Ridero takes four copies

Ridero has launched in Russia the system of the same name that allows the authors to independently create electronic and paper books and put them up for sale to bookstores, and publishers - to completely change the approach to the distribution of resources when creating and withdrawing a new book to the market. Linor Goralik takes an interview with the founder of Ridero, Alexander Kasyanenko, Kofounder Alexander Gavrilov and chairman of the board of directors of Dmitry Sumin, whether the author is good to deal with the publisher, which, in the conditions of a new censorship, will be a new samizdat and how much a publishing experiment for the production of a new bestseller.

- I would like to ask a question about what Ridero is and what it is needed for, from two positions: from the position of the author and from the position of the reader.

Alexander Gavrilov: Strictly speaking, Ridero is the liberation of the book as an information channel, a book as a way of saying. On the one hand, it is political pressure, from which, frankly, it has long been freed at the cost of significance in society. On the other hand, a commercial dictate, which in recent years has been noticeable. In order to make a book and break through to your reader, you must have either warehouses, printing cars, millions of people, or just a lot of money.

Alexander Kasyanenko: You say that there is nothing for the book, and when there was “ultra. Culture”, we were kept on interrogations for three hours a day.

Gavrilov: Yes, Sasha Kasyanenko participated with Ilya Kormiltsev in the work of the Ultra. Culture publishing house, which was closed approximately according to the scheme in which the rain was now typed. They just went shopping, fined them and arrested books until everyone refused these books to trade. And the publishers were carefully talked. As you can see, Mr. Kasyanenko did not teach anything and he goes there again. But on the other hand. They raped yesterday, raped today, let's go again tomorrow.

- Let's an example: here, say, the enemy wrote a book that denigrates the actions of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. That is, speaking the language of the previous, two -month prescription, era, the historian wrote a book on the history of the state. What next?

Kasyanenko: Then he uploads texts and pictures in Ridero . The system itself determines where the footnotes, where what, is-and the author receives a layout with which you can work differently: change the style, so that it becomes more beautiful, quickly assemble a cover from ready-made templates or load your own. In principle, in one and a half to two hours you can collect a book at the level at which it would collect the middle publishing house.

“Can we say then that Ridero is a robot publishing house?”

Kasyanenko: Yes, this is such an intellectual robot. Smart, good robot. Good robot Werther.

- In what format does the good robot Werther gives the book? Who and how can read it?

Kasyanenko: Ridero issues an e -book in all famous and popular formats. You can use any familiar reader. In the near future, the possibility of printed format will appear. This is the most important: the book turns out not just in a certain, but in all possible formats, from electronic to physical, and it is sold, for example, in the OZON store. Our task as a project is to demolish the barrier between a certain type of author and the reader. There are authors who write good books, but these books do not fall on wide sale. And we open the way to the reader a large number of “niche” authors whose books are very needed. Previously, the cost of such books was almost impossible. The authors will not have to go to the publisher - or, conversely, conclude agreements with Ozone or other merchants, delve into technical requirements and formats, pay money for the preparation of the book.

-That is, Ridero is a robot of the full cycle, he makes the book not only published, but also buy?

Gavrilov: Yes - and there is an important feature. Recently, everyone talks a lot about the e -book as the territory of freedom. But in the most advanced market in the world, American, the e -book occupied 20% of the market - and stopped. It is clear that, probably, this percentage will grow, but not at all the pace that before. 80% of the market is still occupied by paper. It is important for us that Ridero creates not only an electronic book, which you can download, or buy, or sell; Ridero also creates a paper book. From one copy, inexpensive - we have agreements with operational printing houses. You give a file with letters and get a book.

- Who controls the pricing - the author (this is also a pretty new move, usually a publisher)?

Kasyanenko: The author can at least distribute a book for free (we now have such a book). Ozone in this case adds 20 rubles to its costs. If the book is paid, then the author puts a vacation price, and Ozone subtracts a margin out of it - and we were able to agree that this margin will be quite small, as for books of a large publishing house.

- Where, besides Ozon, you can buy this book later?

Kasyanenko: In Amazon and many other stores. Negotiations have already been completed, technical approvals are underway.

- And if the author wants the book to be paper?

Kasyanenko: The same “ozone” will expose it in electronic and paper form. No need to redeem the circulation, you do not need to pay a lot of money at once: it is Print-on-Demand , there is an order-a copy is printed and sent.

- Does this change the situation not only of the author (and the reader), but also the market? Theoretically, such systems can change everything, but may turn out to be marginal stories for marginals.

Gavrilov: To answer, it seems to me, I need to retreat half a step and look at what is happening with the market now. And now in all markets - not only in Russian, but on all world - there is a frantic enlargement of publishing players. On the one hand, all major publishers are united (and we are talking not only about Russia, where Eksmo swallowed AST, completely illustrating the famous Cassilevian story about what would happen if the whale has rushed to the elephant. Cassil simply did not know that there was a merger, but thought that only the acquisitions. If the whale would take a wild amphibia that would devour all in the district). Some Penguin and Random House merge-and a huge piece of world publishing business begins to be controlled from one point. In the publishing market, the terrible dreams of Vladimir Yakunin come true. I feel so: now these people will remove the small office at the top of Empire State Building and will control the whole world from there.

At the same time, small and medium publishers are replaced from the market and destroyed - namely, they have always been the space of debuts, promising developments and bold experiments. The Russian market in this sense is located absolutely within the framework of a global trend. At the same time, there are entire countries in which their own serious publishing players (say, Slovenia) simply disappeared. This is one aspect of enlargement. And the other aspect is sales enlargement. When the Amazon enters the territory of a national state, the book trade of the national state collapses and falls by 40% a year, because all sales go through the Amazon. So two counterclaims are obtained: monstrous enlargement in the publishing sector and monstrous enlargement in distribution. Ridero is some alternative. We say: guys, and now everyone can become a publisher, even if you do not have an office in Empire State Building - and there is nothing but love for a book and talent in sales.

-Return to the direct connection “reader <-> text”, which was mentioned so much in connection with the advent of the Internet (I will return to this topic, if possible, will seriously return later)?

Kasyanenko: In the ideal world, thanks to Ridero , we could see several new authors - like Erica James with “50 shades of gray”. Well, like Erica James - but good.

Dmitry Sumin: I just have nothing against globalization and that the monsters become even large monsters: they should engage exclusively with the most successful authors and focus only on them. Let them be few. But the publishing world in many ways remains very small in this globalization, so everyone is covered with intermediaries in the most do not indulge. The author must first come to the local publishing house - the number one barrier, because no one believes in the author. They believed - litagents appear, because how will the author sell himself to another country without them? Barrier number two. In this country - their publishers, they must also agree. All this is absolutely superfluous, because the author’s goal is to come to the reader. And the purpose of the translator in another country is the same (and the translator himself is also, of course, the reader).

In the publishing market, the terrible dreams of Vladimir Yakunin come true. I feel so: now these people will remove the small office at the top of Empire State Building and will control the whole world from there.

Kasyanenko: The most interesting books were brought to the “Foreigner” by translators. The same thing happened with "ultra. Culture." Ilya Kormiltsev was a great reader. If he talked about the book read: “This is great” - we translated it. Accordingly, if the translator likes the book, why does he need litagents or someone else? He can agree with the author on how to share money - and the book may begin to spread around the world.

- Now many factors affecting how many people will read the book (among which, of course, the distribution factor was very significant), censorship is added in Russia.

Gavrilov: It seems to me that it would be wrong not to say about it, this is a serious story. The book in Russia is absolutely free from everything: from politics, from the economy-until it is trying to go into a wide space and talk about something serious there. In this sense, the author who wants to be sold through Ozone or Liters lives in a general situation for the whole of Russia. It was just: on the "bookmate" someone posted a very moderate Muslim book, which is nevertheless included in the list of extremist materials; Its distribution is prohibited. As a result, a number of providers simply turned off the “bookmate”: they blocked-and ku-ku. The whole "bookmate". Not only this book, but the whole service. It is clear, unfortunately, that Ridero can help make a book and put it up for sale, but Ridero cannot (and this is very bitter) return us to the situation of information freedoms of the late 90s. Ridero can prepare a book, but if this book is written by the new Solzhenitsyn, it will have to be defended.

-In other words, we must remember that Ridero is a robot publishing house in every sense. The publisher’s man could, say, try to fight for you. Ridero simply creates the text and allows you to place it.

Gavrilov: Yes. And until then, until the entire distribution of the Russian book takes place in the territory of the Russian Federation, it, unfortunately, fits into the public agenda as a whole.

- But you can pick up the file made in the Ridero and not put on any “ozone”, but hang on your facebook? Unlike (well, often, if there are no special agreements) the book published in the publishing house.

Sumin: Yes, we, of course, including about it. If the book cannot be put up to the store, you can still put it in the EPUB format anywhere.

Gavrilov: Moreover, you can print it in an operational printing house, do not sell it through any “ozone”, but just take her in the hand and go with her to her neighbor, as in the old days, so that he read it under the pillow at night.

Sumin: Here is the remark: the seal is also regulated. Another thing is that in print publications the main thing is not to be prohibited publication or child pornography. Otherwise, everything is possible. In stores, of course, it is more difficult, because they run into anything. In addition, when we are talking about a store in Russia, we have to moderate a tough in the current situation. And when we are talking about Google Books , iTunes and Amazon, which do not operate in Russia, everything is much easier, you can put electronic books in Russian and sell.

-Another direct connection “Text <-> reader”: we remember the rhetoric of the 91st-93rd about the fact that the Internet will soon remove intermediaries between the reader and the author. This turned out to be in many ways very true, the relationship “Text <-> reader” changed beyond recognition. Now we are discussing the second round of this process: if you are an author who does not expect to be urgent thanks to your texts (and there are a lot of such authors) - why not put your text simply in HTML , as everyone does? Why make a “book” from it in the understanding of Ridero ? I deliberately ask a somewhat naive question to open the way to talk about reading patterns and why the “book” is not equal to the “text”. Can?

Kasyanenko: We recently held a strategic session, where Alexei Kulakov (our partner, director of the Jetstyle agency, is engaged in our interface) for a long time tortured us about what we are trading, and insisted that we trade in the book, giving our definition of the book: “The artifact for the deep immersion of one person into the world of another person” (we are talking about a good book, of course). In this sense, the ideal embodiment of Ridero is to make it possible to interact the writer and the reader so that nothing distracts them from this process.

Gavrilov: Look: a book is a rather special way to collect and distribute the text. Special in two plans. Firstly, the book is addressed to those people who want and will read large volumes of text. The Internet allowed to break into communication with text genres small and tiny. It is no accident that the Internet was associated with the heyday of Russian poetry and the sunset of Russian prose. Because the prose, which requires great breathing, - the novel, the novel - was supplanted by a fragment and miniature. Veshezhechka (in the best sense of the word). The book involves some reader behavior associated with the use of large volumes of the text inside the head. And secondly, the book has, as it turned out, its own world. The Internet gave the reader’s book, but in a strange way, the same 80% remained outside this world, about which I already said: 80% of books still living on paper. It seems to me that the same logic “Internet will connect all” we apply to a completely new social space.

- What is the business of Ridero yourself then? Where is the money?

Sumin: We live on a commission. This is time. We get a commission not only from the sale of books put up in stores, but also from the services of a corrector, editor, designer hired through Ridero . Plus - we will take money for downloading the layouts (in the printing sense of the word): If the author wants to get a paper book, he pays a small amount for this. But - again - it is important that you can make an e -book and put it on, for example, at Ozone you can completely free.

- Here we come to the topic of those, in fact, services that an ordinary publisher, having contacted the author, provides him. Let the minimum - like proofs - but a lot of determining. Not to mention good editing, which is worth its weight in gold.

Sumin: You see, on the one hand, Ridero is really a robot publishing house, and on the other hand, Ridero plans to become an environment of interaction between authors, proofreaders, designers, editors, and so on. In fact, the author is a user of the system. An editor or corrector can become the same user, and we began to develop mechanisms that will allow them to communicate. Our task is to solve the well -known problem: the author has material, but he understands that the material is damp. Then he can say through Ridero : I want this corrector, this editor, this designer - and we are making a book together. Maybe, by the way, “this promoter”. “I want a service called“ One hour on Skype with this promoter ”, who will tell me how to promote my book, or will do it for me (for some money).”

- That is, could Ridero play the role of professional community?

Kasyanenko: In which, by the way, there is a place for non-professional. For example: “I want to be a publisher; I am not a professional, but, it seems to me, I can. " Try. Here the desire is more important than skill.

- But then the same machine can theoretically work in the hands of the “traditional” publisher. Leaving now aside the publishing dreams about “dismiss all the layouts”-are there any immediate practical things that Ridero allows you to do?

Kasyanenko: Yes. Ridero allows, in fact, to put very cheap experiments. If an unknown author comes to you, whose success you cannot predict, you have the opportunity to pay 2000 rubles to the corrective, for an hour of work to create a book in Ridero , put it for zero rubles for Ozone - and watch what will happen.

Sumin: This is generally considered a global trend.

Kasyanenko: There is such a story. The publisher for a long time believed that his main skill is to prepare a book: make a proof, edit, draw a cover and print. On this - that's all, pens up. And the new reality says that these are all nonsense, technical things. The main thing is the ability to promote, sell.

I recently found a presentation that Vladimir Kharitonov made two years ago. She is exactly about this - about the fact that such a story as Ridero suggests itself, and that the role of the publisher is incomprehensible and is not needed in the current world: something completely different is needed. He calls this something "information architect."

Гаврилов: При этом издателям мы сейчас, без сомнения, друзья. Прежде всего, потому что можно превратить любую бумажную книгу из бэклиста издательства в электронную и POD — и вернуть ее на рынок. Бэклист — это книги, которые были выпущены в прошлые годы, но их тиражи закончились. У многих маленьких и средних издательств есть права на бэклист, есть слабый постоянный спрос (скажем, 4, 6, 8, 10 книжек в месяц), но поддерживать бэклист в продаже они не могут — дорого делать тираж. Издатели с ужасом смотрят на озоновские метки «нет в продаже» применительно к книгам, выпущенным в 2010 году. Мы, конечно, тут очень нужны. Мы позволяем вернуть ваш бэклист на «Озон».

— Но если у них есть права, есть верстка, зачем Ridero ? Что им мешает выложить на «Озон» бэклист здесь и сейчас?

Касьяненко: Сейчас издателю понятнее печатный формат. Но и тут мы очень гибкие: мы можем, например, сразу делать печатный формат под разные страны, из которых поступают заказы. В России принят формат 60 на 90 в шестнадцатую долю, в Америке — другой; Ridero переверстает книгу под американский формат, книга будет напечатана в Америке на машине и на следующий день доставлена пользователю. Мы можем переделывать книгу под потребности рынка, заказчика, кого угодно. Книгу (в том числе — у которой кончился тираж) можно за пару часов собрать с помощью Ridero так, чтобы ее можно было печатать и издавать в разных форматах (в том числе — адекватных электронных), в разных типографиях, в разных местах и т.п. Around the world. Везде, где есть читатель.

— В ходе этого разговора мы априорно понимаем под книгой «текст», фактически — сплошной текст. Мне как потребителю, например, non-fiction интересно скорее то, какие возможности у Ridero есть для дополнительных элементов текста: иллюстрирования, врезки, версток. Мне часто кажется, что именно non-fiction — одна из причин, по которой книга остается «книгой», то есть форматом, требующим определенных принципов сборки. Сегодня книга с интерактивными, скажем, элементами вполне возможна в качестве аппа для планшета — но это профессиональная разработка, сам автор ее не потянет. Что Ridero в этом смысле умеет?

Сумин: Очень многое. Можно на ходу вставлять в книгу видео, ссылки на другие книги, графику. Формат epub , который Ridero отлично создает, в последних версиях уже достаточно мощный и навороченный, чтобы позволять, например, делать превью фильма с киноцитатами, деловые презентации.

Касьяненко: Не нужно будет даже расставлять цитаты к фильмам: он сам определяет, что здесь ссылка на фильм, а сам фильм уже размечен, вы просто указываете, с какого места его включить.

— Но тогда тут начинается разговор о новых паттернах чтения. Помимо чтения флэш-прозы в ЖЖ, «Войны и мира» на бумаге и «Черного лебедя» на планшете сейчас есть некоторые сложные форматы промежуточного спектра.

Гаврилов: Именно. То, что мы называем книгой, сегодня существует между двух полюсов, так далеко разнесенных, что между ними — целая вселенная, целая жизнь. На одном конце этого спектра — бумажная книга, живущая на даче, где ты сидишь с ногами в кресле-качалке; на другом конце — книга-видео, которую ты смотришь, сидя в самолете, летящем над Атлантикой. И то и другое некоторым образом укладывается в новое определение книги с ясной авторской интенцией.

— Кстати, мы все время натыкаемся на классическую ситуацию про «нечто есть, а слова нету», когда пытаемся говорить про «книгу». Слова «текст» и «нарратив» не очень подходят. Ну не «мультимедийный проект» же?

Сумин: Мне кажется, мы опять вернулись к слову «история». Люди всегда рассказывали друг другу истории.

Гаврилов: Смотрите: когда-то очень давно русские заимствовали у китайцев слово, обозначающее свиток, и на свой лад назвали его «книга», потому что никаких книг, кроме китайских свитков, в тот момент в обороте не было. Дальше словом «книга» назвали что-то еще, что-то еще, что-то еще. В этом смысле то, что происходит сейчас, когда мы словом «книга» начинаем называть примерно любую вещь — от бумажного кодекса до сложного мультимедийного проекта, ничем не хуже и ничем не лучше того момента, когда словом «книга» стал называться кодекс — сначала рукописный, а потом печатный.