Publishing: The Traditional Marketplace of Ideas

• Ideas as power that grow with adoption and adaptation
• Success comes in being read
  1. Mediated path to readers: traditional publishers
     (a) filters (recognize valuable idea)
     (b) financers (fund the packaging of the idea)
     (c) distributors (get the package into the world)
     
  2. Unmediated path to readers: the Web
     (a) more sophisticated filters possible
     (b) financial barrier to entry minimal
     (c) superior distribution and access capabilities
     
• No going solo on the Net: We are what we are by relation
  
  1. W. H. Auden on S. Freud: "He is no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion"
     
  2. Content into Context
     
• Web as meritocracy of mind
  
  1. John Perry Barlow (multitudinous unfiltered author)
     
  2. Justin Hall: editor as author as publisher
     
• Is it *really* only book products that are a publisher's business?
  
  1. Using the Web just to sell book products makes publishers into marketers
     
  2. What's inside?
     
  3. How do you sell an ephemeral idea?
     (a) emerging micro royalty models
     (b) retainer basis: custom thought
     

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The Fine Line Between Publishing and Marketing
Copyright © 1996–2024 by Laura Fillmore; written permission required to reprint.
laura@obs.com