Technology and the future of publishing
My internet satellite link just went down, probably because the snow has slid off a bit, thus temporarily deforming the shape of the dish and sending the signal in an errant direction. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the technology that is about to overwhelm magazine publishers, in particular the technology that will eventually make paper obsolete in the magazine business. I think it will take only the invention of a suitable hand-held device that will make it convenient for people to read their favorite magazines. When that invention becomes convenient enough, readers will say goodbye to paper forever and switch to the as yet uninvented device to read both their magazines and newspapers.
Publishers who are unprepared for this inevitability will perish. Backwoods Home Magazine will not. In fact, I suspect we will thrive because we’ve been watching technological developments closely and planning for the future. For now there is a readership who wants both the paper issue and online access, but that will change, very possibly in my lifetime. When it does the magazine will be ready, as readers can already see by our large website and interactive blogs. Plus we are doing things behind the scenes concerning internet infrastructure.
But the future is a guessing game. Technology moves quickly, often in unanticipated directions. My best guess is that a very thin computer display will be developed, one that can be folded and put into your shirt pocket or one that can be rolled and stuffed into a back pocket, much like people putting a newspaper in their back pocket on a city subway car. Readers will simply unroll or unfold this computer display and read their favorite magazines and anything else that is in printed form.
People will still want to live remotely and simply, but they will readily accept this new way of getting information because it will be convenient and inexpensive, both for the reader and the publisher.
From the reader’s perspective: Technology is always getting cheaper. I write this on an enormously powerful laptop that cost $1400. When I started BHM in 1989, I had to pay $2700 for a Compaq Deskpro, the cadillac of desktop computers at the time which sported a floppy drive for storage and a slow 8088 chip. Every year since computer prices have dropped as their capability has risen in giant leaps.
From the publisher’s perspective: About half of the money we take in goes right out the door to pay for paper and postage to deliver the magazine to readers, with postage as the bigger of the bills. A future magazine delivered via cyberspace eliminates those two bills, allowing us to cut the price of a subscription to readers by at least half. In fact, we could probably eliminate most of our office since most of the space there is used to store magazines and anthologies. We have already eliminated the need for all editors to be in one building during our crucial “deadline week” when we produce the masters for each new issue.
The future for magazine production is going to be fascinating. We will do what readers want us to do. For now it’s a print issue coupled with a strong online website. But I don’t think it’s going to remain that way once that simple, convenient, inexpensive technological device is invented.
In the end, however, it will be CONTENT that matters most. Traditional marketplace muscle, such as the larger magazines still possess with their large paper magazine delivery systems, and their large sums of money to flood your mailboxes with solicitations to subscribe, will fade away. In its place will be online publications that deliver value, rather than ads, to readers. Readers will be able to tune out unwanted ads completely and read articles they value.
BHM will thrive in such an atmosphere.
