B2B Memes » The Future of Print

5 Things I Learned from Self-Publishing

John Bethune — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:38:54 +0000

If nothing else, self-publishing is a learning experience. You learn not just about the process, but yourself. It’s not for everyone, certainly, but don’t count yourself out as a self-publisher until you give it some serious thought. Thanks to e-book and print-on-demand technology, the risks are low and the potential for rewards—though not perhaps of the kind you’d expect—high.

Now that I’ve mostly finished my first self-published book, the New-Media Survival Guide (only the print edition remains to be done), I’ve had time to identify a few initial lessons from the experience. Some of what I learned I knew already, some surprised me. I’ll have more to share later, but here are my first 5 lessons.

1. Don’t count on making money. As Seth Godin says of non-fiction book publishing, it’s an organized hobby, not a business: “The return on equity and return on time for authors and for publishers is horrendous. If you’re doing it for the money, you’re going to be disappointed.”

I knew this already, in the most casual way, and money was the least of my motives in making the effort. But I can see now that if you want a direct monetary return, your chances of making anything substantial are slim.

Although that conclusion might at first glance seem discouraging, it’s in fact quite liberating. Once you accept that you won’t make much money, you’re free to enjoy all the other rewards of self-publishing—the satisfaction of building something substantial of your own, the technical knowledge you gain, the benefit to your brand, the value you share with your readers, and much more. For me the process was great fun, and well worth the time and effort.

So, you might ask, if I’m not in it for the money, why, instead of giving it away, am I selling it (for the bargain price, I might add, of $2.99)?

Well, first, for the experience. I can’t really explore all the dimensions of self-publishing without selling the book. Second, it somehow feels more genuine to charge for it. If you pay a small but measurable amount for my book, it makes for a more meaningful exchange. Giving it away just wouldn’t feel the same.

2. Self-publishing is both easier and harder than it looks. I’d be the first person to suggest that if you have the slightest interest in self-publishing, you should do it. It’s really not that hard. Armed with, say, Carla King’s excellent three articles on the topic in MediaShift, a helpful primer like Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide, and just a dash of patience, even a motivated technophobe can overcome the modest hurdles involved.

On the other hand, once you get ambitious and want to go beyond the barest, simplest text, self-publishing gets tricky. Unless you’re an experienced designer, you’ll quickly realize you need help to achieve the look and reading experience you’re after.

As a tech geek and small-scale hacker, I’ve enjoyed the challenges, but it didn’t take me long to hit the limits of what I could readily do. You will most likely get acceptable results on your own, but if you want to surpass that level of quality, you’ll need a professional.

3. Multiple sales and distribution channels might be overkill. I’ve aimed to make my book available via as many outlets and in as many formats as possible, within reason. You can buy it on Smashwords in a variety of formats, on Amazon in Kindle format and, soon, print, and on Apple’s bookstore. Again, using all three venues was good experience, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it for most people.

To supply all these channels and formats, I ended up using three different word processors (I’ll explain why in another post), making sure I kept my three versions all in sync as I continued to make changes to the text. After submitting the book, I had to make changes or corrections via three different web sites. And, of course, my potential readers have to decide which of three venues to purchase it from.

If you were to ask me right now, I’d probably advise you to choose between Smashwords and Amazon for your own self-publishing venture. What you lose in potential sales and exposure—probably not much—you’ll gain back many times over in simplicity.

4. Print still has its allure. Now to contradict myself. Though it will complicate rather than simplify your experience, print may be worth the inevitable frustrations. As I wrote last week, I wouldn’t be surprised if self-publishing leads to a modest revival in print. I’m not going to do a Jonathan Franzen here, mind you, but bear with me: print is and forever will be very, very cool. You’d be cheating yourself and perhaps even a few of your readers if you don’t offer your book on paper.

As Carla King and others have suggested, you can avoid some of the complication by starting with print rather than, like me, ending with it. Through CreateSpace, you can simply pay $69 to have a Kindle version produced from your finished print file.

5. Focus on shipping. If you decide to try self-publishing, don’t dawdle the way I did. I spent five or six months coming up with a variety of drafts and approaches, all of them worthy and all of them fatally incomplete. It wasn’t until I made a fairly detailed writing and publishing schedule and committed myself to it that I was able to produce the book. Even then, I ran about a month late.

Your schedule should be realistic but also fairly tight. If you don’t pursue a project like this with some sense of urgency, you’re not likely to finish it. And if it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t count.

Intrigued? Then why not try it? And if you’re not sure, or you have a different take on this than I do, share your thoughts and questions in the comments. I have, I admit, become a self-publishing enthusiast. Perhaps someone should talk me out of it….

Will Self-Publishing Save Print?

John Bethune — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:00:38 +0000

Last month in this blog, I made a statement that at the time seemed obvious, but now seems rash. “Most writers,” I wrote in declaring that print is effectively dead, “don’t care in a meaningful way about the physical presence of a book. They just want to tell a story, or convey information, or to create works of art out of their words.”

Since then, I’ve had cause to rethink my position. Print, it seems, isn’t dead, but just retired. Though diminished, it still has vital roles to play—especially for writers.

This realization came to me last week as I attempted to lean back and survey my achievement, such as it was, in publishing my first e-book, the New-Media Survival Guide. The leaning back was satisfactory; the surveying less so.

As a vehicle for conveying information, the e-book is superb. But as a device for signifying to yourself or others that you’ve written a book, it is dismally disappointing. The physical heft of a book that is an outmoded and inefficient drawback for traditional publishers and booksellers is, for authors, one of its most precious traits. Just try weighing an e-book appreciatively in your outstretched hand. It can’t be done.

That’s one reason why I spent many hours this weekend formatting my e-book for print-on-demand via CreateSpace (more on that experience later). Until I have a volume, however slim, that I can put on a bookshelf, I won’t feel that I’ve truly published it.

That’s why I suspect self-publishing may end up sparking a modest renaissance in printed books. In terms of units the quantity of printed books will grow ever smaller. But the number of printed titles may well explode as self-publishing grows. No matter what their motives for publishing, most book authors will want at least one printed, bound copy.

Though I plan to put the print version of the Survival Guide up for sale, I don’t expect to sell many copies. For most readers, the electronic version is ideal (ahem: why not buy a copy and find out for yourself?).

But for most authors, I now see, e-books lack one thing that only a paper book can provide: tangibility. A small thing, to be sure. But like print, it still matters.

Introducing the New-Media Survival Guide

John Bethune — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:43:24 +0000

Today I’m both pleased and relieved to announce the publication of my first e-book, the New-Media Survival Guide. (If you just can’t wait to buy a copy at the bargain price of $2.99, click here now. Not that impulsive? Then you might want to read more about it here.)

My goal in writing this e-book was to give people trained in traditional media—journalists in particular, but also people from public relations, marketing, and other areas—an easy-to-read, practical, and concise introduction to the new-media revolution. If it’s successful, readers will understand that the ways of new media are not be be feared, but to be welcomed.

If you’re skeptical or concerned about new media but want to understand it better, this is a great starting point for you. And if you’re a social-media maven, you may not need this book, but you probably know someone who does. Here are a few reasons why you may want to read or recommend it.

It can be read in one sitting.
Though it’s short, it provides numerous sources for further reading.
To my knowledge, there’s nothing else quite like it (or if there is, please note it in the comments—this is an equal-opportunity blog!).
For the moment, at least, it’s very up to date.

In coming days, I’ll be reflecting on the process of writing and self-publishing an e-book and why I recommend it. In the meantime, I hope you’ll learn more about the New-Media Survival Guide and let me know what you think of it.

Doubling Down on Print, for Better or Worse

John Bethune — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:42:28 +0000

A nice specimen. Photo by Robert Burdock/Flickr

Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Julie Bosman described how book publishers have begun putting extra effort into making their print products more physically and esthetically engaging. Their rationale, says Bosman, is that if “e-books are about ease and expedience,” then print books should “be about physical beauty and the pleasures of owning.” The strategy, they hope, will “increase the value of print books and build a healthy, diverse marketplace that includes brick-and-mortar bookstores and is not dominated by Amazon and e-books.”

As a book collector, I’m pleased that books will be more beautiful. As a lover of bookstores, I’m happy for anything that might help preserve them. But as a reader and writer, I’m quite indifferent.

The problem with the strategy is that it won’t, as hoped, “cut into e-book sales” in a significant way. Most readers aren’t antiquarians and don’t value the physical esthetics of the container. They just want the content.

In the same way, unlike book designers, most writers don’t care in a meaningful way about the physical presence of a book. They just want to tell a story, or convey information, or to create works of art out of their words. The physical format is not essential.

There are a few books for which the physical medium of print matters in an essential way. House of Leaves, for instance, just wouldn’t be so mind-blowing in a leafless e-book. And is there any effective e-equivalent of a pop-up book? Moreover, could anyone do this with an e-book?

But these instances and their like are minor eddies of activity that briefly pull print defenders upstream before they are hurtled back down, inevitably, towards the fatal digital waterfall.

The effect is simply amplified when it comes to magazines (and turned up to 11 for newspapers). The physical aspects of magazines can be nice indeed, but they are rarely treasured objects. Inveterate collector though I am, I have gradually whittled down even my set of classic Wired issues from several shelves to one shelf—and only the Neal Stephenson issue is safe.

I’m all for more beautiful books, but let’s be realistic. Like taxidermy, printing beautiful books may preserve glorious specimens, but it does nothing to save the species.

The Best Formats Are Invisible

John Bethune — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:16:00 +0000

MUD day 18:

It’s a new dawn and I’ve awakened with my usual optimism and generosity of spirit restored. Today I see things a bit differently. Magazines aren’t dying, they’re simply transmigrating.

You see, the soul of a magazine is not to be found in its format. LIke every other kind of communication, a magazine is expression, transported in a vehicle. If you pay undue attention to the vehicle, the format, you’ll miss the important thing being expressed.

When new-media thinkers talk about transparency, they’re usually thinking about ethics. We need to think of it in terms of expression and formats as well. The point of new media is immediacy, direct connection, and that works best when the format recedes into the background of your attention and becomes virtually invisible. This is one reason for Twitter’s success. The pared-down simplicity of its vehicle doesn’t get in the way; you focus on the words, the expression, not the technology or format.

That highlights the problems with digital magazine formats so far. When you have to spend too much of your time clicking and zooming, you become too conscious of the medium, and lose sight of the message.

Eventually, expression will have its way. The various urges to communicate that constitute what we think of as the magazine will find the transparency that suits them best.

My Love for Magazines Lies Bleeding

John Bethune — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:00:22 +0000

MUD day 17:

There are days, perhaps when my inner curmudgeon breaks through my usual resistance, when I’m convinced that magazines, as a useful format, are truly dead. Yes, it may just be me or my desperation for a topic in this month of mandatory daily blogging. Ask me tomorrow and I may feel more hopeful. But what has me worried is my oddly sour reaction to this Folio article on magazine design. A few years ago I would have been vitally interested. Now it just seems irrelevant.

It’s not just the paper version of magazines I’m pessimistic about, but the very concept. There are some who feel that tablets will be the salvation of magazines. I’m not so sure. One of the negatives in Linda Holmes’s review of the new Kindle Fire today is that its 7-inch screen is too small for magazines. Full magazine pages, she says, don’t work well: “You can zoom, but when you [turn] to to the next page, you pop back out to seeing the full page, and to read anything, you have to zoom again.”

But having just last night downloaded with some interest the December issue of The Atlantic to my iPad, more than a third larger than the Fire, I’m not so sure size is the real problem. Paper pages just don’t translate well to the screen—the turns are slow, images build too slowly, the fonts are too big or too small. You need to enlarge and shrink too often, or tap too many times to get to the better “reading view.” The articles might have been pretty good—but I don’t know. I was too distracted to actually do any concentrated reading.

To me, books seem like an eternal format. They work as well for me on a tablet as on a page. But the format to which I dedicated most of my professional career has a poor prognosis in any medium. I fear I will soon be attending a funeral for my old friend, the magazine.

Should Journalism Schools Rethink Magazines? (Or Even Journalism Itself?)

A Word Every Publisher Should Know

John Bethune — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:46:02 +0000

Skeuomorph. It’s one of those words you have to look up several times before you can remember it. For those unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia defines it nicely: “a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original.” Some of the examples the entry cites are helpful: fake stitching on a plastic product once made of leather, spokes in an automobile hubcap, or, one of my own bugbears, tiny, useless handles on small maple syrup jugs.

Why should publishers care about skeuomorphs? Because as they shift themselves and their products into the digital age, one of the most important questions they must ask is whether to evoke the functionality of the old forms of their output or leap wholly into the new ones. There isn’t a single right answer. But if they don’t ask the question, they will probably get it wrong.

Though it deals with computer user interface design rather than publication design, one of the most helpful discussions of skeuomorphism I’ve read is from John Siracusa’s landmark review of OS X Lion. In it, he describes the odd nostalgia of Apple’s design of its iCal and Address Book applications. They evoke the look of their old analog counterparts so faithfully that they include stitching, torn paper, and a leather look. Though it might give users a sense of familiarity, the look actually impairs functionality, as Siracusa says of the Mac calendar:

Usually, each page contains a month, but there’s no reason for a virtual calendar to be limited in the same way. When dealing with events that span months, it’s much more convenient to view time as a continuous stream of weeks or days.

Even worse, says Siracusa, is Apple’s Address Book, which “goes so far in the direction of imitating a physical analog that it starts to impair the identification of standard controls.”

For traditional, analog publishers, the most immediate application of skeuomorphism is to the process of going digital. As I noted last week, one challenge for companies like Ziff Davis Enterprise in going digital-only is whether they should retain the old functional metaphors of print—the page turns, the layouts, the display ads—or drop them in favor of inherently digital functionality.

But even for natively digital publishers, functionality will evolve, perhaps more rapidly than ever. As new ways of delivering and presenting content arise, will they look backwards and mask the new with the familiar veneer of the old? Or will they look resolutely forward and ask readers to adjust to the new in order to gain its full benefits?

The point here is not that skeuomorphism is inherently bad. It can be a useful and even compelling way to help people understand new functionalities. But in going digital, you need to consider the difference between when looking backwards is really helpful and when it’s just a sentimental gesture. So on your next digital product design, don’t just think different—think skeuomorph.

The Future of Content Is Not Destination but Identity

John Bethune — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:15:28 +0000

MUD day 8:

There’s been a lot of excitement in the past week about the new Web publication The Verge. Founded by Joshua Topolsky and several other former Engadget staff, it’s been praised for its dynamic design and for features like StoryStream, which aggregates the site’s content into timelines. But if it succeeds, will it be due to great design, or inherently great stories? Does its future lie in becoming a great destination site, or in creating a unique identity for its content?

When Topolsky appeared last Sunday on This Week in Tech, host Leo Laporte asked a key question. After suggesting that The Verge is what magazine design should be on the Web, or rather, what should replace magazine design, he asked whether it mattered. “You’ve made a great destination, but I just wonder: Do destinations matter anymore?” How he and many others now read content, he argued, was in aggregation: “So if there’s a great Verge article on the Jawbone Up, I will see it in my Twitter stream or in my RSS feed, I’ll read the article, but then I’ll leave the site.”

Though the design, usability, and coherence of site or publication design are still important, they matter less to the success of content than they used to. In an era when content is increasingly atomized and ubiquitous, the identity of that content becomes increasingly important. Traditionally, magazines were a collection of disparate items that relied on the container to give them a coherent identity. But containment doesn’t work on the Web. So how then can content serve its publishers?

The answer, I think, is that identity must be stamped into the content itself. More than ever, to rise above anonymous commodity content, it must be personal, individual, unique. People must be able to see immediately, for instance, that this content, wherever they find it, could only be from The Verge. The content must be imbued with the brand.

It seems to me that this is the biggest challenge for traditional publishers in adapting to new media is to rethink the value of their publications as destinations. Consider, for instance, what Ziff Davis Enterprise CEO Steve Weitzner recently told Folio: about his company’s move to digital-only publication: “”We will publish [eWeek] in the same way—it will go through the same editorial process, the stories will get vetted, they’ll be laid out by art, we just won’t print it or mail it.” Is that the way to go digital? To simply plop the magazine model into a digital space? Somehow, I doubt it. The container doesn’t matter anymore. Only the content counts.

One Way the Web Will Change the Book

John Bethune — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:40:09 +0000

MUD day 6:

New-media enthusiasts, myself included, sometimes talk as though print is dying. That’s a strategic exaggeration, of course. No form of media is ever killed off by another. Rather, each new form of media transforms those that came before it, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. Consider for instance how painting was changed—even liberated—by photography, turning, in response, to new modes of expression like impressionism and cubism.

In a similar way, I think, books will be liberated by digital media. That will happen in part because technology frees print from its reliance on paper and traditional, expensive production methods. But it will also happen because print will react and respond to the new forms of digital media, and function in new ways. Our very idea of what constitutes a book will be redefined.

One modest but telling example comes from the latest Tips from the Top Floor podcast, hosted by photographer Chris Marquardt. In it, he interviews C.J. Chilvers about his PDF book, A Lesser Photographer: 10 Principles for Rediscovering What Matters.

Chilvers observed that its length, just 25 pages, has prompted other authors he knows to ask “where’s the rest of it?” They argued that each of his 10 principles could be backed up with enough evidence and examples to make a much longer work. But, Chilvers said, “I feel that’s what the blog is for.”

There’s nothing new about pamphlet-length books, nor is the manifesto a new genre. But what does seem new to me is the way the Web has made it possible, even desirable, to distill what would otherwise be longer books into their essence, while offering other media to back it up, and provide the substance many readers will want.

I can’t say there will be fewer books in the future—in fact, their number may grow. But I feel certain that they will, on the whole, be shorter—and more useful.

Breaking News: People Who Like Print, Like Print

John Bethune — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:40:42 +0000

There’s been a minor buzz this week in B2B circles about recent survey results suggesting that paper magazines and newsletters remain extremely important to business professionals. I’m sure it’s true. I’m also sure it’s not very meaningful. Just because you like something doesn’t mean it’s not dead.

The findings are from Readex Research, and are based on a series of media usage surveys conducted over the last year or so. The results show that when asked what forms of media these professionals use in their work, 74% chose print publications, just three percentage points below the top choice, search engines, and tied with e-newsletters. These results, according to Readex sales director Steve Blom, “help publishers prove to advertisers—whose own ideas regarding usage may be terribly wrong—that professionals haven’t replaced one media form with another.”

Now before I say anything more, I should mention that in my previous career in publishing I was a Readex customer for 20 years or so. I have nothing but admiration for the company and its staff. So anything I say here is not intended as a criticism of the company.

But the thing about Readex is that much of their work is for publishers. Those publishers usually ask Readex to survey their readers. And the readers who bother to reply are usually those who, first, recognize the name of the publication, and second, like it enough to bother replying.

In most of our magazine surveys, we asked our readers to rate us in comparison with our competitors. We always found that our publications were generally liked the best and read the most frequently. No surprise, really, because the readers who responded were generally the ones who knew and liked us.

The Readex press release doesn’t give much detail on the demographics of respondents, but I’d guess that most of them are existing readers of legacy publishers. In addition, a significant chunk are probably older white males—the last bastion, I’d also guess, of committed print users.

So in essence, you’re asking people who subscribe to print publications and who are more familiar with print than any other medium, which media they prefer. It would be shocking if print didn’t come out well.

That doesn’t mean advertisers shouldn’t keep advertising—the numbers of print readers are still substantial. But it also doesn’t mean that print is particularly vital or that it has a bright future. Yes, many people still love print. But in the end, economics and technology will prove more powerful than emotion and habit.