Publishing -Electronic and Paper based
Publishing
Publishing has changed forever in the 21st Century.
Print Media (Magazines, Books, Newspapers) no longer has the dominance it once had. With the coming of computers, and in particular the internet, it is now possible for virtually anyone to publish their own electronic publication. Even printed publications are easier and cheaper to publish than in the past, using a computer to write and compile pages, and either a computer printer (for small print runs) or a commercial; printer (for larger print runs) to produce the hard copy.
Book and Magazine publishers have suffered since the late 1990's as these changes have provided increasing competition. Large Print Media publishers are unlikely to disappear though, for several reasons.
Commercially viable Publishing involves a range of skills, and it is rare to find individuals who can do the lot. Producing the work is only part of the job. Marketing and physically moving a publication from publisher to consumer are huge tasks requiring a great deal of expertise.
Self Publishing
Self publishing can be viable provided you have a reliable market for what you publish. A large part of success in publishing is to be able to sell adequate numbers of the publication; and this is most commonly where self publishers fail.
If you have a large clientele already buying something else from you; it may be OK to self publish; but if not, you should do a lot of work to establish a distribution network before spending money on editing, layout and printing.
ACS Conduct a series of Courses in Publishing. For details click here.
[04/12/2008 20:08:16]
