Envision, you are in the middle of reading your favorite book. You flip the page, and there is a quick response code (QR code) crisp and simplistic, prompting you to “scan me” with your smartphone. You scan the image. The code promptly takes you to an interactive map based on the story that also features extensive character bios, activities specific to what is currently happening in the book, and bonus content. Making the story, you were reading come alive.

Writers can employ QR code technology in beneficial ways to draw a larger audience, interest and engage readers, and entice book lovers to participate long after they have closed the book. QR codes are customizable to the author’s desire. When placed strategically, writers can have readers connect with their writing on deeper levels than ever before imagined.

What are QR codes?

If you are new to QR code technology, it was first invented in Japan in 1994. Denso Wave tasked a team led by Masahiro Hara to find a way to track automobiles and their parts during manufacturing quickly. Hara increased data storage and kept up with product versatility by compacting a one-dimensional (1D) barcode and making it two-dimensional (2D).

QR codes are a square, flat, scannable black and white image made up of one of four modes – numeric, alphanumeric, binary, and Kanji. QR codes have a “quiet zone” of white space bordering around the image to help cameras focus, so information is delivered rapidly and without failure.

QR codes have since expanded into other areas of business like writing. Before QR codes, books only had barcodes that delivered a tiny bit of information, such as the book’s price and nothing else. With the use of a QR code, an encoded image can be printed on or inside of a book and instantly read by your smartphone’s camera or with a QR code reader application installed on other devices. Attached information such as images, audio files, videos, and web addresses redirect your phone in a matter of seconds to give users a more meaningful experience than just the written word.

How are dynamic QR codes modernizing today’s authors?

Whether you are breaking into the writing field or an established writer, dynamic QR codes are inexpensive and functional for today’s writing business. Dynamic QR codes can edit, update, give current analytics and scan statistics to see where authors are drawing the most traffic. Dynamic QR codes even allow authors to establish their brand by generating codes with customizable frames, colors, shapes, images, and logos.

Authors with dynamic QR codes can update information with current social media platforms, promotional contests, recently published books, promo a book, link readers to online storefronts to purchase books, and add transparency to their books with customer reviews. The author will not have to worry about dynamic codes being obsolete in books years from now if they maintain the links attached to the encoded image.  

How can authors incorporate QR codes into their writing to maximize their written content?

Statistics of 2020 proved two things: QR codes are frequently scanned, and book lovers still prefer their printed books. Authors have an interesting opportunity to unite print and eBook readers to maximize their following. Regardless of if a book is print, an eBook, or is later a printed eBook, readers of different platforms can cohesively experience a novel’s interactive QR codes produced within the story or on the jacket of a book. No reader will feel left out of the experience because smartphones are in the hands of almost everyone worldwide.

Every author’s goal is to draw in a larger audience that appreciates their work and gains followers. To gain new readers, Yashika Tangri suggests placing a video QR code on the book’s jacket that opens into a book trailer, like a movie trailer. Tangri writes, “The book trailer of ‘As Dead As It Gets’ by Katie Alender has over five million views on YouTube.” Book trailers can be influential, gain audiences, and drive sales.

Authors may have longer books that can struggle to keep a reader’s interest or have complicated subject matter. To break up the monotony of words, liven up photographs, or explain complex concepts, QR codes of videos would work best to reengage the reader and help them better understand what written words or a still photo cannot through a video.

If you are a tech-savvy author, link a QR code to your website to get readers excited about interactive maps from the story, character bios, fictional weapon schematics, and knowledge tests. The sky is truly the limit when bringing fictional stories to life with multi-media.

A professional and minimalistic way to convey a lot of information is with a QR code. QR codes can tidy up the book and still convey a synopsis of a future book, a list of other written books by the author, an author’s social profile, or boast current promotions. By not having a scannable QR code at the end of the story, authors run the risk of outdated information and readers not wanting to dig further to find your information since it is not readily available to them. Having a scannable QR code at the end of a story can keep even older novels relevant to what the author is currently working on.

To further keep readers engaged once they have closed the book, authors might also consider placing a QR code at the end of the story that links to a fandom discussion board website. Readers will keep engaged with the author’s work and see what other fellow fans’ thoughts are while also sharing their own.

Conclusion

QR codes since their birth have only expanded in resourcefulness and popularity around the world. With dynamic QR codes, authors can update and edit information without having to reprint or relaunch books. Besides being of value to the writer, QR codes can bridge print and eBook lovers together under the same QR codes, so each is experiencing the story in uniform ways while reading in their preferred ways. No reader will feel left out from experiencing books in superior technological ways.

With technology advancing at the speed of light, your website must be up to date now more than ever. Digital publishers must keep pace, and this means keep looking at the big picture, but view it on a smaller screen. If your website has decreased in activity lately, it may be that it doesn’t meet the needs of your mobile phone user audience. Here are a few ideas on how to make your website more (mobile) user friendly: 

Test for Mobile-friendliness 

According to Kristen Hicks on HostGator.com, “Having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional. If your mobile visitors don’t have a good experience on your site, you’ll drive away a huge portion of your traffic (and hurt your search engine rankings in the process).”  

Hicks suggests using this testing tool from Google to determine if your website is mobile-friendly.  It lets you know quickly, and even throws in a screenshot of what your site looks like on a mobile phone. 

Code it Right 

Tatiana Tsyulia, of link-assistant.com, advises publishers to code in HTML5.  She also recommends avoiding software not normally found on smartphones, like Flash. Doing this, says Tsyulia, will ensure your content is presented smoothly on more mobile devices.  

Make sure your page loads quickly.  Smartphone users don’t like to waste their time waiting for a page to open, and will likely search elsewhere. Google’s update Core Web Vitals can determine if your site is “healthy” by its core indicators, one of which is load speed.  Tsyulia says if your site doesn’t start loading within 2.5 seconds, it needs improvement. 

Keep it Short and Sweet 

Hannah Whitfield of websitebuilderexpert.com lists a few things to keep in mind when checking the mobile-friendliness of your website.  “Avoid large chunks of text.  The copy on your website should be short and sweet at the best of times (with the exception of blog posts, like this one!), but on mobile this becomes all the more important.”  

Whitfield also advises all forms to be shortened, because “Long forms will lose you readers faster than you can say ‘this is a required field.’” Ensure all forms only ask for the necessary information.  Her top tip? “Pesky autocorrect is a surefire way to turn form-filling into a major waste of time. Save your readers the stress by switching it off.”  

Access for All  

On her dreamhost.com blog , Megan Hendrickson stresses inclusivity: “Make sure your website is accessible to all readers – from adjusting the contrast so colorblind people can read content to making it possible for visually impaired people to understand through screen readers.  

According to Hendrickson, it’s a mobile-first world, and optimization can’t wait.  Since users rely more on mobile devices than their desktops, considering how your site works and looks on small screens is important. “Optimizing your site so that it performs well and is still easily usable on mobile devices is key, especially if you don’t want to get penalized by search engines.   

Governmental Role Model 

Tips on reader activity can be found in this very informative article on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services site. “The truth is, users don’t read Web pages; they scan them, looking for things they can read very quickly until they find a relevant piece of information. What does this mean? Write pages the way people use them. Make them scannable.” Here’s more good advice: 

• Organize Content in an Inverted Pyramid 

Organize your content as an inverted pyramid; put the most important information at the top and less important information at the bottom. 

• Add Headings 

Look for opportunities to divide your content into sections and give each section a descriptive heading. 

• Use Bulleted and Numbered Lists 

Use bulleted or numbered lists when appropriate. 

• Write Concisely 

Keep your paragraphs short—no more than 3-4 lines of text. Look for opportunities to cut words, sentences, and even entire paragraphs if they do not contribute necessary content 

• Link and Bold Important Pieces of Information 

Use hyperlinks and bolding to highlight important pieces of content, but be judicious—less is more. 

Watch Your Language! 

The University of Maryland website provides useful hints on your language use in this article on their website.  Make your choices the right ones with their advice: 

• Use Common Language 

For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) use the same words and phrases your readers do. When creating page titles, headers, list items, and links, choose keywords carefully and use them consistently. This practice reinforces keywords relevancy for search engines. 

• Tone 

Readers expect a personal, upbeat tone in web writing. They find bureaucratic writing offensive and out-of-place and ignore the message it’s trying to convey. 

To avoid bureaucratic language, turn the tone down a notch. Search out and destroy jargon. Use active voice. Always try to write in first or second person. 

• Use active voice instead of passive voice 

Yes: Tim taught the class. 

No: The class was taught by Tim. 

• Choose lists over long paragraphs Use lists to make your content easier to scan 

Remember… 

People are using their phones from everything from paying bills online to see who is stealing their Amazon packages while they are at work. Clear, quality, timely, mobile-friendly, fast and accessible information are what your mobile readers want.  Apply the KISS principle, don’t waste their time, and you can reach out and touch everyone.  

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” Anaїs Nin’s words convey the purpose of many writers, but that writing process is not always as easy as a passionate swipe of the keyboard. The work is tedious, tiresome, and often involves multiple rewrites to end up with something that is (hopefully) close to what was intended. To be a writer takes skill, perseverance, and analytical editing of one’s work, but this task is much more difficult without the support and wise advice of others who have walked the same road. While writing for public consumption can be accomplished entirely by individual efforts, it is a world of difference when quality help is enlisted.

Help is Found!

Online communities and workshops are available across the web and do more than provide digital socialization. With the help of platforms like Scribophile (affectionately nicknamed “Scrib“), seasoned authors and novel newbies can gain insight and critiques from other writers to help improve their talents and find valuable, professional information on sharpening their literary skillset. Founded in 2008, Scribophile is an all-inclusive community and multi-skill workshop where novelists, poets, essayists, and the like, can post thoughtful suggestions to others and have their work reviewed as well. The greatest perks of this specific network focus on the common good of the group and the active, individual support of fellow writers in their various projects.

Beta-readers are always at the ready to review writings in a safe and honest environment. For authors, beta-readers can help boost confidence tremendously by offering a disinterested party’s genuine feedback. One’s adoring mother might be able to provide help with a review, but it is much more beneficial to have someone in the general public give their 100% honest take on a piece. Critical feedback is crucial to understanding how the composition will come across to the masses, and quality insight can help convey public opinion better than a well-meaning friend or relative.

Touted as one of the “largest and most active writing groups online,” Scribophile gives a brief summary of their offerings:

• Post your writing to get detailed, insightful feedback from other writers on how to improve it
• Chat and discuss with other writers from around the world in our busy writing forums
• Network with like-minded writers in our special-purpose writing groups
• Enter free writing contests to win great prizes
• And educate yourself on the finer points of the craft of writing in our writing academy and writing blog

One of Scribophile’s most brilliant selling points is their currency. Karma Points are the bait and reward that entices readers and writers to give extensive feedback, engage with other writers, and simply be involved across the board. These free points are earned by posting critiques (the lengthier, the more points you can earn), others reacting positively to reviews left for them, sending virtual gifts, etc. Points are easy to acquire and easy to spend; it only requires five karma points to post new work for critique. A writer will also frequently stumble across other members who generously give points as gifts from their own excess, just to help a writer out.

The “Writing Academy” section of the site is where priceless information is stored. It is a “collection of free writing resources produced by members of the Scribophile community who are writing professionals.” Subjects vary across a broad spectrum of categories. These include articles on writing effective critiques, using different narrative perspectives, composing screenplays, publishing, copyright infringement, and more. Scrib provides a plethora of opportunities for writers to improve and hone their craft.  

Scribophile abounds in valuable resources and friendly interactions, all in the free version of the platform. With the premium upgrade, bonuses are added to the already vast array of benefits. Some of these benefits are:

• Account limits lifted
• Ways to get more and improved feedback
• Control over who sees your writing
• Publication Showcase

Discounts are also offered for Grammarly Premium and Bookbaby’s book editing service upon enrollment in Scribophile’s premium program.

As a poet, playwright, and novelist, Mark Guerin had a personal interest in the appeal of Scribophile and composed a review for Dead Darlings: Everything Novel. His conclusive opinion highlights the many positive features available for writers in the Scrib community. A favorite of Guerin is what Scribophile calls inline critiques, allowing the critic to “highlight text, suggest deletions and directly insert comments which highlight to green to differentiate them from the author’s text. The resulting screen is much easier to read than a commented Word doc with all its arrows and bubbles.”

The depth of analysis that critics can utilize when reviewing the work of others allows a more personalized and professional experience. Guerin completes his praise of the site by stating,

Scribophile offers me enough of the critical insights I need to spot and revise problems in my writing, and more importantly, to keep me motivated. Writers need readers and Scribophile provides them.

A key element in the website’s feedback system is what Alex Cabal, founder of Scribophile, likes to call the Spotlight. On Author Secret, Cabal explains that the Spotlight system is a way to guarantee timely feedback for writings that members post. A limited number of pieces are highlighted in this section for maximum karma earnings. He assures members that “your work is guaranteed to enter a spotlight for a minimum of critiques… Once your work reaches a certain number of critiques, it’s removed from the Spotlight to make room for another work.” This system, along with karma points, guarantee feedback for every single submission.

Scribophile is more than a friendly group of writers; it is a centralized storehouse of helpful information, contests, networking, and invaluable critiques to help with the daunting tasks of writing and editing. It is one thing to experience life initially through the creation of a literary work; it is quite another to re-live it through the chiseling away of what hinders the development of the masterpiece. Having other hands available to help with this sculpting process enables the creation to stand stronger and more beautiful than it would with only one set of tools. Countless writers are willing and able to take that journey alongside a comrade through community platforms and workshops like Scribophile. With a simple sign-in, all the help a writer could need is available for the taking.

College students have been using printed textbooks for years, but digital publishing students have purchased digital books or e-textbooks for their classes. There are some advantages and disadvantages for college students using e-textbooks. Textbooks for college students have been both necessary and expensive throughout their college careers. One book could cost over two hundred dollars even with the help of scholarships or financial aid. It also depends on if a student has more than three classes during a semester or term how many textbooks they have to carry with them to and from class. One course material could be cover in multiple books or maybe one book. Students could hold a decent weight of textbooks around campus daily for their classes. Going digitally for college would be easy for some students and publishing companies; there are some faults when using laptops or tablets for e-textbooks.

              Different companies are getting into digital textbooks. Pearson, Chegg, Cengage, and Amazon are four companies that students use to buy or rent their books. Because of the success of those four companies and most if not all students have eight a laptop or a tablet they use for their courses. Those companies have a reasonable price for e-textbooks for students to either rent or buy. While also affording any addition of the textbook as well. Students can rent a digital book for a semester from these companies through the companies’ app or the university during the first to second week semester or term. E-textbooks would have more manageable and quicker to correct any mistakes after publication. For students have an e-textbook would be an easy way with them at all times. They would find the chapter or session quicker by using the search feature. Some digital textbooks are much more affordable for students to purchase or rent. Students can have some or all of their classes’ books on one device for them to use.  

              The use of digital textbooks does have some drawbacks for both the students and the publishing companies. Some students may not have a laptop or tablet they can use for class, or they may not be as tech-savvy as other students.  If a student buys the e-textbook, the book can’t be resale or sent it back to the company at the end of the semester or term. The student will have textbooks in their digital library of the apps they used to purchase it. Even if they delete it from their library, it’s still there in cyberspace. There is also the harm of blue light from laptops’ and tablets’ screens for students’ eyes. Students are straining their eyes looking at these screens for an extended time when looking at any computer or tablet’s screen. These laptops and tablets need to be charged daily. Some students would instead use a printed text for their studies. At the same time, some of the apps need to have an internet connection to work correctly. If the app is not open within an internet connection once, some app features would be out of sync or have a glitch when open outside of wifi. Publishers might have found some glitches in the apps that are difficult to fix in time for the start of the semester or term. The digital textbook is not up to date, or they do not have all the different versions of the book. Professors would rather have their students use printed texts to save time for the class.   

              Digital textbooks do have advantages and disadvantages for both students and publishers. Publishers still sell the printed versions to universities to be acceptable from selling printed and digital texts. It would have to be the choice of the user and their preference whether a student wants to have all their textbooks on one device or wish to have physical text to have zero distance when studying. It’s entirely up to the students and their choice for their class. Which would you choose? Printed textbooks or e-textbooks to use for your classes.     

You have seven seconds to make a first impression and even less time on the web. Digitally published content is most potential clients’ first interaction with your business, and how they perceive your brand is going to affect whether they choose to spend money with you. Understanding which Voice and Tones are appropriate for your niche will go a long way in fostering trust and encouraging sales. Additionally, formalizing your brand’s voice and tone will give you the freedom to delegate content creation to a lower-level or offsite employee.

Matching Your Business Voice with Your Brand

Think of your brand’s digital content as communication with your consumer via a virtual human voice. CoSchedule notes that brand Voice is the combination of word choice, personality, and phrasing your brand uses to communicate with consumers; it is “consistent and unchanging.” It is crucial to create the impression that your business is participating in a dialogue with the consumer rather than merely talking at them. To figure out what your target customer wants to talk about, you will need to have studied your analytics and clarified your brand’s unique value in the market (AI can help you generate this statement if you get stuck!). Armed with this information, you can choose a Voice that is appropriate and engaging. Within that Voice, you can choose Tones that suit your brand’s personality and may address the full spectrum of business-related communication concerns.

Defining your Business Voice

Your brand can – and, often, should – choose a blended voice. Your brand’s “personality” should ideally be driven by data, but many marketing sites offer brand personality quizzes that can get you started with keywords. This unique blend of identifiers is what will help you stand out and maintain your position as a thought leader in your industry. Once you’ve narrowed this list down to a few adjectives, you can use the Content Marketing Institute’s Voice Chart to flesh out your brand’s voice:

Choosing Appropriate Tones

Tone is the inflection of your brand’s Voice in context. CoSchedule notes that tone “adjusts to what’s suitable for a particular piece or message.” Your subtext is going to communicate your brand’s identity whether your consumer is messaging with a customer service chatbot or reading an article from your company website, but exactly how it does so should differ. From vocabulary to phrasing to punctuation, there are no limits to the subtle nuances of your brand’s tone. So, how do you know how to adjust the tone of your voice for each message you need to craft? Like so many things, it comes down to knowing your audience.

Start with the basics: is it more in-line with your brand’s Voice to use formal or informal Tones when speaking to its audience? Is your brand approaching conversations with its consumers from a place of superiority or sameness? How does your brand address a concern without igniting further tensions? Even a quirky, casual brand will want to respond to allegations of racial insensitivity from a place of respect and seriousness, for example. AI content production company Acrolinx offers a definitive guide to the tonal choices your brand should navigate, including education level of your audience, intended emotional response, and immediate impact on the consumer.

How to Formalize Your Voice and Tone

Because Voice and Tone differ for every person, and sometimes for every kind of business, they should be established and formalized early in the development of your website and content strategy. By following the Voice and Tone establishment techniques in this article, you will eventually be able to compile a data-driven resource like Mailchimp’s Content Style Guide. Realistically, compiling a few writing samples covering various content concerns will be enough to get your brand’s content speaking from an impactful and unified perspective—even if you outsource the content creation itself.

Conclusion

Making sure your brand’s voice is consistent across all marketing channels is a crucial element in successful marketing. As an owner, you need to be the expert on the way your digitally published content is communicating with consumers. With a professional approach to content writing, you can harness the power of your brand and drive significant business growth.

Imagine reading your favorite authors in a television series mini-book on digital platforms you already own.

Already established Radish and developing Kindle Vella offer serialized fiction but are marketable in different ways.

Reader Features for Kindle Vella

Readers in a few months can access Kindle Vella content through the Kindle iOS app or Amazon.com. It is not known at this time if Amazon will decide to expand platforms to reach Android smartphone users. Readers of Kindle Vella will be able to read the first three episodes of any story for free to see if they are interested in the story line before purchasing sequential episodes.

Readers will then have to purchase “Tokens” through the app or website. Each episode cost is dependent on the number of words the writer writes in the episode. Derek Murphy breaks down the cost of Tokens in CreativINDIE, saying, “The pay scale is roughly one token for 100 words, or 50 Tokens for the max length of 5,000 words per episode.”

Kindle Vella offers a minimum purchase of 200 tokens for $1.99, equivalent to four or more episodes depending on the length of the author’s work. Kindle Vella says, “Token pricing may change before Kindle Vella stories are made available to readers.”

Fun interactive features on the Kindle Vella platform allow readers to click a “thumbs up” button to support the author by liking their episode and showing a positive review to other prospective readers. Readers can ‘crown’ one weekly “fave” episode they enjoyed. The episodes that are most “faved” will be featured in the Kindle Vella store. A feature like this allows readers to support their favorite author’s work. Readers can view Author Notes at the end of an episode to see what surprises may be in store for the next episode.

Reader Features for Radish

Radish readers can access episodes of their favorite written stories on an iPhone, iPad, or Android through the Radish app in Apple Store or Play Store. Radish also includes three free episodes for readers to browse. Readers then can buy locked episodes without waiting for them to be free for three “coins.”

The reader can purchase coins through the Radish app. A minimum purchase of six coins is $0.99, or equivalent to two episodes. Radish readers can earn coins by watching up to six video ads per day for six coins and perform ad offers tasks for various amounts of coin or invite their friends to subscribe to Radish for both members to earn 12 coins.

Readers can try their luck in the daily Lucky Draw that shuffles a deck of cards and allows app users to pick a card to see if they successfully won coins or coupons that day. Radish has story coupons that Radish gives as “gifts,” or from author giveaways, but unlike coins, story coupons sometimes are story specific.

Radish offers some cool features for their readers. Radish allows readers to heart an episode they love by clicking on the heart button at the bottom of an episode. Radish lets readers interact with the author by enabling readers to comment on episodes and allowing the author to host live chats with fans. Readers can interact with their favorite episode author through the Radish live chatrooms and comments to ask their burning questions, see what is in store for present and future stories, and possibly win story coupons from the author.

Author Features for Kindle Vella

Kindle Vella announced that current Kindle Digital Publishing (KDP) writers who reside in the United States can publish on Kindle Vella. There is no announcement as of yet about expanding into other KDP countries.

Future Kindle Vella authors can try their hand at serialized fiction by going to the Kindle Vella Library, uploading their story title, name or pen name, a brief description of the story for readers, an image for the story, up to two categories the story falls under, submitting up to seven story tags for the story, and the episode you wish to publish.

Kindle Vella authors earn 50% royalties “…of what readers spend on the Tokens that are used to unlock your story’s episodes.” Kindle Vella’s royalty formula per episode:

(Number of Tokens to unlock episode) x (Tokens bundle price / # Tokens in bundle – taxes and fees) x (50% rev share) = Earnings per episode

Kindle Vella has not released a range of the cost of taxes and fees per Token plan. Tokens will be available for purchase through the Kindle iOS app for a fee. Whichever Token plan purchased is what will be subtracted from the revenue in the royalty formula.

Author Features for Radish

Radish has prospective authors apply for a spot on their app by applying on the Radish Writer Application Form. This form asks potential authors to list their name, email, a short blurb about their writing career, an optional pen name, and to choose an unlimited number of categories they wish to submit stories. It is also crucial that writers send a pdf, doc, or docx of a least the first 30 pages of their story pitch. Radish also asks that you summarize the plot and link other writing platforms to view previous work samples.

Once accepted, Radish authors are encouraged to regularly submit a 1,000-to-2,000-word episode with a pricing model for the episode. Radish’s royalty plan is hard to find on their website and app. Radish gives an example of that, “We have writers making over $1,000 in monthly revenue – with some top writers earning nearly $40,000 a quarter.” There are speculative articles about what authors have earned through Radish, but no royalty formula or percentage is listed on Radish.

Each platform has its pros and cons, but Radish and Kindle have their own user preferences, brand loyalty, and economic value.

Author’s Note: At first glance, this subject may seem unrelated to Trojan Digital Review’s singular focus on digital publishing; however, many Americans (and their family members) living in Europe are US military members, international news journalists, or global company employees, and earn their living as writers.  Having Europe-wide, advanced technology which enables secure, reliable handling of their digital communications and publishing is vital.

On March 19, the European Union’s government ministers signed declarations to work together and share resources “to promote international connectivity, incentivize the rollout of clean digital technologies, and improve the regulatory environment for start-ups and scale-ups,” according to a  press release from the European Union.   

Twenty-seven members signed the declaration which will reinforce connectivity between Europe and partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as across Europe.  The focus will be on satellites, network links, and ground and undersea cables.  According to the release, “The EU already has strong data protection standards and high-quality internal connectivity.  By improving its global connectivity networks, it can become a global, secure, and agile data centre.”

Thierry Breton (France), Commissioner for Internal Market, said: “The Digital Day is an important avenue for Member States to come together, around key digital goals. The new commitments that Member States made today are also evidence of our determination in the EU to work together for greater digital leadership by 2030.” The Executive Vice-President for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, Margarethe Vestager (Denmark), stated, “The new commitments made today strengthen our joint ambitions for a human-centred approach to digitalisation.” These comments reflect the EU’s commitment of support not only on the corporate level, but also improve the day-to-day life of the citizens of the European community.  Greater connectivity will help corporations and small businesses, and start-ups equally. 

Their support for everyone across the board, both businesses and citizens alike, means better connectivity for writers. They can depend on faster connections for submitting their work, and have confidence their communication is secure.  For the journalists who need to call their home office, the commission is also working on recalculating the roaming charges on the telecommunication network.

Also of interest to news writers, the European News Media Forum was held simultaneously with the EU’s Digital Day 2021.  Some points were covered by both agencies, such as the safety and protection of international journalists. According to their press release, “The European Commission launched a dialogue on the protection of journalists in the EU with a wide range of stakeholders, including journalists and their associations, news media companies, representatives of media councils, European Parliament, Member States and regulatory authorities as well as international partners.”

This action is in response to the 2018 murders of investigative journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia,  Ján Kuciak, and Viktoria Marinova, all of whom were killed in EU states. This Europe-wide concern for violations of press and media freedom encompasses fact-finding, advocacy, monitoring, and awareness raising. It will bring violations to the forefront, and provide practical help to journalists under threat. Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová (Czech Republic), said, “The increasing threats and attacks against journalists are threats and attacks against democracy as a whole. For the first time, the Commission is working on an initiative dedicated to the safety of journalists, which should bring tangible improvements on the ground.”

Thierry Breton (France), Commissioner for Internal Market, added, “Media freedom cannot be taken for granted, we must actively defend it, particularly with the increased risk of online attacks in the digital age. We must ensure that journalists can play their crucial role in our democracies by guaranteeing that they work in complete safety. Today we are launching a dialogue on how to increase their protection, facilitate cooperation among them and help them acquire the digital skills needed.”

As this article from Matical states, “The Digital Europe programme is addressed to strengthening Europe’s position as a global digital reference, focused on people and their wellbeing.  According to the EC, the digital transition should work for all, putting people first and opening opportunities for business.  It will be based on three main complimentary pillars to ensure that Europe seizes the opportunity and gives its citizens, businesses, and governments control over digital transformation.” The first of these pillars, and the most relevant to this audience, is a technology that works for the people. As the world becomes more interconnected, the more it is at risk from malicious cyber activity.  The technology must be trustworthy and secure. The EU’s commitment to increase cybersecurity for all of Europe is important and necessary for all people in Europe.

The EU’s plan to “safeguard values and fundamental rights and security” while respecting social differences across the European Union is impressive.  This article from Concilium sums it up best:

“Digital technologies are changing not only the way people communicate, but more broadly how people live and work. With further impetus from the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU is working to accelerate the technological transition. Digital solutions help create jobs, advance education, boost competitiveness and innovation, and can improve the lives of citizens.”

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is priceless. Millions of individuals have created an online visual presence and reaped the benefits of doing so in their personal and professional lives. Although traditionally text-based, the writing community has discovered the rewards of having a unique presence online via video and has created communities to cement their places in cyberspace. Two such communities that have established solid international footholds are BookTube and AuthorTube. These YouTube groups focus on the reader and writers’ perspectives to unite and enhance the digital literary world.

Having launched around 2010, BookTube is essentially a virtual coffee shop where written-word lovers review and talk about all things related to reading. It is full of individuals who love a good book and use the platform to propagate “worthy” pieces for the masses. While no official rules exist about what can be discussed or posted, three of the most popular styles of BookTube videos uploaded are Reviews, Tags, and Book Hauls. South African BookTuber, Tshegofatso Motlhake posted a video in 2019 further describing the purpose of BookTube and these categories.

To summarize —

One significant benefit of joining a community of readers is that it allows mass promotion of material. If anything requires marketing, video shares are a highly effective way of advertising. A good reader makes a good writer, and many authors obtain beta-readers through connections made on BookTube and so expand their reader base to global proportions. Arthur Gutch, from the blog Opyrus, explains the leverage one can have by using vloggers to boost a writing career. He states, “Book vloggers need new material every week just like book bloggers do. They rely on authors who submit their work in exchange for an honest review of their work.” Using these vloggers to advertise is smart networking, and the BookTube writing community was formed bearing this potential in mind.

Soon after the establishment of BookTube, another literary group snuck onto the scene. Realizing that on the other side of readers are writers also needing a social community and professional outlet, vloggers started posting to a new forum — thus, AuthorTube was born. Writers, editors, and other literary professionals and wannabes started posting helpful information and insight regarding the writing and publishing world, including tips they have learned themselves.

Novelist Courtney Young (under the pen name Lyra Parish) has been one of the leading vloggers in the AuthorTube community for several years, with over 6.26K subscribers. Her channel, The Courtney Project, is a multi-faceted channel that showcases in-demand topical material. From writing tips and encouragement to burnout and marketing, she — as well as other successful vloggers — attempt to make the field a bit more straightforward than the chaos it can be when starting out.

Writers are not the only individuals posting on AuthorTube. Having an impressive variety of amateurs and professionals post their thoughts to the public serves to enlarge the cache of knowledge and experience available to the up-and-coming. The writer of Penchant states,

I’ve actually found it much more illuminating to watch videos from editors and agents than from aspiring authors. Writers like to talk about writing — often about their own processes. Editors and agents know what constitutes good writing and bad writing.

While some that post in these online communities are young adults aspiring to be famous YouTubers, just as many, if not more, have notable and reliable information to share.

The literary community reaps substantial benefits from networking and maintaining a consistent visual/video presence online through digital forums such as these. Engaging with other writers provides a considerable measure of accountability and encouragement to keep pressing through the writing process. Tricks of the trade can also be picked up from those who have been in the same position and have pushed past their shortcomings. Author Learning Center dives into several more advantages of plugging into these YouTube groups, including:  

• Access to the video-watching demographic
• Access to one of the largest search engines on the web
• High discoverability as an author
• Ability to form a substantial following and engage with like-minded people

According to Hootsuite, YouTube logs more than 2 billion monthly users — a staggering number of people to have open access to. YouTube boasts impressive localization in over 100 countries and can be accessed in over 80 different languages. Connecting with a group that extensive, to glean wisdom from and market towards, provides resources that can save a literary professional caught in a sink or swim situation. When the writing slump hits or when facing a unique publishing problem, the ability to access a storehouse of information in one location is invaluable. These are just a few of the rewards of establishing a literary presence in a video-based platform with global renown.

The digital community relies heavily on video presence, making information and marketing relatable and easily accessible by various devices. It may be challenging to read a 5-page article on a topic via smartphone, but watching a BookTube or AuthorTube channel on the same subject is as easy as tapping play. With informal access and virtual interaction with countless individuals, professionals become friends, and work becomes play. Communities thrive on personal interaction, and networking cannot be fully taken advantage of without consistent communication. Online communities provide that consistency and are reliable venues for readers, authors, editors, and lovers of all things “bookish” to come together and thrive in a welcoming and growing environment.

What is Wattpad? Wattpad is a digital-based entertainment company for storytelling for both fanfiction and original works of fiction. At the same time, Wattpad is both a website for people to publish their stories while also being a place where people can read novels. It’s also a place where people from around the world to share their creativity with readers. The website has original work and fanfiction. That ranges from horror to romance to fantasy to supernatural to anything from a person’s imagination. Wattpad is beneficial to both the reader and the authors by providing a safe place to upload stories and reading them.  Some writers can have their stories published by Wattpad or other publishing companies or self-publish their works through digital publication. Wattpad believes in protecting all users from plagiarism by coming up with a way to preserve all stories uploaded. Many people believe that Wattpad is only for fanfiction, stories written by fans of different books, tv shows, and movies; it’s much more than that. While in the effort of gaining their users’ trust and protecting them as best as legally possible.

Wattpad has made it easy for authors to protect their stories from plagiarism by taking copyright and DMCA very seriously. A person can not post a story they have copy onto the site, not without some consequences on their part from Wattpad’s legal team. If an author’s work is upload from another website to Wattpad without their consent, the author can report the uploader for copyright infringement. The author of the original work would have to fill out a form by pervading personal information. Wattpad has a link to the form need, or the author could go to the DMCA website to fill out a DMCA takedown form. The author can also ensure that their novel is protected by copyrighting the language in the advanced setting when they upload it. There have been some cases regarding fanfiction that have gotten some companies in legal trouble. However, Wattpad has been careful by having a fanfiction genre on the website and opinion for an author to use when they publish. Wattpad made it possible for their website users to be comfortable and protected as both readers and authors.

              Wattpad does have a way to protect authors on their website. One of those ways is by disabling the copy and paste function. The disabled copy feature stops other users from copying an author’s story on another account or website like Fanfiction.net, Archiveofown.org, or a third-party website. The disabled paste feature is to prevent users from pasting another author’s work to the Wattpad website. If the stories are of the fanfiction variety, the author can reserve some of the rights to the books, tv shows, or movies. The fanfiction part is in a different genre on Wattpad. There have been some cases of copyright on the fanfiction side of Wattpad with various fandoms. When a story is uploaded to Wattpad, there are three standard opinions a writer must check before the novel is published all right reserved, no rights reserved, and creative commons. All right reserved give the writers complete control of their story while other users can write reviews about the novel or recommend someone else to read. No right reserve allows other users to use the author’s story in any way the user wants. Most if not all writers would not use this function when they upload their stories to Wattpad. The last one creative common give the author some rights to their novel while giving the public some rights to the author’s novel. That right could be translated into another language or a movie with the author’s permission and helpful input. Wattpad has made its website safe with the different levels of protection for both itself and the authors. Because without the functions that it has now, Wattpad would have had as much legal trouble as Fanfiction.net.