La Bene Vita

The Death of Reader's Digest

According to a Huffington Post article  , Reader's Digest magazine may not make it to next year. This after the impending death of Newsweek  . People just don't read words in print like they used to.

Folks, if you want to write professionally, you have to understand what people read. Like any business, it's about the revenue. It's about what people are willing to pay for. Sad as this is to say, there is no magic in being published. In fact, I'm published because I printed something I wrote one time. I think it's in my basement somewhere.

What is it that defines "publication" in the traditional sense? Having an ISBN? I could call myself a publisher and purchase a set of ISBNs from ISBN.org  . Having my book listed on Amazon? Anybody anywhere can sell anything on Amazon, so long as you're willing to pay the fee  .

When writers say they want to be published, they really mean that they want someone else to read their work, like it, and decide to invest in the book by paying all those fees on behalf of the author. That's nice, but it still doesn't guarantee the author will earn anything from the book, because it has to see revenue to earn royalties, and it has to sell to earn revenue.

So, it's really about sales. In fact, you could conceivably make more money - or earn more celebrity as an author - online than in print. Take Perez Hilton   as a case in point.

These days, communication is cheap and easy. I read an article recently that predicted the downfall of cable television. Why would we pay so much money for a service we can get free online, through the likes of Yahoo! (for news), Hulu (for shows), and Netflix (for movies)?

Of course, the fiction writer in me envisions a future in which technology fails. When our Armageddon occurs, when we have to start over farming our own food, finding clean water supplies, and building our own shelters from logs chopped in the woods instead of factory-cut timbers purchased at Lowes, how will we play our MP3s and read our classics? Our iPods and iPads won't do us any good without an Internet infrastructure and good ol' electricity.

I'm just sayin'.

But fortunately, I still have the publication of mine, in print, no electricity required, in my basement somewhere. Maybe someone will find it and read it someday.