Sunday, December 5, 2010

Seth Godin and Publishing

Do you know who Seth Godin is? If you don't you should. He literally wrote the book(s) on marketing in the digital age (12 NYT Best Sellers) - which has particular significance to writing. Why? Because publishing has been a dinosaur operating the same way it has for 100 years but it can no longer continue to do so. Like a snowball rolling down a hill the publishing executives are finally catching on that what has worked in the past, isn't necessary the best approach for the future.

I could fill this blog with a ton of entries filled with insights from this marketing giant, but I would like to focus on one item in particular. Although he has published 13 books through traditional publishing he won't be doing so any more.

Is he retiring? No, he will still continue to put out content, but he won't be using a publisher as a middleman. I suspect this means he'll be doing one or all of the the following:


  • Putting out information via his blog
  • Self-publishing with ebooks
  • Self-publishing print books

Instead of repeating everything he says, you can go read it for yourself here.

Now why am I bringing this up on this blog? Because he has some interesting things to say in particular about the differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing while you are there, I suggest you look Seth's body of work - a lot of what I talk about here is mirrored by him and if you implement even a fraction of the techniques he talks about you'll be hugely successful.

1 comment:

Lindsay Buroker said...

I read the Purple Cow and several others a few years ago. That one really stuck in my head, and I think it's applicable to novelists too.

There are a lot of good writers out there, so it's worth having something that makes your work remarkable and buzzworthy. Easier said than done of course. :)