The latest issue of InPublishing magazine was published this week (if you want to be added to our free mailing list for future issues, register here).
As always, there was loads to enjoy, learn from and be inspired by, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
For me, I took away four key messages from this issue:
1. There is such a thing as over-paid: Peter Mandelson famously said that he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. We as an industry, however, should be concerned about widening pay differentials between those at the top and those further down.
2. Two essential words for profitable publishing are ‘why’ and ‘no’: it’s all too easy to publish simply because we can. A print magazine does not have to have a website. Ask ‘why’ before you start publishing on any given channel. If there’s no compelling reason, then don’t do it. As for ‘no’, if you’re the kind of boss to say ‘yes’ to everything, then your company faces financial ruin and you face a nervous breakdown.
3. We must practice what we preach: by our very nature, publishers put themselves on a higher moral plane; we sit in judgement. This is not necessarily a bad thing, unless that is, we fall short ourselves. Plagiarism and byline banditry are a stain on our reputation.
4. Forensically analyse your content and how your readers consume it: it’s all too easy to continue to publish content the same way we always have, but with consumer behaviour changing so rapidly and fundamentally, we all need to assess every component of our output, its wordcount, layout, structure and pacing, to make sure it’s fit for purpose.
Finally, best wishes for a relaxing, restful and not-too-calorific Easter weekend.
