowl South Beach. I think that stuff kind of gets moving around in your head and helps to give you new ideas.”

Today’s authors stand to make dramatically more income by self-publishing and publishing directly on formats such as Amazon’s Kindle. Have you given any thought to doing the same for your future titles?
Actually, I have given it some thought, and then I’ve said, “What? Are you nuts?” It’s not that simple. I think that there are a lot of people out there self-publishing and who have the ability to get their work out now because of the Internet, but it has lots of limitations: distribution, publicity, marketing. There are just many, many components that for me, at least at my level, just don’t work for me. I am actually really happy to have help from a publisher. It’s enough to keep my ass in the chair and keep writing without taking on that also. And I mean, I have my whole family working for me and they’re all doing their own jobs, and I can’t imagine one more job added to the list.

You’ve written somewhere close to 45 books, some under a pseudonym. How do you keep your writing fresh?
I think that you have to continue to live and get new experiences that relate to the people you are writing about. I spend a lot of time in bars and shopping centers, and I go to NASCAR races, and I hang out with my crazy relatives, and I prowl South Beach. I think that stuff kind of gets moving around in your head and helps to give you new ideas. I have a family, we are very close, we are like a little herd. We all live together within three minutes of each other, and when I am running out of ideas, somebody always has one.

You recently switched publishing houses from St. Martin’s to Random House. What were your former publishers not providing that you felt your new publisher will be able to?
Well, I don’t know. We are going to wait and see, aren’t we? I think that sometimes… just a change is refreshing. I loved St. Martin’s; I could not say anything bad about St. Martin’s. My editor, my publicist, my publisher are all my best friends and when I go into New York, it’s girls’ night out. We just loved each other, and I still do. I think they did a fabulous job for me, but we had some differences about moving forward, about the projects that I felt very strongly about in the future, and that really was not so much a matter of money, it was a matter of a vision. I just had a slightly different vision than St. Martin’s. So, I just felt like maybe I needed a change, maybe I needed some new ideas. Sometimes you are the new girl on the block, and there is just a lot of enthusiasm and there’s a lot of energy. You all of a sudden have this rush to do something fabulous.

“If you are a guy and you make a lot of money, you are a success. If you are a woman and you make a lot of money, you are a bitch.”

Reports in media had you asking for more than $50 million for your next deal. For the record, is that what your new publishers gave you and how were you able to justify such a high asking price?
Yeah, I think the word was “demanding”, and it was not true, I don’t know where that figure came from. I have no clue, but that was not accurate. Now, having said that, I do make a decent amount of money, but not only was that not where the negotiations were stalling but the figure was wrong. Possibly at some point that was said in jest and floated out there. But no, it was not a serious accurate figure. Everybody lies about that. You can’t put too much stock in any of those numbers that come out of that. Either they are inflated or they are lessened, because you know if you are a guy and you make a lot of money, you are a success. If you are a woman and you make a lot of money, you are a bitch.

You’ve made the ‘Janet Evanovich’ brand very much a family affair, with key members of your family, such as your son, acting on your behalf. How do you feel your family has better served you over those who are not blood-related?
First of all they are very, very talented. They are very bright and we’re all very different. My son is brilliant, he is our finance officer. He also is my agent now. He is an amazing negotiator, he’s just the nicest guy but very, very smart and Peter just gets along with everybody. He can ease you into a contract and everybody’s happy with it. He also helps edit the books for me, and then my daughter is a little bit more on the other half of the brain. She graduated as a film and photography major and then came on board and created our website. Alex does all of that for me. She sits on top of the co-author program. She has an editor working under her, but she’s the bottom line person for that.

Tell us more about this co-author program.
Several years ago I did some co-authored books with Charlotte Hughes; then Charlotte decided that she wanted to go off on her own and the program kind of died out. Then, last year we realized that we were missing the co-author program. We would like to have, maybe three or four co-authors that we’re working with and bringing them out in hard cover. It’s one of those situations that if you find the right person, everybody wins. There are tons of really good writers out there, but for one reason or another, they just have not had the support that allowed them to build audiences. So, for these writers out there, it gives them an opportunity to get a much larger market. If somebody’s interested in being part of our co-author program, they should contact my son, Peter Evanovich or they can send me a letter. My post office box is on all my book covers.

Some have complained that the Stephanie Plum series just rehashes the same plots over and over. What do you say to those naysayers?
I ignore them. I think, first of all, you never go on Amazon and read the reviews because they’re demoralizing, and I try to do the best that I can everyday. And sometimes I feel like I write better books than other times; that’s just the way it goes, and sometimes it is true that the books are similar. Some people like it because it meets their expectations, some people get tired of them. If you’re one of those people who are tired of them, you should stop reading them, move on. I am serious, move on to someone else. Maybe after a year or two you might want to come back, because it will be fresh.

It isn’t that I don’t listen to what critics say, it’s just that you have to make up your own mind at that point if it’s valid. Sometimes it is and you try to correct things, and sometimes you decide that it isn’t. When I get up in the morning, I don’t just sit down and say, “You know, they are paying me a lot of money. What the heck! I’m just going to knock out a hundred pages.” I don’t know of anybody writing a book, painting a picture, creating music who does that. We are all dying to do the very best that we can everyday.

NEXT >> Making an eBook: Getting Started

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Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady (Grand Central) and the founder of GumboWriters.com.