Please welcome Laura Backes. She’s written a guest post for us about publishing. Thanks for contributing, Laura!
You’ve probably heard a million times that the publishing industry is dead or dying. After all, who really buys a book or a newspaper or even a magazine anymore? Why would you when you could just get it with much more ease online? With the drastic increase in technology products like Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and laptops, we have effectively eliminated any real need to buy a hard copy of anything. Because of that, we all are quick to tout that the publishing industry is rapidly dying if it’s not already dead. My response to that?
No it’s not.
Publishing, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “the business or profession of the commercial production and issuance of literature, information, musical scores or sometimes recordings, or art”. And we are all preconditioned to typically think of publishing in the usual tangible format because that’s how we were raised thinking of it. But nowhere in that definition does it state that publishing has to be a physically printed work.
Publishing isn’t going to die.
For as long as we continue to communicate in some form or another – and I’m going to wager that we’re not cutting that out any time soon – we’re going to continue to publish stuff, whether it comes in book form, e-book form, or whatever snazzy new technology is coming next.
By nature we are creatures who like to communicate with one another in a variety of different forms. In fact, we thrive on the prospect of it. And part of communicating is writing and part of writing is publishing.
Publishing is changing.
The difference now is that anyone can “publish” something. As blogs continue to grow and gain more popularity, more people are labeling themselves writers and then publishing their own work. And that right there is one of the major reasons that publishing is still of the utmost importance – because anyone can type up a post or an article or whatever and hit “submit”. But not everyone will get paid to do so. In fact, the only people that get paid are the ones who write well and are published by others because of that talent.
Traditional publishing will survive.
On top of that, e-books and internet sites won’t completely take over the publishing industry. Traditional publishing may take a hit, but there’s something magical about having a hard copy of a book and there will always be the people who love the feel of a glossy magazine cover beneath their fingertips. There is no substitution for flagging book pages, opening a newspaper to read with your morning coffee, and the feeling of joy that accompanies inheriting a worn copy of a favorite book from someone.
So publishing is not dead, it’s not even dying. It’s just changing and evolving – something that every profession is continually doing. After all, if they didn’t evolve we’d still be walking everywhere because we wouldn’t have the wheel.
Author Bio:
This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service providers in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8@gmail.com.
The Inspired Query Letter
Flashy Fiction – Under A Thousand
There is amazing insight into the publishing world in this great book.
This book really does answer a lot of questions without getting into too much detail. A good starting point for your studies of the publishing industry.
