Technology is creating a revolution in publishing, one I didn’t notice before, before I read an article about it in TIME magazine.
There will be a YouTube and DeviantART of literature one day, and no I’m not talking about Fanfiction.net or just Goodreads. It’s about more than recognition, sales, or respect. It’s about altering the face of publishing distribution. Traditional print, the printing press, books, and printed out paper publications, be they books, comic books, or magazines, are going to be increasingly digital. This newfound movement on the internet is going to be called New Publishing, and it’s a partial offshoot of the Web 2.0.
Old Publishing is print books on paper, print comics on paper, print magazines on paper, and bookstores. It’s writing querie letters to agencies, and getting paid.
New Publishing is like anime and hip-hop all over again. It’s you selling copies of your latest book straight out your trunk, just like early hip-hop musicians sold mix-tapes out their trunk, and early otaku traded VHS tapes of anime shows out of their basement or room or whatever.
New Publishing is Amazon, Amazon Create Space used to upload and sell Word prose and fiction writing documents straight from your computer through a Kindle Digital Reader. It’s Print-On-Demand self-publishing like Lulu, Art websites like ArtFlakes and DeviantART, and high quality hidden gems that you can access through websites you stumble upon that were created either by marketing staffs or the creators of the works themselves being showcased. It will also be about linking, Blogging, Tweeting, Banner Ads, And it is about getting paid if someone notices you and enough people actually want to purchase copies of your digital print materials.
Either way, this looks to be a fun and democratic next Millennium for Publishing. Hopefully it will turn out good like YouTube has.
