Why Blogging Is Like Book Publishing

This is only my second blog, but I have an observation. Blogging is like book publishing. Here are a few reasons:

(1) Publication Proliferation: According to The Blog Herald, as of July, 2008 there were 70 million blogs. That’s around one blog for every four people in the United States. There seems to be some logic in Despair, Inc.'s blog observation: "Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few"

Book publishers launch around 200,000 new books a year. So every year we add a lot of books to the millions of books that publishers already have in their catalogs from many years of publishing.

(2) Content is King: You have to have great content that resonates with at least a distinct audience. For example, people that might care about this blog are those in the publishing business that blog. I will probably not set any traffic records with this blog.

(3) Building Awareness: Great content, however, is not enough. There is a lot of great content that never gets published and even content that gets published but is never read. I suspect like book publishing, blog awareness gets largely built through viral marketing; someone likes what they have read and then passes it along to someone else. Overtime you build a following. Having a major platform along with great content that people care about would seem to be a winning combination, and that's similar to book publishing.

(4) Distribution: Distribution applies to the blogging world, but traditional brick and mortar distribution channels it is not. It is still, however, about getting your message and content in as many places as possible so it can be exposed to as many people as possible. - Still wrestling with how that one is different from building awareness, but I think that like getting various retailers to carry your book, you need to have various people/influencers willing to discuss, link to and promote your blog.

There is at least one way that blogging is not like book publishing - The cost of publishing. The cost to get into blogging and communicating your ideas and content is pretty cheap, assuming you have a computer. It is mostly just your time and the opportunity cost of that time. That explains 70 million blogs.

As a book publisher, this leaves me to wonder...what is our role as content consumption trends towards more digital forms of media? My hunch is that we will continue to be experts at recognizing great content, have an even sharper of eye for matching the most effective delivery vehicle for the content's intended audiences and then maximizing awareness. It's not that different than what we do today in some ways but completely different in other ways.

I would love to hear your thoughts on blogging and publishing.