Wordful» Publishing

My Vision for Wordful

Charles — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:34:22 +0000

I’ve taken a major break from blogging here at Wordful, and it’s in large part to some serious shifts in my personal and professional life over the past year. To make a very long and (painful) story short—the down economy and a few other issues forced me to to shutter my office and consultancy and venture to San Francisco to find “a real job.”

On May 6 of last year, I kissed my wife and kids goodbye and left Kona for San Jose on a one-way ticket with $50 in my pocket. My sister picked me up and the next day my dad drove me up to the city, where I met up a good high school friend of mine who works at Google. I’m still sleeping on his floor.

After a character-building two months of deep hustling, I got hired at a startup as their first marketing guy. Since then, I’ve cut my teeth at startup life, and now about to crush it for them with some content marketing. I plan to bring the family up in by June.

But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about my dream and vision for Wordful—the one that refuses to die. Every time I think about being a “company guy”–basically working for someone else indefinitely, I keep reverting back to Wordful. Aside from my family, it’s all I got. I have to do this.

Wordful will be an online publishing network

Much like AOL or PopSugar or Federated Media, Wordful will be comprised of various web properties that earn revenue through ads, products, memberships, conferences and more. I plan to build a great deal of brand equity around each of these sites, with all roads leading to the Wordful brand.

How I will accomplish this

I have no capital to work with, so right now it’s all bootstrapping. And that starts very basic, very simple: write. Write, write, write, write, write. 1,000 words a day to start, until I am in full command of the flow of content, then start outreaching, networking and publicizing.

I’m also going to start with building only one site and no more. I need to force myself to zero in on a single project without falling for shiny object syndrome. I have a fairly good idea which site I want to do (think video + Drudge Report style in a spectacular, action-packed sexy niche.)

So yeah, Wordful is back!

My Vision for Wordful is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

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Is Great Content Finally Coming of Age?

Charles — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:25:40 +0000

What do you think: is the Internet more about content or more about technology? So far, the answer is obvious. By taking a simplistic, macro view of the largest companies to dominate the computer and information age, you can easily conclude that it’s been about technology:

Microsoft: make it easy to use computers
Google: make it easy to use the Internet
Facebook: make it easy to share things with people

This isn’t a bad thing, of course. It’s a necessary thing. This conversation we’re having now, this blog, your email, our tweets—none of it would exist without technology. But if so much time, money and energy has been put into building the ultimate content delivery platform, why is the web still a cesspool of content? Why are so many sites hitting the top spots in Google serving up the products of content farms and worthless info marketing products, aka hot steaming piles of spam? Isn’t is time for the “real” writers, editors and publishers to finally apply their centuries-old craft to the less-than-three-decades old digital age?

Do we leave it to Shakespeare to make the call?

It was only a matter of time before someone had to bring up the master of excellent content William Shakespeare. Consider the story of Henry IV, Part I:

Prince Henry, indolent son of King Henry, did little more than drink and party with his vagrant friends in the seedy taverns of London. It’s all fun and games until Henry gets called back to royal court by his father to save him from an overthrow. In the ensuing battle, Henry defeats the leader of the uprising in single combat, saves his father’s life and assumes his proper birthright as Prince.

Prince Henry represents content on the Internet—where it is now (drunk and irresponsible in a shady bar) and where it inevitably must go (to battle to restore its integrity and title as King). Listen up: it’s only a matter of time before the such dazzling technology gets commonplace and we begin to wonder what it was all for in the first place. Content is the life of the web. Let’s make it so. Photo from here.

Is Great Content Finally Coming of Age? is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

Coming Soon: Blogging 3.0

The Internet is Begging for Curators: Are You In?

Charles — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 03:19:13 +0000

The amount of content on the web is now so abundant that it’s begging everyday users to jump in and start curating what they consume. One such service is paper.li, an online “newspaper” that anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account can plug in to. It gathers and sorts through the links shared in the past 24 hours and creates a webpage that looks like a WordPress news site with your chosen name across the top (like The Wordful Daily). Across the top of your “newspaper” is a navigation bar with different categories, like Technology, Business, Travel, etc. —just like a real newspaper. Ads are served, as is a Google search box, social sharing and embed tools and an “editor’s note” area.

Content Curation vs. Just Sharing

There are three choices of feeds you can pick to create your newspaper: your entire Twitter feed, feeds only marked with a designated #hashtag, or feeds from a Twitter list. Average users looking to impress (whoever) will probably pick the first choice, where paper.li pulls anything and everything from your Twitter feed and spits it out as a rather big and cluttered mashup of other people’s content.

Screen shot of my newspaper made from my entire Twitter feed, above the fold. It scrolls for a long time. More content = less value.

To me this option is worthless because the editorial strategy being executed is based purely on algorithm. Without human intelligence or choosing, I don’t see much value to readers who would be forced once again to sift through heaps of stories and headline screaming for their attention. The list feature returns similar results, but with a little more specificity. If you’ve created a list of, say, highly influential people in your niche, you could publish some something a little more focused. But not totally, because you have no control over which links they end up choosing. The obvious choice if you want to really serve up relevant content to go with the option where only tweets marked with a certain #hashtag are extracted. I didn’t test this feature out yet, but theoretically you could have total control over what you’re sharing. This option really gets down to the essence of editing and curating content. The idea of paper.li is to have a central place where you can republish links to things you feel are worth sharing, which it seems to allow.

It’s Good but Lacks Something Vital

One of the challenges I see, however, is getting people to actually click on yet another link (to your paper)…one that takes them to yet another truckload of content. You’d have to establish some sort of trusted and likable editorial authority among your social peers in order for them to read your daily newspaper. Otherwise, who cares? Paper.li and a similar service for the iPad called Flipboard are a good start to better content curation for a place that’s quickly turning into a teeming and formless mass of content. Kind of like The Blob. But they seem to be missing something. I think they’re missing the people who have enough control over what they consume to effectively share it with others. Everyone seems to be drowning in content these days. We haven’t caught up to this technology yet. Will we ever?

The Internet is Begging for Curators: Are You In? is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

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Going Surfing at the Affiliate Improv! Session at Affiliate Summit West

Charles — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 02:35:59 +0000

The idea of the Affiliate Improv! session was to choose one idea from the audience for an affiliate marketing brainstorming session among five expert panelists: Daniel Clark, Andrew Bennett, Mike Buechele, Jen Goode and Wade Tonkin. As fate would have it, my topic of surfing got chosen to be featured. I’ve always wanted to start a niche surfing site but still haven’t gotten around to it—partly because Surfline seems to offer everything you’d ever want in a surfing website. Well, almost everything. I feel the problem with Surfline is that they’re exclusively focused on the dreamy, sexy, professional surfer lifestyle that is—let’s face it—reserved for the most lucky and elite. I’m more interested in a surfing site that caters to the average, everyday surfer like me or the local guys I surf with here in Hawaii. So what did the experts say?

Have an Ultra-Creative Content Strategy

We agreed that the site should get people participating in an online surf community that makes them feel important (Surfline definitely does not do this — I feel like such a kook when I watch their videos!).

The panel minus Daniel Clark, who had the mic

The best way to do this would be to turn over the content—and the voice—of the site over to the surfers themselves. This could include podcast interviews with everyday surfers sharing their stories and knowledge, or perhaps user-submitted photos, videos and articles. Whatever makes them feel important. One way to get higher quality content would be to incentivize “the ask.” In other words, I could offer to pay surfer-contributors for their content if it meets my editorial criteria. Under this model, which I like, I serve more as site editor than a one-man content production show. Whew. This would actually free up my time to focus on selecting content that actually wows people. Too often user–submitted media lacks editorial review, and you end up sifting through a lot of junk.

Go Where the Surfers Are

This is not your typical surfer

Online, that is. [Aside: for those kind souls who suggested I give away all the best surf spots or use geo-tagging to let surfers check-in from their best spots—thanks but no thanks. Giving away a surf spot is a huge surfer no-no. Plus I'd get my ass kicked!] The panelists reminded me that I need to get my content out into as many relevant distribution channels as possible. This would include setting up accounts on YouTube for video, iTunes for podcasts, Facebook for…Facebook and mobile,which could be very important.

How to Make Money From It All

Of course, the golden question: how to monetize a site like this? It’s actually not that hard, and there are many ways to do it. Here are some of the suggestions:

YouTube videos could contain sponsored and affiliate links
Find related affiliate products to sell, or better yet…
Take it one step further and pioneer affiliate relationships with local merchants like surf schools or surf shops
Create a membership site
Drop ship products
Distribute products with my site’s logo on it
Offer coupons
…and so on!

Some Parting Thoughts

I’m very grateful to the awesome panelists who spent a hour of their day with me and the other Affiliate Summit West attendees. I couldn’t have asked for a better session. The stuff I learned was incredibly helpful and injected a very necessary business element into my editorial mindset. I’m usually so focused on the creating the right content angle for a site that I often lose touch with the steps you need to actually make it a reality! I also want to thank all the fellow attendees that came up to me in the following days to tell me that the Affiliate Improv! session really inspired them to try out their own niche site ideas. Photo by The Daily Ornellas.

Going Surfing at the Affiliate Improv! Session at Affiliate Summit West is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

Scraping and Autoblogging: Why They Suck

Charles — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:57:11 +0000

Being such a lover of words and good writing, I thought I’d chime in on one of the filthier sides of blogging: scraper sites and autoblogging. The two terms are basically the same thing, but with a slight twist in semantics:

Scraping refers to automatically copying full articles from other blogs (or RSS feeds) for publishing on your own site.
Autoblogging just snatches the headline and excerpt for your site, and supposedly links back to the original article.

Some of the more sophisticated methods involve some sort of “magic bullet” software that does everything with a push of a button: you type in your keyword and the software just starts adding content to your blog from other sources. At this point it becomes a fully automated system.

Why Do This?

Scraping content is a quick and easy way to get free content into your website, where it could rank well in search engines for whatever keyword(s) you’re targeting. A good ranking can yield good traffic, which you can then monetize with Google Adsense. Get enough of these sites going and you’ll soon have that cherry red Ferarri and playboy mansion on the beach! Internet marketers who like to think of themselves as dignified (but actually aren’t) prefer the term autoblogging because—technically—they’re only using the headline and excerpt and then linking back to the original article. They argue that autoblogging is okay because all they’re doing is providing “articles of interest” to readers and searchers.

What’s Wrong With It?

It’s pretty obvious what wrong with this picture, but since I’m hot on the topic, listen to my reasons:

Scraping is stealing. There’s no other way to say this, really. Taking other people’s content without due respect to them is textbook plagiarism. Then to use it to game the search engines for traffic? Suffering succotash!
Scraping evaporates all professional credibility. I can’t see any sort of content scraper “movin’ on up” to a respectable blogging or editing gig. Seems to me that once you do it, you mark yourself for a life among spammers. Can you even repent something like this?
There is zero brand equity. Yeah, forget building a brand. Stealing content for the chance of making some quick cash is not going to build much of anything but a gang of angry bloggers. Forget building a business while you’re at it, too.
No value provided whatsoever. When you scrape content for your “autoblog,” you’re not only violating the author—you’re also insulting the reader by providing false value. You’re luring them in with the promise of something good, but not delivering.
It’s stealing. Yes I’m repeating that. It’s so bad I had to say it twice. #plagiarism.

Whether you call it black hat, gray hat, or even white hat, scraping and autoblogging are instant credibility breakers in my book. If you need to select content from other sources, do it manually and attribute accordingly. The whole point of blogging is that it’s a down to Earth and casual activity. You just can’t automate that. The best editors are human. Photo by *saxon*

Scraping and Autoblogging: Why They Suck is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

Does Your Writing Ever Suck? Then Read This

The Obvious 3 Part Solution to Better Blog Content

Charles — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:44:03 +0000

Internet marketing is designed to promote your content, but creating content has little to do with internet marketing. Great content relies on the combination of good writing, editing and publishing. And the better your content, the less marketing hype you’ll require to sell it. Sounds pretty simple, but not too many bloggers or internet marketers have a basic understanding of this stuff. With that said, let’s go over these basics to get you familiarized:

Writing

You either love writing, hate it, or you’re somewhere in between. But it doesn’t really matter how you feel because as long as you’re a blogger you pretty much have to write content. The nice part about writing great content is you don’t really have to be a good writer, you just need to be good enough. This means you can get your point across in a clear, concise and consistent manner. Being good enough is pretty simple, actually. Just remember to:

Use only as many words as you need
Use proper spelling, punctuation and grammar
Be comfortable being yourself

Follow those basic guidelines and I assure your content will do its job to enlighten or entertain your readers, or both. Plus—the more you write, the better your content becomes. Then you can start breaking the rules now and then and look good doing it

Editing

The editor is the most valuable person on the internet. Why is this? Because the editor takes an average or good piece of writing and makes it great. Even more importantly, the editor is a strategist: she selects the content that makes her readers happy. The editor’s value is ever-increasing on the web: somebody has to filter all that content, right? Somebody has to mine all that gold from the cold, silty river. And that somebody is…the editor. Starting right now, I want you to think of yourself as an editor. Not just blogger, not just writer—but editor. Congratulations, you are now the most valuable person on the internet!

Publishing

Publishing is the business of your blog. It not only includes writing and editing, but also the niche, content strategy, marketing, monetization, SEO and more. As publisher, you carry a greater amount of power and responsibility than the marketer because you are in complete control of the product, which is your content. Content is king, and it’s also cash. Another great part about being a publisher is you can publish more than one blog or website under the umbrella of your publisher brand. At this level you can really leverage your talent and experience to grow your business. This is how Wordful plans to grow, by the way. I hope this helps. Please comment if you want to chat. Photo by aslakr.

The Obvious 3 Part Solution to Better Blog Content is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

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A Few Great Tips on Getting an Unavailable Domain Name

Charles — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:00:41 +0000

Not a day goes by when I’m not thinking about a cool and quirky website that tons of people would love to have in their lives. Immediately after I picture that website, I think about the name. Then I think: can I get that in .com? Usually I can’t. Some cybersquatter or domainer has it locked up in cage somewhere with other cool domains, or it’s being used by someone who was faster and smarter and beat me to it. But over time I’ve learned not to get too discouraged about this. For one thing it’s pretty darn fun and rewarding to come up with your own original domain name. And it that doesn’t work, there are few things you can do.

First, Investigate the Domain

Before you get totally let down, put the domain name in your browser and see what happens. What do you see? If it’s obvious that someone is using it for something, then you should stop and start over. You’re not likely going to get it. It’s a good sign, though, if you get one of those generic parking pages or even nothing at all. That means the domain isn’t actually being used for anything—yet—and you can move on to the next step. The next step means going back to a domain name registrar and checking the WHOIS data on the domain. From there you’ll be able to see the most important piece of information: the expiration date. Depending on your patience or urgency (or both), you may be able to tolerate an expiration date for off in the future. If so, then it’s time to move in even closer. I’ve got 2 methods for this:

The Cheap Way

The cheap way to get a domain name that’s unavailable is to wait it out to the bitter end with the hope you can renew it when it’s released back to the pubic. It will only cost you the price of the domain to do this, which is usually about $10-15 a year. The cheap way has some massive drawbacks, though. First of all it’s a real pain to have to track an expiring domain name. The approximate timeline is: name expires, it enters “redemption period” for about 30-45 days, then it’s another 30 or so days until it gets deleted. It’s about 75 days in all. However, in all my experience, there is not a definite or consistent number of days from the time a name expires to the time it’s back on the market. Different registrars have different times they hold, release and delete names from their systems. Doing a Google search on the topic won’t help either. Trust me that trying to get a domain name “the cheap way” way is a completely maddening experience. I personally don’t use it anymore because I have neither the time nor the tenacity.

The Not So Cheap Way

I prefer to use Snapnames, which is a domain backorder service. Thanks to these guys, I got Wordful.com (which is another long story, by the way). With Snapnames, all you have to do is place a “backorder” for your name and they will do everything they can to get the name for you. The base cost of getting a backordered domain is $59, which if you think about it is worth every penny if you believe your website is worth at least that much. If someone else wants the same domain, however, you have to be prepared to enter an auction. Depending on the popularity of your name, you might get some high rollers who have enough cash to keep raising the price until everyone else wilts away. It’s entirely up to you if you want to participate in the auction. I’ve never been in a domain auction myself, but I can tell you that after awhile you’ll get a feel for the value of your domain name. You’ll more or less know if it’s a $59 variety or something higher. I learned that the more creative (and still catchy) your domain name is, the more likely you can get it for $59. Just a few tips for you! There’s so much more to getting unavailable domain names — this post is just the tip of the iceberg. If you really want the ultimate lowdown, read this. Photo by oddsock.

A Few Great Tips on Getting an Unavailable Domain Name is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

How to Be a Successful Writer and Publisher: The Best of Wordful

Charles — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 02:19:08 +0000

A few days ago on October 1st, this blog turned 2 years old. Looking back at my work here, I thought it would be nice to share with you some of the best ideas that have come to represent what Wordful is all about:

Being yourself

I constantly stress the importance of being a genuine person. Being a poser may work in the short term, but trends don’t last forever. You have to discover the foundation of who you are before people can give you praise and money.

Being productive

A lot of people write about being productive because it’s hard to avoid writing about it. I’m definitely in that club. My ideas of productivity include themes like low information diets, why you should get a real office instead of working from home and the importance of writing before reading.

Being a better writer

Writing is my original love, my life’s muse. Everything I strive to accomplish in business is rooted in writing. I have great empathy for others who share this calling.

Why you don’t need to use “that” all the time
Some quick-fire ways to inspire your writing
What to do when your writing sucks, (which it inevitably will)
How to beat writing anxiety once and for all

Being a better blogger

Blogging is still new and vast and largely undefined. Some bloggers have made millions and others haven’t. I personally think that getting rich from blogging is about as likely as winning the lottery. Luckily, there are some clever alternatives. Beyond the hype, though, I’ve mined a few excellent tips on blogging, including:

Some very important things to know before you start blogging
How to avoid being a crappy blogger
Which blogging theme you should strongly consider
A brilliant way to boost your SEO using the WordPress ScribeSEO plugin (yes it really works!)

Being an editor

At Wordful, editors are highest up on the ladder. Why? Because they’re the filter between what gets written and what gets published. Editors are choosers, and you should be one, too.

The publishing business

The future direction of Wordful tries to answer the question: How do you make money as independent, self-made publisher? Some of my more recent posts touch on this: learning the art of nimble publishing, mining some opportinities in local publishing and coping with the price of free.

Looking onward and upward

Over the next year and beyond I will be most fiercely focused on what kind of marketing it takes to make a publishing business profitable. I’ll be looking at everything from the more traditional and aggressive but effective internet marketing tactics to more passive ‘kumbaya’ strategies embraced by The Third Tribe. So please, stick around. Things are going to get much less righteous and much more ruthless around here. Photo by Photoumi.

How to Be a Successful Writer and Publisher: The Best of Wordful is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

iPad Vook Review: Sages and Scientists

Charles — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 03:01:40 +0000

I was given an opportunity by Rachel Balik of Vook to review one of their latest titles, Sages and Scientists. I’ve written about Vook in the past and like what they’re doing in the publishing space. For the record — I have no formal ties with Vook and this review is completely voluntary.

About Sages and Scientists

Sages and Scientists by Deepak Chopra and the Chopra Foundation is a small collaboration of writings and mini video interviews with some of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds. The title was catchy enough to attract someone like me who really digs transcendentalism…but also happens to really suck at science. Each chapter — there are 11 total (nice prime number, by the way) – contains a short but powerful treatise on the connection between science and metaphysical consciousness. Unlikely, I know, but that’s what makes the vook so intriguing. What worked so well were the personal perspectives offered by each scientist that challenges our understanding of modern science. Many of them call it ‘old science,’ which regards human existence as the realm of zero direction, zero purpose and zero meaning in the world. Again, I’ve always struggled with science—perhaps this is why.

A New, Better View of Science

These views of ‘new science’ regard the human experience as something far more holistic and deeply transcendental. In the words of Larry Dossey,

…leads to the notion that in some dimension of consciousness all minds come together and for the universal or the one mind.

Pretty profound stuff indeed. This kind of science I can relate to. But it goes even further than that: the vignettes speak of Gandhi, fractal resonance, the mystery of water, past lives and some healing experiments conducted at North Hawaii Community Hospital, which is about a mile from where I’m writing this post.

Recommended? Definitely

Let’s say good things come in small packages. If you crave to learn about what’s really going on in the Universe (gee shouldn’t this be everyone?), I can’t think of a better, quicker and cheaper way to get primed than with the Sages and Scientists vook. For the low price of $6.99, you get a tiny but very powerful lesson on science and spirituality. Click here to buy it.

Comments on the Vook Itself

A vook is a blend of video + book. Vook publishes their products in flash-based website, iPhone and iPad apps formats. Their titles are diverse (Three Little Pigs to Woman’s Day Cookvook) and prices range from $.99 to $14.99. Sages and Scientists was my first experience with a vook on a mobile device (iPad), and I must say: vooks and iPads are like peas in a pod. The single-task environment of the iPad eliminates all distractions, leaving you in the sacred space of a fully engaged vook experience. Each chapter has a crisp, professionally-produced video featuring a monologue of each scientist. The videos are no more than 2 minutes long, resizeable to full screen and easily embeddable in an email (I tested this feature and it’s awesome — you just play the video right in your inbox). There are also controls for night mode (black background with white text) and text enlargement. All good stuff, but I have one HUGE request for Vook to make: a bookmarking/notation feature akin to the Kindle. Readers need this! Admittedly, there’s a way to select some text to email, tweet or post to Facebook (yes I know it’s the social web thing to do), but this doesn’t even come close. In fact, I would have saved myself significant time writing this review if I could have bookmarked and taken notes within the app. Other vook reviewers have requested the bookmarking and notation, so I hope Vook is listening. Another idea for Vook: make one single Vook app and let readers access titles from there. Reader data collection is a mighty powerful thing. Just ask Seth.

iPad Vook Review: Sages and Scientists is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.

Want a Future in Publishing? Focus on Choosers

Charles — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:11:47 +0000

Right now the progressive talk among publishers centers around pricing, ebooks, gadgets, branding and community/social media (in somewhat loosely connected terms). All important stuff, but we need to focus even more on choosers. Choosers are people who share and recommends things to others, and they’re at the center of the evolving social web. They decide what’s what sticks and what flops, where to go, what to read and—let’s not forget—what to buy. If you’ve ever shared anything online, then you’re a chooser, too. If publishers want to save publishing, they need to start nurturing the choosers of their industry—readers, writers, editors and critics.

Creating the Channel

The platforms already exist, but the channels don’t. Kindles, iPads, Kobos, Nooks are nifty, elegant platforms, but really—they’re just another way of reading (and buying) a book. Publishers need to create channels over these platforms so niche, book-loving communities can blossom and thrive. For example, the channel for people who love innovative business books would have a place for Seth Godin readers to congregate over his ideas while allowing Seth Godin himself to directly connect with these readers (and critics, too). After devouring his latest book, any influential chooser (including Seth himself) could lead the group to the next book or author. In this natural reading ecosystem, good authors and books get rewarded based on the wisdom of choosers and their communities.

Running the Channel

The publisher’s job is to keep channels running smoothly and to collect reader data that will enable them to sell the right books to the right people at the right time. The editors? It’s their job to serve as stewards of the channel while procuring authors and their works. If the channel thrives, more books get sold and everyone profits:

Readers buy books they truly want to read
Writers sell more books to readers they’re organically connected with
Publishers can pinpoint their sales using detailed reader data
Distributors (Amazon, Apple, etc.) get a cut of higher book sales

Facebook is a Threat to Publishing

This discussion isn’t complete without considering the social juggernaut that is Facebook. The new ‘like’ button, while seemingly small and unassuming, contains the early DNA for the next generation of social choosers, which inevitably affects publishing. Using the ‘like’ button, Facebook is reaching across multiple channels and allowing people to easily share the things they like. If they narrowed down their business to ebook publishing and integrated ‘like’ buttons into every ebook they produced, imagine the data they would own on all of their readers. Facebook could then use that data to make book buying the most intuitive and personalized experience ever. Choosers invested in the Facebook platform (many of us already are, deeply) would have no reason to leave. Yes, this would be a major coup on the publishing industry.

So Let’s Get to Work

But enough of this doomsday scenario. Publishers need to start building channels for choosers. Remember, the question is not whether iPad this will topple Kindle that, but rather: Can publishers find books for their readers instead of readers for their books? Photo by Tommy and Georgie.

Want a Future in Publishing? Focus on Choosers is written by Charles Bohannan for Wordful.com, a blog about digital publishing.