Write Now and the Slow Death of Print
on March 19th, 2009
August company. I am extremely flattered to be on the same cover with these people. But alas, this is the final issue of Write Now. A real shame, these were good magazines. Is there an online alternative in their future?
You can get it at the publisher’s website. You can also buy any back issue at great discounts, or go whole hog and get the lot for $67.50.
Here’s a podcast interview with editor Danny Fingeroth. Do check it out. Danny has lots of interesting things to say about the industry.
Not a stretch to suggest that many magazines of this sort will be going home to Jesus. It’s all online now. But how to finance the new model?
Online, there’s no big bucks needed for printing, and you reach tens of thousands of people easily. Every day is a convention. But you have to be pulling in thousands of hits every day to really make money on ads.
I am often asked how much traffic I get and if I make any money at this blog thing. It’s hard for the average reader to tell what we’re getting from looking at Alexa or Technorati (especially since the recent revamp and move destroyed our stat rankings.) Comments are no indication of traffic, either. This Neil Gaiman photo from last month got 5,000 hits in two days, and only eight comments. Neil’s Twitter link sent so many people here, we overloaded the very unhappy server.
(FYI: People tend to comment more when they argue, actually, so if I were to post something vile implying Neil Gaiman supports child molesters because he stands up for free speech issues, as opposed to my posting cute photos of Neil, we’d get a lot of comments. Mostly angry ones. And deservedly so…and, um, no, I don’t think Neil is enabling icky child molesters.)
BTW, pop this link and scroll down for a look at Neil’s very first published illustration: a parody of Watchmen called Watchdogs.
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