If you want to know why book publishers will continue to survive in the era of the Kindle, self-publishing and ebooks, just read this article: 55 Digital Branding Tips for Authors<\/a>. It’s a lot for an author to take on. <\/p>\n And if that’s not enough to make the point, read David Gaughran’s Let Get Digital<\/a> and see the list of all the things he says self-published authors need to know. Here’s a partial list.<\/a><\/p>\n It’s a lot<\/i> of stuff. Some of it is technical, but some is the sort of thing that you either like or you don’t like. It’s stuff that pushes people out of their comfort zone. Some writers will jump right in, while others will read a list like that and say, “ew. Never mind. I just want to write.” So if being a Twit-face-insta-tumblr pro is the entrance fee, they won’t pay it. <\/p>\n Some few<\/i> people will be good authors and will also<\/i> be able to do all that social media and branding stuff. I suspect those people are the current rock stars of the self-publishing world. They can write, and they can also play the game. <\/p>\n But there is no reason to believe that those two skills — good storyteller on the one hand, and good social media \/ Amazon whiz kid on the other — will go together in most or even in many cases. Rather, it’s almost a dead certainty that these skills will specialize. And when they do, where<\/i> will they specialize? <\/p>\n In publishing houses, of course. <\/p>\n The publishing house can afford to hire the guy who hates social media but knows cover design like nobody’s business. And across the hall from him is the analytic expert who knows how to beat the Amazon algorithms, but would never be caught dead on Twitter. <\/p>\n This is the way things go. As time goes on, skills specialize. For example, there was a time — maybe 200 years ago — when a man could be pretty well educated in most subjects. Somebody like Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson could keep up with intellectual developments in a wide variety of fields. But as knowledge increased, people had to specialize. <\/p>\n Today, a scientist may be an expert on one very small area and know almost nothing about anything else, or a historian may know all there is to know about farmers in 1820s France, but know very little about the rest of history. <\/p>\n Early in the ebook revolution a few talented souls could know enough<\/i> about a lot of different topics and become self-publishing rock stars. As digital publishing evolves, that will be less and less possible, and that’s why we’ll need publishing houses that can hire experts in all the little specialties. <\/p>\n If you enjoy The Krehbiel Report on Publishing,<\/i> please pass it along to your friends and colleagues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can self-published authors really do all this? If you want to know why book publishers will continue to survive in the era of the Kindle, self-publishing and ebooks, just read this article: 55 Digital Branding Tips for Authors. It’s a lot for an author to take on. And if that’s not enough to make the …<\/p>\nPlease pass this along<\/h2>\n
![Here’s a partial list.<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s a lot<\/i> of stuff. Some of it is technical, but some is the sort of thing that you either like or you don’t like. It’s stuff that pushes people out of their comfort zone. Some writers will jump right in, while others will read a list like that and say, “ew. Never mind. I just want to write.” So if being a Twit-face-insta-tumblr pro is the entrance fee, they won’t pay it. <\/p>\nSome few<\/i> people will be good authors and will also<\/i> be able to do all that social media and branding stuff. I suspect those people are the current rock stars of the self-publishing world. They can write, and they can also play the game. <\/p>\nBut there is no reason to believe that those two skills — good storyteller on the one hand, and good social media \/ Amazon whiz kid on the other — will go together in most or even in many cases. Rather, it’s almost a dead certainty that these skills will specialize. And when they do, where<\/i> will they specialize? <\/p>\nIn publishing houses, of course. <\/p>\nThe publishing house can afford to hire the guy who hates social media but knows cover design like nobody’s business. And across the hall from him is the analytic expert who knows how to beat the Amazon algorithms, but would never be caught dead on Twitter. <\/p>\nThis is the way things go. As time goes on, skills specialize. For example, there was a time — maybe 200 years ago — when a man could be pretty well educated in most subjects. Somebody like Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson could keep up with intellectual developments in a wide variety of fields. But as knowledge increased, people had to specialize. <\/p>\nToday, a scientist may be an expert on one very small area and know almost nothing about anything else, or a historian may know all there is to know about farmers in 1820s France, but know very little about the rest of history. <\/p>\nEarly in the ebook revolution a few talented souls could know enough<\/i> about a lot of different topics and become self-publishing rock stars. As digital publishing evolves, that will be less and less possible, and that’s why we’ll need publishing houses that can hire experts in all the little specialties. <\/p>\nPlease pass this along<\/h2>\nIf you enjoy The Krehbiel Report on Publishing,<\/i> please pass it along to your friends and colleagues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can self-published authors really do all this? If you want to know why book publishers will continue to survive in the era of the Kindle, self-publishing and ebooks, just read this article: 55 Digital Branding Tips for Authors. It’s a lot for an author to take on. And if that’s not enough to make the …<\/p>\nContinue reading ‘Feb. 16, Why publishing companies will survive’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"crowhill.net\/images\/what-a-self-publisher-needs.jpg\"){kind=link}