Content, Even When its Meaning is Twisted Out of Context, is Still King!

Content Marketing must be
mastered to sell your
books/writings

I read Greg Satell, a contributor to Forbes magazine, often enough - due mainly to his often less-than-mainstream approach to his subject matter. He is an interesting writer I enjoy. 

I agree with his outlook sometimes and disagree sometimes.

Tonight's post deals with the subject of 'content' and why I believe it's the main ingredient in successful writing and publishing no matter what the genre, niche, format or mission of the particular written word (print or digital) actually is. 

Whether the purpose of your writing is to advertise (to sell), to entertain, to teach, to research, to inform or to inspire --- the creative writing you use to accomplish your desired mission (the creative content) is the only determining factor in its success or failure.

Is content king? You bet it is. Always has been. Always will be.

Now, in my research source article tonight, written by Greg Satell in Forbes, I disagree with his disparaging and definition of the term 'content'. In my opinion, he is simply splitting semantic hairs and blurring words that are more commonly used by some present day publishers from different business fields/backgrounds than he is used to in the traditional publishing industry  --- Terms/phrases such as 'content strategy'.

Key excerpts:

His title "Why Content Marketing Fails" is inaccurate. If done right, the opposite is true.

"The reason is that content isn’t really king.  Content is crap.  Nobody walks out of a great movie and says, “Wow!  What great content.” 
  - Here he is confusing a niche type word that could mean the same thing as 'story' or 'storyline' in common speak. 

"In a famous essay written in 1996, Bill Gates declared that content is king.  He presciently foresaw that faster connection speeds would make content the “killer app” of the Internet, creating a “marketplace of experiences, ideas and products.” - Yet unfortunately, Gates mistook the transaction for the product.  While his vision of the future was correct and he moved quickly to create and acquire valuable content assets, he largely failed.  Today, almost 20 years later, Microsoft MSFT -1.54% has no significant content business."   - Bill Gates was not in the content business, per se, but in the content delivery and discovery business through software and other technologies. 

Now, here is Greg Satell from Forbes magazine:

Why Content Marketing Fails

In a famous essay written in 1996, Bill Gates declared that content is king.  He presciently foresaw that faster connection speeds would make content the “killer app” of the Internet, creating a “marketplace of experiences, ideas and products.”

Yet unfortunately, Gates mistook the transaction for the product.  While his vision of the future was correct and he moved quickly to create and acquire valuable content assets, he largely failed.  Today, almost 20 years later, Microsoft MSFT -1.54% has no significant content business.

The reason is that content isn’t really king.  Content is crap.  Nobody walks out of a great movie and says, “Wow!  What great content.”  Nobody who produces meaningful artistic expression thinks of themselves as content producers either.  So the first step to becoming a successful publisher is to start treating creative work with the respect it deserves.

A Mission Is Not A Transaction

Henry Luce was not a fan of mainstream media.  He saw it as made up of dry and dull daily newspapers on the one hand and sensational tabloids on the other.  He wanted to create a new breed of product—informal and concise—which would prepare people to discuss the issues of the day.  Time magazine succeeded beyond his dreams.

Later, much like Gates, he presciently saw that photography would change publishing forever.  In his prospectus for Life magazine he wrote:

To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things—machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work—his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed;

Thus to see, and to be shown, is now the will and new expectancy of half mankind

To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by a new kind of publication, THE SHOW-BOOK OF THE WORLD

Luce is arguably the most successful publisher the world has ever seen.  Time, Life andFortune became not just magazines, but icons.  Later, People and Sports Illustratedcreated—and dominated—new categories as well.  Even today, Time Inc. is the largest publisher on the planet.

The contrast between Gates and Luce is stark.  Gates, while he insightfully described the forces that would shape the new “marketplace of ideas,” expressed no special opinion about it, except that he thought people should pay for content.  Luce, on the other hand, saw not just an opportunity or a task, but a mission.

Continue reading the full article here

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Is the Academic Publishing Model About to Bite the Dust? - About Time!

Academic Publishing Model
Getting The Boot

I have posted on this subject before (Academic Publishing is a Good Gig if You Can Get It - And a Rip Off for Creators) and Part Deuce of same).

Please read the above links for more background on this issue. 


Ever since time began, it seems, both grad students and professors have had to publish new and researched works in their fields in academic journals to advance in their academic standings and/or careers.
 
And these poor academic field laborers have never gotten paid for their efforts --- Guess who made millions on their free labor and creativity? Academic publishers and journals, that's who!
 
"Essentially, when the academics do all the thinking, all the writing, all the editing, for free, how come three companies can make millions upon millions a year selling it all back to them?"
 
I would say its damn time that the new digital tech leveled the playing field in academic publishing just as it has in traditional publishing :) 
 
Tim Worstall, Forbes, has this to say:
 
The Coming Collapse of the Academic Publishing Model
 
We had a quick look at the economics of the academic publishing model back here, when the subject first came to prominence. Essentially, when the academics do all the thinking, all the writing, all the editing, for free, how come three companies can make millions upon millions a year selling it all back to them?

When it was all about printing up 300 copies of an obscure journal and making sure that they got to the only 300 people in the world interested in the subject there was a possible argument in favour of the model. Now that everything is online perhaps less so.

The Guardian has a nice piece about the general discussion and then there’s this very interesting declaration by the head of the Wellcome Trust:

“But the intervention of the Wellcome Trust, the largest non-governmental funder of medical research after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is likely to galvanise the movement by forcing academics it funds to publish in open online journals.


Sir Mark Walport, the director of Wellcome Trust, said that his organisation is in the final stages of launching a high calibre scientific journal called eLife that would compete directly with top-tier publications such as Nature and Science, seen by scientists as the premier locations for publishing. Unlike traditional journals, however, which cost British universities hundreds of millions of pounds a year to access, articles in eLife will be free to view on the web as soon as they are published.


He also said that the Wellcome Trust, which spends more than £600m on scientific research a year, would soon adopt a more robust approach with the scientists it funds, to ensure that results are freely available to the public within six months of first publication.


However, here’s the bit that really interests me:

Read and learn more

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Book, Everybody Wants To Be Your Friend!

The book industry has taken many knocks over the past few years due to the introduction of "digital" dynamics. But, the industry is now poised to sell more books in the near future than it has over the past 200 years, again due to the same "digital" dynamics! At least, that's what Bruce Upbin, a managing editor at Forbes, is intimating on their blog: Booked:

Two days ago I went to the O'Reilly Tools of Change Publishing conference at the Marriott in Times Square. It's a well-attended conference, focused on e-books, e-book readers and embracing digital change. While the last decade has not been pretty to the book industry--it has not grown in revenue much in the last six years (neither has the U.S. economy)--everyone wants to know what's next.

Twelve hundred people showed up at Tools of Change. Bookselling, after all, is going to change more in the next six years than in the previous 200. Many participants have gotten beat up by digital change, but at TOC 2010, everyone wants to be the book's friend: the vendors, the consultants, the keynoter thought-leaders. David "Skip" Pritchard, the chief executive of Ingram Content Group, gave a talk about embracing change. His business serves up the software for e-books and electronic libaries. He also got so friendly he threw what looked like a travel coffee mug into the audience to punctuate one of his ideas. People seemed more alert after that happened.

The highlight of the day was Arianna Huffington's keynoter, which went over embracing change and the Golden Age of Engagement. She ended with an invitation to the audience and all publishing industry people to come write for free on her book chat site. "Books don't end," she said. "Publication dates are meaningless." "Start saying something about your book." Right on, sister.

Well, we're a friend, too. We're a publisher ourselves! And we love books and conversations about big ideas and great stories. So, friends in the publishing industry, I heartily invite you to come blog for us, instead. We'll match Arianna's rates right here at Booked. You can have your own account and talk with your friends and the public about agenting, bookselling, book making, writing, criticizing, dreaming about fiction. We want your conversation. We're your friend.

Contact me or editor Michael Noer.