Keeping an eye on what is
happening to newspapers and magazines is important even for writers who don’t
write for those media. In strategy+business, Matthew Ego, Harry Hawkes and Greg
Springs have written a long article called “Reinventing Print Media.” They
discuss the decline of the print media and say “the situation seems dire and
unsolvable.”
However, they also suggest
four promising strategies. I’ve summarized them below along with some of my
thoughts about what this could mean to book authors as well.
1: Develop deeper
relationships with readers around targeted interest areas and use digital media
to deepen and extend those relationships.
For book
authors this means that we need to be our own brand—beyond any one book title.
If we build a relationship with readers in our niche, they are more likely to
be loyal. We can use the internet to find these people and give them online
content that keeps them connected to us.
2: Tap into revenue streams
beyond advertising and circulation.
Authors will
need to look beyond royalties. Other options include lectures, premium content
via membership websites, and sponsorship.
3: Lower costs and emphasize
a ‘profitable core’ of unique and brand-defining material.
Print on
demand gives authors a low-cost (sometimes no-cost) way to get their books out,
and of course we also have the downloadable e-book option, again with almost no
cost.
4: Innovate with new
products and pricing models.
If authors
have control over their material, they have the option of repurposing it in a
number of different ways. For instance, it would be possible to put each
chapter of a non-fiction book online and give readers the choice of which ones they want to read (and pay for). Or you can offer a video companion
for your book, downloadable for an extra fee.
Suggestion: once a month or
so, set aside an hour or two to think about where things are going in your
field and how you can stay ahead of the curve.
(My book, "Your Writing Coach," includes a chapter on writing for the new media. You can get it from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)
