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RSSMonday Note looks at how long-form journalism could become profitable by marrying it with e-text:
Last winter, I came up with a book project that had the attributes of decent journalistic work: an angle, a narrative, sound fact-based demonstrations, etc. (Unsurprisingly, it had something to do with the themes I’m addressing in the Monday Note). Everything sounded OK, I had an editor (in the Anglo-Saxon sense, i.e. the person who takes 2% of the retail price to help with the delivery of a book through the likes of Marines boot camp techniques). For good and bad motives (a series of overseas trips, a complicated work schedule and an all too human propensity to procrastinate), I put the issue to rest for of a couple of months. When I went back to the manuscript, roughly a third of the 5000 words synopsis was already out of date, with many facts no longer relevant, aging data and so on. The book could be finished by, say, next October, with an early 2011 publication schedule. I had to face it: factually speaking, this work would have been a piteous piece of out-of-date journalism.
The concept of book publishing needs an upgrade. It has to be reconsidered in order to take advantage of the digital medium. (Not all sorts of books of course, I’m mostly talking about non-fiction, news-related items here).
Monday Note: Profitable Long Form Journalism
(via Jay Rosen)
