This issue is about markets for ideas and why the current model of book publishing cannot cope with uncertainty in content and audience. Alternative publishing business models might
- Focus on the higher-uncertainty parts of the conventional publishing value proposition: a) finding authors; b) developing embryonic content into monetizable product; c) producing normally unviable content,
- Reduce the cost of the lower-uncertainty parts of the conventional publishing value proposition—like production and distribution—by using non-legacy workflows and processes,
- Concentrate on a long-term view of audience development by finding and developing book content that appeals to diverse, fragmented, and/or emerging audiences,
- Explore both traditional and non-traditional formats for releasing said content, such as writing,
- Develop book content and marketing through aggressively monetizing work-in-progress,
- Build book-level business models around the expectation of monetizing both intermediate and final work product.
You can find it here: #43: A new market of ideas