Tuesday, November 27, 2012

We Are the Media. We Are the Publisher.

Nobody wants to wait even five hours to learn more about an incident in their neighborhood. As we wait for mainstream media to catch up with the story, or at least post it online, frustrated, we turn to our friends in Facebook and ask the question in our status update, “Does anyone know what happened?” Or more likely we go to Twitter and use the keyword finder to hunt down tweets from the people who were there at the scene as it happened. They WILL tweet about it in play-by-play. That is real time news, on the scene, as it happens. It may not be entirely accurate or verifiable, but one gets the sense of the situation long before the media assigns a reporter.

Because of cameras in our cell phones, we can take onsite video and post it to YouTube or CNN iReport in minutes.

We are the media now.

So it’s no surprise that the book publishing industry needs to evolve, but so far, it’s the last one out of the gate. It didn’t heed the precedent of the independent music industry, even after Apple invented the iPad tablet and Amazon launched the Kindle.

There will always be those who like the brick and mortar publication. I’m one of them. However, it’s way easier to carry books inside a Kindle.

I am also damned excited about the future.

As an independent publisher, a writer, and a business, the opportunities, the creative options, and the ability to connect one-on-one with my audience is where it’s at. I don’t have to rely entirely on mainstream media to push out my message via paid and unpaid advertising. I AM the media and I AM the publisher and I’m connected to my audience directly. I have created a community of not just like-minded people, but people who are interesting, who have an interest, who help me spread my message, and who engage me with interesting content, advice, and entertainment.

This is an excerpt from my next book: Surfing the Digital Wave of Publishing and Marketing. For the rest of the introduction, go here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bz7GbM-AsvgwenBMYzRlaDRjdjg 

No comments:

Post a Comment