A large part of GOOD's appeal was its unique business model, its compelling mission, and its target audience: "For People Who Give a Damn." While not replicable in any scalable way, it had a far more noble mission than the mercenary and fickle "connecting advertisers to eyeballs" model of most magazines, and it looks like that mission ultimately forced a complete and radical rethinking of the magazine itself.
Category: Publishing
Commentary and advice on various aspects of publishing, primarily magazines, books and digital media.
Random Thoughts on a Summer Friday (In Which I’ve Buried the Lede)
That "Local First" angle is what disturbs me the most, latching on to a legitimate movement whose most compelling hook focuses on locally sourced goods and sustainability, to support booksellers whose primary focus is usually selling the products of multi-national corporations who treat them like second-class citizens. The bookstores that are true pillars of their communities don't need hollow slogans and dreams of going viral on YouTube, because they prove on a daily basis why they matter to their communities.
Why DRM is a Toothless Boogeyman, Ebooks are like Video Games, and Amazon is the Winner
It's not a huge stretch to posit Amazon as the reverse-Valve of the ebook world, constantly pushing the envelope in unexpected ways, aggressively experimenting with pricing, developing a core of popular franchises, while staying focused on delivering and optimizing the best consumer experience.
Pottermore—When Disintermediation Goes Awry
While it's interesting to see the affiliate script flipped on Amazon, with their redirecting traffic to purchase the ebooks (surely with a nice cut of the revenue), the user experience leaves a lot to be desired, especially if you're used to purchasing your ebooks via the Kindle itself and/or the apps. The whole setup seems to be targeting hardcore fans—most of whom have probably already downloaded the ebooks for free via a torrent site—while asking the more casual reader to jump through hoops Amazon and B&N, in particular, have worked hard to eliminate.
Ebooks and Libraries: Is it Worth the Effort?
Since publishers are so concerned with the “perpetuity of lending and simultaneity of availability” of their ebooks, I have to wonder if libraries shouldn’t just help them out and hit the STOP button themselves? Stop buying ebooks across the board, at any price, under any terms.
Moving Beyond THE BOOK; Three Takeaways from #Book2
The latest edition of Book^2 Camp, a publishing and technology "unconference," took place yesterday, and while it lacked the star power of last year's Margaret Atwood appearance, it was another worthwhile Sunday afternoon full of thoughtful conversations about the future of publishing. Three quick takeaways.
5 Career Tips to Survive Publishing’s Digital Shift
Transition, transformation, disruption, disintermediation... whichever word you prefer, the publishing industry is undergoing a massive shift that's being driven by the Internet, with the news and magazine sides arguably a bit further ahead of the curve than the book side, for better or worse, though few major players among them are seeing any light at … Continue reading 5 Career Tips to Survive Publishing’s Digital Shift
If Not Readers…?
Amazon has always understood that readers are the most relevant market and that's why they're in the position of power they're currently enjoying. Do they wield their big stick aggressively? Definitely. And so did B&N and Borders before them, and presumably whomever the boogeyman was prior to them were guilty of the same thing.
Should more writers attend publishing conferences?
What comes with authors' shift to the business side is the reality that the water gets a lot deeper, particularly when it comes to attending conferences and registration fees. If you want to be a true self-publisher, there's a lot more to it than uploading your file to Amazon, and that includes bearing larger expenses like conference registration fees.
The Myth of “Verticalization” — Community Ain’t Easy
As anyone who's actually worked within a "vertical" knows, whether from a niche consumer or business-to-business angle (or, heaven help them, for a non-profit organization or political campaign), just because a subset of people share a common passion doesn't mean they're a single-minded group that can be engaged in one templated way. Every vertical that presents a viable business opportunity is going to have its own sub-communities and overlapping layers, with some often in direct opposition to others.