Eoin Purcell
If you do nothing else before Monday, you should watch Mike Shatzkin’s video on the digital shift in publishing. It is only available for free until Monday and you can view it here. It is deeply impressive, crystallizing as it does, the reasons why this shift MUST happen as well as cataloging the results of the shift and suggesting a remedy.
That remedy is the niche and the nugget. Niche being a vertical interest like knitting or US Civil War Uniforms. I love the section in the video where he suggests that publishers will discover that they all of a sudden not only don’t nearly have enough content within these specific niches but that on their own, in their current state they never will. Nuggets are the intriguing part, the small bits if content created by individuals within a community adding value as they accumulate.
I wholeheartedly agree with Mike that publishers need to get niche and embrace the communities that sustain those niches. It’s a fascinating time ahead and we are rushing towards it rapidly.
Eoin
Filed under: Future of Books, Future of Media, Future of Publishing, Innovation, Commissioning, Community, data aggregation, Digital Publishing, e-books, e-publishing, Publishing & Media News
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