Richard Nash on the future of publishing
In my next venture, how would I reconcile the traditional author-agent-publisher-printer-warehouse-wholesaler-retailer-reader supply chain with the potential power of the Internet as a platform? I say “as a platform” to distinguish from how most publishers currently use the Internet—mostly as a logistics and marketing tool. Working with my friend and fellow publisher, Dedi Felman, what emerged from my research is a model that to some will seem unconscionably radical, to others unconscionably conservative: a business that properly avails itself of all the tools that now exist to enable the creation of writing and reading communities from which all else emanates—print books, downloads, marketing and publicity, editorial services—and, of course, revenue.
author-agent-publisher-printer-warehouse-wholesaler-retailer-reader?
How about author-1p2u.com-reader?
1p2u.com says:
”
What is 1p2U?
It lets your readers pay you to write your blog!
“
It’s pretty rare to have successful independent bloggers. Either they become a corporation, like Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, or they make a deal with a corporation, like Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic. I don’t think the structure will ever be as flat as creative<->fan. There’s always going to be at least one layer in the middle for the impressario.
Who needs success?
If even a small fraction of your readers feel your writing is worth the encouragement of a penny to keep it coming, then that’s some small persuasion above and beyond blogging for the love of it.
And sure, it’s turtles all the way down. Aggregators can be encouraged by their readers just as much as those who they aggregate – even by the aggregators themselves. If there’s an opportunity for an intermediating impresario, excellent.
The intuition is good: instead of being a gatekeeper for a gate that has already been crashed, Nash is trying to found new cities and make money by having shops.
But then what are the monetizable points in the new framework? I 100% believe that this is a business, it’s just that the whole thing is so unknown that the revenues are hard to predict.