At a time when more people interested in technology are getting their content fix from the Web, it seems that everyone is writing a book these days. Among the people who have written or now writing a book include:
Tara Hunt, who’s now moving to Montreal, and working on second book after recently completing The Whuffle Factor; popular cartoonist Hugh MacLeod (How to be Creative), Doc Searls, Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation) and Chris Brogan (Trust Agents).
It is interesting to see so many people so excited about writing books, and so many publishers excited about publishing books. It may be that the high-tech world is going through such exciting change these days with the emergence of new things such as social media that many people feel the need to articulate their thoughts and ideas to a receptive audience.
Another explanation could be that blogging has created a DIY creation culture in which people who would have never thought about writing a book are now getting the opportunity to do so because they been working on their writing chops for the past few years, built an audience, and shown publishers there may be a market.
Having written a book about high-tech investing that, unfortunately, was published just as the dot-com boom went bust, I can tell you that writing a book a labour of love. It’s a lot of hard work that burns up a lot of hours. While many authors make little money from writing books, they can serve as great marketing tools if you’re trying to build a personal brand in a competitive space.
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9 Comments
You are right. I think that the complete access to information and the ability to self-publish a book has given many the ability to write a book; even if they make little to no money.
-ramonbnuezjr.com
Hey Mark! Sorry I missed you at SES the other day. I'll be back often, though.
Glad to see you coming back to the MotherLand!
Mark, just an unrelated question: What are your thoughts on the recent Canada 3.0 Forum? Were you able to attend? Would be great to get your take on what the movers and shakers in Canadian digital media are planning on doing.
I wasn't able to attend Canada 3.0 but it's a good development that people are talking about now to drive digital media in Canada, and that there's seems to be a lot of investment in the works to help make that happen.
Great post Mark (and great seeing you at SES).
I think there are still plenty of businesspeople (and this includes entrepreneurs) who have heard about this space and have – maybe – given it a glance or two, but really don't understand the business implications of it. That's the reason I wrote Six Pixels of Separation. I've been saying that my book is the prelude to my Blog and Twitter feed. I wrote mine in hopes of reaching the audience that still relies on their industry trade magazines, the daily newspaper, etc.. to get their info. I wanted to "talk" to a different group and wanted to reach them with a media channel they still use.
As for the "authors make little money", I think it depends on who your agent is and the publisher. Beyond that, if I would have thought like that way back when I started Blogging, I would never be where I am today. Whether it's a book or a Blog, the idea is not to monetize that specific mode of communication, but to use that to increase your business and profile. I'm pretty proud of the fact that my Blog makes me zero dollars. When I started, I had zero employees. Now, Twist Image is up to nearly 80 people with two office and multi-national accounts. I like that business model. Do you think you would be where you are with projects like the mesh conference, had you not Blogged for free for all of those years?
Agreed that doing things such as blogging and writing books offers a lot of rewards other than money. The opportunities to meet new people and do different things is something that doesn't get as much attention as it should. Looking forward to reading Six Pixels.
Mark
… and even if you did not agree, at least you inspired me this morning:
http://tr.im/og96
Thanks Mark
Tell you what I think it is: now that we all can publish and build platforms, we all get a better chance at proving why a book would work for us. I think publishers get a better chance to guess whether we've got a plan and can make something happen.
Either that or we're all just lucky. : )