Today’s guest on the Morning Media Menu was Evan Ratliff, editor of the brand new long-form nonfiction publication, The Atavist.
During the long interview, Ratliff explained how his boutique publishing house publishes long-form multimedia nonfiction in a time when outlets for long-form reporting are dying out. He also offered advice for publishers and authors looking to explore Amazon’s Singles program.
Follow this link to listen to the interview. Currently, Atavist stories are available through iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch Atavist app; through through Amazon’s new Kindle Singles collection; and on the Nook. Find out more at the publisher’s Twitter page.
Ratliff had this advice: “We are taking pitches. We aren’t accepting submissions–pieces that people report and then send them in. But we are taking pitches from long-form writers … we happen to be quite small and we have a fairly limited publishing schedule, so we are focusing on experienced long-form writers. We are looking for all kinds of ideas, we don’t have a topic restriction–we aren’t just focused on sports or politics or anything like that.”
He concluded: “In fact, in some ways, we are anti-topical. What we want is a gripping narrative for these pieces. We have to convince readers that they are going to get lost in these stories for an hour while they read. It can be about anything, it just has to have characters that are really captivating –we’re not doing just pure informational features. “