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It seems every industry that involves the printed word is in flux right now.  Newspapers struggle to reinvent an old media business model in a new media age.  Publishers seek to find a balance between books and digital content.  Meanwhile, the writers and journalists that fuel the industry try and figure out their place moving forward.  A difficult time to be a writer of any sort to say the least.

One thing becoming clear is that as new media continues to evolve and become the norm writers will become more singular.  That is to say, they'll be afforded a future of self-representaton instead of being "handled" by a large publishing company or newspaper.  Of course, corporations will always have their J.K. Rowlings and Stephen Kings while newspapers (online or otherwise) will have a bullpen of top journalists but we'll begin to see independent writers gaining more attention.

In the past it was corporations who decided which writers and journalists would get mass exposure.  The cream rose to the top, but was that all there was?  Were we to believe news outlets like CNN and publishers like Penguin had found all the talent there was?  Hardly.  As the Internet becomes more social it begins to level the playing field for everyone in the industry.  How so?  Digital distribution.

No longer are writers agonizing over trying to have a big company deem their work worthy of mass distribution.  With the Internet, anyone can publish their content, have the world as their audience, and maybe even make some cash.  This doesn't guarantee success by any means, but it affords writers one of the best tools that the brick-and-mortar publishers had a lock on for years - distribution.

Don't take my word for it though.  SciFi site io9 spoke with author Michael Stackpole about just that.  An established author, Stackpole gave a seminar in which he made his thoughts very clear:

"Stackpole is convinced that both established and fledgling authors need to embrace new content delivery methods or fade into irrelevance. In fact, he offered evidence that digital publishing will not only be necessary for authors, but that it will work in their favor."

That's a pretty definitive statement.  With the ease of which anyone can get content online these days it makes sense.  Moreover, online publishing allows writers to put anything they want up.  A writer no longer has to pound out an entire novel to be considered for publishing.  Instead, they can dabble in any genre (short stories, poetry, screenplays) and put it out for the masses to consume.  This leads to the question of payment.  How do you determine what is worth charging money for and what you give away for free?

As a writer I can tell you I've create reams of material over the years.  Most of this is really just work product, ideas and concepts I've written then repurposed for other projects.  Some, however, are just random blips of creativity (at least I think it's creative).  These items I'd never submit for professional publication but they do have value.  By publishing items such as these online it allows me to build an audience on my own terms and perhaps more importantly at my own pace.

This begs the question: can you make a living at it?  Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that would dictate one's success at finding a career in writing.  Simply put, an unmarried, single author with no dependants is going to find it easier to pay bills then a married, mortgage-paying father of two like myself.  I would need a bigger return to cover costs then my single guy example which makes things more difficult.  Stackpole sheds some light on what that rate of return is like when compared to traditional publishing:

"Selling stories directly though his website generates a payment before the buyer has even finished downloading the story, and the profit margin on even a short story is far higher than on a paper novel. By comparison, the lag time on payments for sales of a hard copy novel is six to nine months, and even then he pretty much has to take the publisher's word for it that the accounting is accurate."

What this does is put more control in the writer's hands; allowing them to see exactly how much their content is generating online.  Further, the intervals of payments is condensed considerably making cash flow much easier to manage and no more waiting "six to nine months" for a pay cheque to come in.  I have my doubts anyone can really make a substantial living at publishing solely online but it does provide a potentially consistent means of supplemental income.

Make no mistake, I don't think for a second online publishing is going to undermine traditional publishers.  What it does do is make a direct connection between the audience and the writer.  Authors and journalists are able to put their stories in the hands of the readers.  In turn, the readers will ultimately decide success or failure.  If you're good the audience will grow and publishers will take notice.  If you're not so good, well, there's value in all this as well.  The online community can be an incredible learning tool and often very willing to help people in a particular field (in this case writing) become better.  Criticism is never easy to accept but it will make you a better writer.

The publishing and news industry will struggle through this transition for years to come.  In the end though I believe we will enter a place where the market will determine who's successful and not a corporation.  Writers will have the power to get their content out to people and potentially make some money while waiting for that phone call from Penguin or CNN to come work for them.

I encourage you to read the full interview with Michael Stackpole as he also speaks about literary piracy and how digital distribution is shaping the content itself.  Be sure to check out the comments as well as Stackpole's comments started quite in interesting discussion.  A great read!

• Die Piraten haben die Hosen voll und hängen ihre Piratenhüte an den Nagel.. Sie haben einen Glücksritter gefunden, der etwas Spielgeld übrig hat (total für beide Käufe mindestens 11 Mio. Franken in bar) und hofft, vom Bekanntheitsgrad der Pirate Bay zu profitieren. Indizien dafür sind die schwammige Beschreibung des neuen Businessmodells und der Umstand, dass der Bargeld-Teil des Deals genau der Schadenersatzforderung des Prozesses entspricht.

• Die zweite Möglichkeit ist etwas abenteuerlicher. Das Hauptproblem der Pirate Bay ist der Tracker, weil das ein mehr oder weniger zentraler Dienst ist, den die Piraten selber betreiben. So werden sie angreifbar, technisch und juristisch. Evtl. wollen sie das ändern, dezentralisieren, verteilen. Peerialism könnte technologische Hilfe bieten. GGF wäre dann eher so etwas wie eine legitime Front, die Versprechen der Legalisierung nur Vernebelungstaktik und Spiel auf Zeit. Indizien für diese Theorie: In ihrem Blog-Eintrag reden die Piraten davon, "to evolve the protocols" und "everybody can be the owner". Und Torrentfreak schreibt, dass der Tracker abgeschaltet werden soll und: "[T]he site will use a new torrent hosting service that will store the torrents for them. This new hosting service will be open to other torrent sites as well and can be accessed through an API."

Pirate Bay hisst in Italien wieder die Segel (Heise)