Print is not dead, but it must evolve.
Wizard is dead. Long live Wizard.
Look at newspapers and magazines with the onset of radio: they drastically changed with larger headlines, larger images and shorter stories. When TV took off, they became the focus of in-depth pieces looking behind the scenes at what TV could only touch on. Now the internet makes traditional media seemingly superfluous with the constant and instantaneous updates of bloggers.
If print wants to survive it has to adapt.
First, maintain integrity. Newspaper typos have gone up in recent years and magazines focus too much on paparazzo. Readers already have bad grammar laden rumors on the internet, they don't need print for that.
Second, move to less often printings: daily papers need to be weekly, weekly rags should be monthly, and monthly magazines should be quarterly. This would allow more in-depth pieces to be written about subjects that non-paid bloggers can only put partially-informed snippits of. This has already worked for publications like Time and Life. Breaking gigantic stories could call for more immediate printings, like the afternoon editions that were printed on 9/11.
Third, you can't charge the customers, instead charge the advertisers. Things survive today on word of mouth, look at the rash of indie films that have succeeded based on positive feedback in social networks. Can this work for print? I've said before, it already does for magazines like the Austin Chronicle. Everyone I know who visits Austin, reads the Chronicle, but none of them go out and buy a paper.
Fourth, and here's where it gets painful: go digital. Print is eternal, in the sense that we preserve and laud thousand-year-old manuscripts, 200-year-old first editions and 60-year-old comic books. We need print, if for no other reason then our cultural history. But, that doesn't have to be the be all and end all. Publish online, or better, publish to a specific (and purchasable) app, but make it worth people's while. If the stories aren't good, if the details aren't there, if customers have to be nickel-and-dimed every week, it won't catch on. It should cost something in some way: free news on newspaper websites is killing newspapers, but charging memberships is pointless as long as the same information is on a competitor's news site. Find the unique angles with quality writers, then have year-long, inexpensive memberships. It may be a drop in the bucket for the company, but remember what I said earlier: charge the advertisers.
These methods won't work for every publication, but that's kind of the point. This is the time for two types of publications: major, reputable publications that people want to return to again and again, and smaller, indie presses, who can promote themselves worldwide with the web and print on demand for customers.
Print can survive, but it has to want it.
Look at newspapers and magazines with the onset of radio: they drastically changed with larger headlines, larger images and shorter stories. When TV took off, they became the focus of in-depth pieces looking behind the scenes at what TV could only touch on. Now the internet makes traditional media seemingly superfluous with the constant and instantaneous updates of bloggers.
If print wants to survive it has to adapt.
First, maintain integrity. Newspaper typos have gone up in recent years and magazines focus too much on paparazzo. Readers already have bad grammar laden rumors on the internet, they don't need print for that.
Second, move to less often printings: daily papers need to be weekly, weekly rags should be monthly, and monthly magazines should be quarterly. This would allow more in-depth pieces to be written about subjects that non-paid bloggers can only put partially-informed snippits of. This has already worked for publications like Time and Life. Breaking gigantic stories could call for more immediate printings, like the afternoon editions that were printed on 9/11.
Third, you can't charge the customers, instead charge the advertisers. Things survive today on word of mouth, look at the rash of indie films that have succeeded based on positive feedback in social networks. Can this work for print? I've said before, it already does for magazines like the Austin Chronicle. Everyone I know who visits Austin, reads the Chronicle, but none of them go out and buy a paper.
Fourth, and here's where it gets painful: go digital. Print is eternal, in the sense that we preserve and laud thousand-year-old manuscripts, 200-year-old first editions and 60-year-old comic books. We need print, if for no other reason then our cultural history. But, that doesn't have to be the be all and end all. Publish online, or better, publish to a specific (and purchasable) app, but make it worth people's while. If the stories aren't good, if the details aren't there, if customers have to be nickel-and-dimed every week, it won't catch on. It should cost something in some way: free news on newspaper websites is killing newspapers, but charging memberships is pointless as long as the same information is on a competitor's news site. Find the unique angles with quality writers, then have year-long, inexpensive memberships. It may be a drop in the bucket for the company, but remember what I said earlier: charge the advertisers.
These methods won't work for every publication, but that's kind of the point. This is the time for two types of publications: major, reputable publications that people want to return to again and again, and smaller, indie presses, who can promote themselves worldwide with the web and print on demand for customers.
Print can survive, but it has to want it.