Writing, ghostwriters and publishers just aren’t what they used to be. The industry, of course, shows a few bright spots here and there, but its nature has dramatically changed.
For one thing, print publishers can no longer afford to print with the same abandon as in the past, or spend tens of thousands of dollars on hotel bookings and air fares for every major book campaign. This has been a business model long in decline. Replacing it are online publishers of every variety. And they’re churning out content on an even grander scale, with less than a fraction of the cost.
It seems everything is getting “published” these days. The good, the bad, the vain—makes no difference as long as it sells, or leads to a sale. The Internet has opened up unprecedented possibilities for self-expression. All you need is some optimization savvy, good ranking on the search engines…and, presto, you’re a publisher.
Given the possibilities, only an addlebrained blogger or independent web publisher would complain about “Athens on the Net,” as New York Times op-ed writer Anand Giridharadas dubbed the democratizing impact of the Internet. Technology has simply transformed the way we think, communicate, read, write and publish. But there’s more to it than that.
In the 1970s, rising costs began to force print publishers and writers alike to give more than just lip service to planning and forethought. A great development—considering how many trees were being cut down to print all those books. That is, until the Internet came into being and marketing became everyone’s sole obsession.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the Internet—the Web. What troubles me is how the marketing of content is supplanting content itself and pretty much determining what gets read. I’m not exactly sure what this augurs for either our intellectual level or the democracy we are supposed to thrive in.
All I know is that it’s gotten much harder to find good content, and I don’t just mean of the literary kind. Copywriting is in the boondocks too. Businesses consider attracting and nurturing copywriting talent passé. Writers and editors used to be the stuff of the book industry, but many publishers feel the same about them nowadays.
As a professional ghostwriter and freelance editor, I don’t feel that any of this has necessarily worked to my disadvantage. I try to maintain a healthy balance between quality and affordability with my offerings to clients. What I find regrettable is how fast the old process, which went from idea to copy to market, has shrunk to a shadow of its former self. Online publishers prefer to plunge straight from idea into market, assuming there’s an idea to begin with.
In circumstances like these writing risks becoming a lost art.
Still, there’s a silver lining to this never-ending story. Mediocre e-books at least don’t eat up whole the forests, as mediocre paperbacks once did. If only Dan Brown could switch to virtual publishing! In principle, poor content should leave no carbon fingerprint. But hold on! Nothing is for free.
What if we could calculate the fossil-fuel input of “e-content”? Computers permanently on, a download here, a click there…it adds up, you know? Have you ever considered the carbon footprint of your finger-tapping?
Maybe the answer is simply to make a better effort at thinking more deeply about what we write before sending its million-fold impressions into cyberspace.
Take heart! Democracy is still “the worst system, except for all the others.” Someday, when we look back, this period of history may seem only like our first waddle into the digital age.
The future is pregnant with possibility. We just have to grow wiser as we move along.
Anthony F. Shaker, PhD, has been ghostwriting and editing for 25 years. He is fluent in several languages, has traveled widely around the world and has written in many areas, both fiction and nonfiction. He works for individual clients and companies both large and small. To learn more about AFS Wordstead, go to www.wordstead.com. Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/a-few-good-reasons-why-you-should-think-before-you-write-1682628.html
afshaker@aol.com
