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Follow on Google News | Watershed moment as authors turn from traditional publishing to digital publishingFor writers and publishers willing to take risks now, when the world is experiencing a fundamental shift, the rewards will be survival in an already highly competitive industry. Writers and publishers who do not wake up to the benefits ...
By: Site prebuilder “I’ve known for years that traditional publishing methods were simply not able to meet the demands of modern readers. For a start, technology moves so quickly that by the time I had finished writing a book I had to go back and update it in order to avoid publishing redundant material. By the time the book went through production and got onto the shelves about ten percent of it would already be dated. In addition, in order to make traditional publishing cost effective the books needed to be a certain minimum length. Too short and the printing costs become prohibitive. In my opinion, the second that your content value is dictated by operational limitations, you need to re-evaluate how you get content to the public. For me, the best way to bring bleeding edge, quality content with high value for the reader is by making shorter, more focused texts that are published in eBook or online format. There are three main reasons for this: 1) Digital books can concentrate on niche topics so readers only have to purchase the precise information they need – instead of more traditional, generic content that often includes information the buyer already knows or does not need 2) Price comes down. By completely removing the logistics and printing costs associated with hard copy books, the price can be slashed to a few dollars instead of a few tens of dollars 3) Content can be maintained far more efficiently Traditional publications have to wait for new print runs to implement changes. This means that problems are gathered over a period of months and the changes are implemented before the next few thousand copies hit the printers. With digital content, changes can be made in a matter of hours, which means customers can expect better quality content with fewer errors and less redundancy.” Mercer admits that traditional publishing methods do still hold benefits. In particular marketing and promotional activities now have to be undertaken by the writer instead of co-opting this to the publisher. Traditional publishers have contacts and marketing networks that give their books a foothold in the market before they are even published. Self publishing the same quality content can be more difficult because there is less brand recognition and the market is only now making wholesale changes to digital or mobile reading formats. “For writers and publishers willing to take risks now, when the world is experiencing a fundamental shift, the rewards will be survival in an already highly competitive industry. Writers and publishers who do not wake up to the benefits and keep pace with demand will find their content becomes less desirable for the reasons mentioned above and ultimately will be squeezed out by new technology. In the same way the typewriter was replaced by the PC.” # # # David Mercer is the author of books on PHP, Linux, osCommerce, Drupal as well as SEO, Internet Marketing and online business. He operates Site prebuilder, http://www.siteprebuilder.com, which is a companion blog to his publications, offers SEO, marketing and consulting services, and also serves as the online presence for his new short courses, which focus on marketing and online business. His latest two courses concentrate on building traffic with social marketing and generating revenue through passion based content creation: http://www.siteprebuilder.com/ http://www.siteprebuilder.com/ For more information contact David directly through his website or by following him on Twitter or LinkedIn. End
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