The Writing on the Wall
Written by John Erianne on November 19, 2008 – 6:52 pm -Recently, I mentioned the Christian Science Monitor’s recent decision to end it’s daily print publication and transform into a fully digital publication. Today, I was reading the first part of a two-part interview with CSM’s editor-in-chief, John Yemma explaining the decision. According to Yemma, “. . . the writing [was] on the wall . . . , the Internet user patterns and reader preferences [are] changing the business model of print. Print [is] becoming increasingly untenable, especially for the Monitor, which has an international audience. We just don’t have enough reach with our print product, but we have great reach with our web product.”
Basically, he was saying what I’ve long said to writers who balked at seeing their work published online. Alhough a small press literary publication isn’t the same thing as the CSM in terms of genre or circulation, a print literary publication cannot compete with an ezine in terms of exposure. Aside from printing costs and other expenses related to print publishing, it’s a lot of work to distribute and sell a print literary periodical. The circulation is typically small and takes some time to sell-out an issue. Typically, much of what is circulated goes unsold and unread. The typical ezine has an international reach that is difficult, if not absolutely impossible for most print literary zines to manage. Whether you are a writer or a publisher, there are clear advantages to Internet publishing. The fact that a mainstream publishing organization is wising up to this should serve as a kind of epiphany for those in the print media who are holding-out for some kind of miracle that would preserve their world.
This post is sponsored by Leptovox.
