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Ellen Fishbein ~ ALTAMIRA.STUDIO

Updates on the future of writing & publishing

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The New Book Deal

It's happening. Altamira Studio is changing the publishing industry with a new deal in 2024. Why? Because standard publishing deals are all deals with the devil. Until now, authors have had 3 options for publishing a book: • the Legacy deal 😈 • the Vanity deal 👹 • the DIY deal 😡 This page explains why these are deals with the devil, and introduces The New Book Deal. If the right people accept this new deal, it could change the world. ⬆️ Image via The New Book Deal If you like what you see,...

3 months ago • 1 min read

It has come to my attention that some people view my business, Altamira Studio, as a competitor to theirs. I never really thought this day would come. I’m glad it has. Because my team and I are going to benefit from it. My team is in a league of its own. We’re playing a different game—a new & better game that hasn’t even occurred to other media companies. This will become increasingly clear to our non-competing 'competitors' in the coming weeks & months. My sentiment toward anyone who sees...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

I keep meeting lifelong readers who can’t find anything they want to read. They walk eagerly into bookstores, only to walk out empty-handed in disappointment, having filtered out everything on the shelves. Maybe they see a compelling title, so they pick up a book. But when they flip it open, they’re quickly disappointed: they see obvious fluff, dumbed-down writing, shoddy research, bad typesetting, and often cheap binding. If you’re a reader and this rings a bell, I’m here to tell you: you’re...

about 1 month ago • 1 min read

If you’re like me, you don’t own a printer. But you sometimes wish you could print out some of the best online writing and read it peacefully …offline. 🛋️📖 That’s the idea behind Printernet. It’s a one-of-a-kind passion project by Jake Weber, a fintech engineer and fellow Austinite. I ordered my first Printernet edition in September. Since then, I think I’ve begun to get a sense for how to curate for this unique format. I’m ordering another one now. If you’d like your own copy of this...

3 months ago • 1 min read

When people mention their impostor syndrome, I sometimes think, “I can’t offer advice, because if I were you, I’d feel like an impostor too.” And yeah, I sometimes feel like an impostor, even though some great people insist I’m the real thing. I started to wonder: Who isn’t an impostor? Merit is everywhere, but so is luck. Almost no successful person can honestly say they inherited nothing that worked in their favor. Who is definitely not a phony? That’s the question I set out to answer by...

4 months ago • 1 min read

I’m honored to announce that Altamira Studio will be publishing The Portal by Rob Hardy. The Portal will be part memoir, part manifesto—a memoir-festo—that invites us to examine our relationship with the Internet, both as individuals and as a species. A year ago, thanks to the Internet, Rob and I became friends. We bonded over our shared belief that the Internet is still in its infancy—that everyone’s only just starting to learn how to be online in a way that promotes human flourishing. One...

5 months ago • 1 min read

A nonfiction junkie is someone who’s read a disproportionate amount of nonfiction versus fiction. Usually, it’s not that they don’t enjoy fiction, but it doesn’t feel useful or productive for them to read it. They suffer the consequences when they try to become excellent at writing. Past a point, it’s hard for nonfiction junkies to improve as writers. They’re working with an unbalanced stash of resources from which to draw inspiration and solutions during the writing process—and some of the...

6 months ago • 3 min read

Anyone can print a book using Amazon’s self-publishing service. Well, almost anyone. A few months ago, I met one of the only people who’s been barred from publishing a book on Amazon: Jason Levin. Not only did Amazon stop Jason from publishing a book on their platform; they stopped him from even collecting pre-orders. Why? Because of the title: Memes Make Millions. Amazon figured if a book had “Memes” in the title, there might be memes inside. Oh, no! 😱 Based purely on the title, Amazon...

6 months ago • 1 min read

Does this book cover remind you of anything? It’s meant to resemble a pioneering device called the Rocket eBook—one of the first e-readers. Here’s what it looked like: The Rocket eBook was built in 1997. The company got pretty big, and the founders sold it for $187,000,000 after just 3 years. Later on, members of the Rocket team helped build the Kindle and Nook. If you’re like me, you find this interesting. But it gets better. The two co-founders of this e-reader company—Martin Eberhard and...

7 months ago • 1 min read

In one of my writing workshops, a couple people got salty when I said: "You need a better reason to publish than 'It's Tuesday.'" It struck a nerve because the dogma of SHIP SHIP SHIP runs deep in the online writing world. But I don't buy the dogma. My rule is: "Write every day; publish when you have something to say." That said—starting today, I’m going to start publishing weekly. I don't know if it will be the same day each week. But I do know that I have something to say. I have something...

7 months ago • 1 min read
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