THE "NEW MEDIA": WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR AUTHORS?

I spent Tuesday in New York City, learning more about "the new media" and how it's affecting all of us. The monthly meeting of The Women's Media Group was devoted to the topic. The Women's Media Group is a New York-based nonprofit association of women who have achieved prominence in the many fields of media, and they are all nervous. What is going to happen to newspapers? Will Kindle replace the physical book? Will Twitter and Facebook take the place of face-to-face discourse? What will happen to our jobs?

The speaker for the meeting whose name I did not get (and will report in the next post) told everyone to calm down. She said that the STORY is still all important. It doesn't matter what the format, the STORY will live on. Her words resonated with me. And they should with you too. After all, you write the stories--you need to know that there will be a place for them, new media or old.

And speaking of "new media," I also had a great meeting with Laura Nixon Dawson, a digital strategy consultant who has launched a new service called AuthorWeb. Laura and her colleagues do the "technology scutwork for small-press/independent authors--getting them set up with Google Book Search, making their titles available for the Kindle and other ebook readers, enhancing their listings on B&N and Amazon, getting them the right identifiers from Bowker, and working with Filedby and other author services." For all the services they don't do, they use a referral bank of PR reps, website developers, and tech folks who can step in when needed. [Note: I have not used her services and can't vouch for her, but I enjoyed meeting her and think it's exciting that the new media is creating new opportunities such as this.]

A scary time for publishing? ABSOLUTELY! But, with the scary time come many new opportunities. Keep your eyes open and keep writing.