Self-publishing in the Digital Age

March 23, 2011

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past fifteen years or so, you've sensed at least that the Internet (of which the World Wide Web is the most visible part) has been responsible for a fundamental shift in the world of publishing. I'm not talking about traditional publishing using printed words on paper, I'm talking about individuals being able to publish on their own.

This began with personal pages and evolved into web logs (blogs). Anyone can get their opinions out there, whether anyone else reads them or not. But web sites are not limited to publishing snippets of text such as what you're reading right now. Sites can publish news, opinions, detailed analyses, scientific research, manuscripts, entire books, songs, whole albums, concert footage, even movies if they can afford the bandwidth. And the traditional gatekeepers—deciders of who gets published and who does not—are being sidelined by the increasing refinement of the ways in which content is produced and delivered.

Here is a rather long, but insightful conversation between authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, largely revolving around the topic of self-publishing books in digital form. Barry Eisler recently turned down a $500K traditional publishing deal, instead publishing his book digitally. I think he and Joe are onto something, do you agree?

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