Platform Archives | Page 15 of 21

You are not your iPhone, not your Kindle

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:August 11, 2009
Post category:Media
Post comments:11 Comments

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn’t have to experience it.”
—Max Frisch

That an author needs to establish their own marketing platform nowadays has pretty much become a given, but I’ve seen many complaints about how difficult and time-consuming it is, and of course there’s the predictable flood of marketing gurus pushing all kinds of technology-enabled solutions to make things “easier”.

Some are well-intentioned and worthy of consideration, like the next-generation “social publisher”, Cursor, and the new, marketing-centric Writer’s Digest Conference. Others are just quick cash-grabs, like the brazenly opportunistic Twitter Boot Camp and 140 Characters Conference, my favorite description of which came from Loren Feldman: “biggest circle jerk of nothingness“. (NSFW!)

As Twitter’s still feeling the effects of last week’s crash, and Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed have shown, focusing on specific tools is the wrong approach, and limiting your platform development to your online presence is a recipe for disaster.

(more…)

Is Social Publishing simply Vanity Publishing 2.0?

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:July 30, 2009
Post category:Media
Post comments:20 Comments

“Yes, Sir, there are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them.”

Samuel Johnson, Quotes on Vanity

“Digital publishing”, “ePublishing” and “social publishing” are the buzzwords du jour; Web 2.0 business models based on the idea that eBooks are the next big thing and social media platforms and tools are the best way to sell them.

There’s seemingly a new “publisher” putting up a digital shingle every day, and while the description and details vary somewhat among them, the usual common denominators are a savvy marketer’s dream combination of truth, opinion, hype, and a dash of old-fashioned “snake oil” opportunism:

Print is dead.
The distribution system is broken.
eBooks are teh future.
Social media has made us all publishers and journalists.
Writers will do anything to get published.

That last point typically represents the digital start-ups’ primary source of income, monetizing a community of aspiring writers by selling their work back into the community, or by offering them fee-based services that allow them to do it themselves. In their ideal scenario, they double-dip.

While generally offering legitimate contracts and something resembling a distribution and marketing program — the latter of which will still fall primarily in the author’s lap — there’s a vague whiff of old-school vanity underlying the whole thing that’s bothered me from the beginning.

(more…)

Platform 201 for Busy Writers: 1,000 True Fans

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:July 14, 2009
Post category:Media
Post comments:8 Comments

Mets Fan at Shea Stadium (Queens, New York) by Luke Redmond

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
—Kevin Kelly, 1,000 True Fans

The “1,000 True Fans” theory states, effectively, that 1,000 literal fanatics each spending $100/year on your stuff is all you need for a sustainable career. It’s a model for which Trent Reznor is often used as an example, and much like the discredited “Long Tail Theory” it’s based on (Kelly and Chris Anderson are colleagues at Wired), it is overly simplistic and doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny.

It does, however, offer a reference point for the next step in building an author’s platform.

Platform 101 was about laying the foundation, physically and virtually. Once you have your foundation in place, you will slowly begin to attract an audience, some of whom might one day become enthusiastic fans who will not only buy your books (and short stories, and CDs, and t-shirts, etc.) but, perhaps more importantly, will also mobilize and spread the word far and wide on your behalf, sometimes without your even having to ask.

Platform 201 is about attracting, engaging and energizing that community, and these are three fundamental points to keep in mind while doing so:

(more…)

Platform 101 For Busy Writers: 3 Simple Steps

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:July 10, 2009
Post category:Media
Post comments:14 Comments

“The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you’ll need later.”
—Seth Godin

In an era of immediate gratification and information overload, patience is something few people have time for. They want “it” right now, whether “it” is an email response, a well-paying career, or the proverbial house with a white picket fence. For writers, the social web whispers promises of instant success and overnight fame if only they had a big enough following on Twitter, but the reality is, as Godin notes, very different.

I’ve realized over the past several months that there’s a tendency to oversimplify things, to assume everyone has a certain level of web and marketing savvy (not to mention free time), starting discussions about writers’ platforms, curating communities and “free vs. freemium” way too far ahead of the curve. For a lot of writers. something as seemingly simple as setting up a blog can become a huge, time-consuming effort for which the long-term value isn’t always quite clear or worthwhile.

It most certainly is worthwhile, though, so what follows is a simple 3-step model for building the foundation of your writer’s platform, no matter where you are on Godin’s theoretical timeline:

(more…)

Free is wrong for writers; Freemium might not be

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:July 6, 2009
Post category:Media
Post comments:38 Comments

What [FREE author Chris Anderson] is proposing is down somewhere, on the scale of ethics, well beneath Wal-Mart’s policies of no longer hiring any full-time workers so as to avoid health and unemployment insurance. It is in fact some weird sort of neo-feudal, post-contract-worker society, in which he will create a dystopian and eager volunteer-slave system of “attention-paid” enthusiasts (which is to say, people with no other options, and no capital of their own) to create products from which rich people can get richer.

“Chris Anderson Is Worse Than Wal-Mart“, The Awl

The “FREE” debate rages on — with thought-provoking posts by Will Hindmarch, Mitch Ratcliffe, Fred Wilson and Mark Cuban added to the mix (along with the one quoted above, from The Awl) — and in the midst of it, the need for some clarification jumped out at me: “Free” and “Freemium” are NOT the same thing.

They’re getting intertwined in the debate, though, and for writers developing their own platform, understanding the difference between them is critical.

“Free” is the realm of venture capitalists like Wilson and cagey opportunists like Anderson. It is usually based on an advertising-supported model that demands scale and/or desirable demographics for profitability, along with as much freely contributed content as possible to keep expenses down. A niche strategy can work, too, if the audience is highly targeted; ie: Anderson’s GeekDad site, whose business model The Awl criticized for resembling “a digital-age medieval society”.

In the print world, most B2B magazines are built on the “free” model, with “qualified” subscribers getting the magazine for free (controlled circulation) because it’s subsidized by advertisers who want to reach that particular niche. Much of their content is often freely contributed by non-writing professionals, too, primarily to position themselves as thought-leaders within their respective industries. With the stark decline in ad revenues of late, “free” is an increasingly precarious business model for publishers, and many are struggling to transform to a “freemium” model, developing additional products and services that are of value to their readers and worth paying a premium for.

“Free” isn’t a viable business model for writers, but “freemium” just might work… for some.

(more…)

In a time of crisitunity, you gotta have soul!

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:June 5, 2009
Post category:Media
Post comments:0 Comments

“Ad networks have scale and data, but they lack soul. Customers don’t join ad networks.”
—John Battelle, Founder & CEO, Federated Media

Federated Media’s Conversational Marketing Summit earlier this week was an unconditional success by any measure, particularly with regards to acheiving their goal of presenting insightful and instructive case studies of conversational marketing programs that worked. I say that as someone who attended for my own personal edification, not representing any company and paying my own way as a result.

Standout presentations from Proctor & Gamble, Lenovo, Intel, American Express, RIM, and (by proxy) Microsoft and Federated Media highlighted two days of pure marketing nirvana that gave me a new identity — marketing technopologist — and offered some clear navigational guidelines for brands and publishers to successfully engage with consumers in an increasingly noisy world.

Battelle’s opening remarks set the right tone, and his identifying the need for “soul” struck an especially warm chord with me as it’s something many “old media” brands already possess but haven’t always successfully leveraged online. That slow response left a huge opening for personal brands to evolve exponentially, gain precious mindshare and become competitive with the established brands that once nurtured them (or their progenitors, at least); it also allowed savvy brand marketers to connect directly with consumers instead of having to go through traditional intermediaries.

The first day was arguably a bit stronger than the second, at least based on my notes and #cmsummit tweets, but excepting an oddly defensive Pepsi/YouTube presentation by Google’s Eileen Naughton, and an awkward interview with former Bush press secretary Dana Perino, it was all good and well worth the two vacation days I used to attend.

(more…)

6Qs: Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:May 6, 2009
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:3 Comments

“I don’t know if there’s any light at the end of the tunnel for publishers, but I think the future for writers is bright.”

–Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed

I had the pleasure of working with the Editor Unleashed herself, Maria Schneider, for about 18 months, back when we were both with Writer’s Digest — as Editor (her) and Ad Director (me) — and am happy to still call her a friend despite no longer being corporate colleagues and with more than 600 miles separating us.

Maria is a smart, savvy writer AND editor, who understands the difference between the two, and who fully grasps the integrated world publishing has become, able to speak fluently in print and digital. Her ability to brainstorm new ideas that work from multiple angles without ever compromising her editorial integrity made my job much easier, and her outspoken, engaging personality has always been refreshing.

Her openness to new ideas and engaging personality allowed her to hit the ground running when she left Writer’s Digest last year, immediately launching her own website on October 8, 2008 with a post entitled, “So here’s how I got here…“, adding a forum two weeks later, and never looking back. Since then, she’s been offering near-daily content, featuring inspiring writing prompts and invaluable resources; interviews with successful agents, editors, and authors; and sharing her own hard-won insights with an appreciative and steadily growing community of aspiring and professional writers.

I’m delighted to have her as the first in a new series of interviews with insightful publishing and marketing professionals — 6Qs: Maria Schneider, Editor Unleashed.

It’s been just over six months since you were “unleashed” and went freelance. What’s surprised you, in a positive way, and what hasn’t quite gone according to plan?
(more…)