Ever sit through an annual association meeting desperate to be somewhere—anywhere else? Me too. The newspaper industry hosted a yearly array of events, deadly boring, all dedicated to wringing the last shred of profitability from our dear doomed dinosaur of an industry, attended by middle-aged male WASPs in shiny suits and a small percentage of their female counterparts, all of them smoking cigarettes and drinking hard liquor at lunch; those were the days. That sucked.
Then came the internet, and with it, the citizen journalism movement. Now anyone with a computer and something to say could potentially find an audience. The democratization of media! Self-publishing by and for the masses became a thing. Those were the days. That sucked.
These self-publishing citizen journalists were putting out crap. As quickly as print-on-demand technology gained ground, so did the stigma attached to it. Bad writing, no proofreading, 8th grade term-paper design, hokey covers with pixelated images: 22 copies sold to relatives.
Then came the renegades, and with us, the hybrid publishing movement. Newsrooms emptying out and publishing houses shutting down; lots of writers and editors and designers and marketers eying the newly -level playing field started thinking; I can do this. I can do this right.
And that was the spirit at this year’s IBPA conference—a collection of independent authors, publishers and service providers. All proponents of great writing; professional proofreading, inspired interior design, arresting covers with stunning artwork: thousands of copies sold; competitors who welcome each other as colleagues, all dedicated to erasing the stigma, raising the bar. Lifting the boats.
The IBPA recently issued criteria detailing hybrid publishing best practices that independents are increasingly adopting as the business model comes into its own. These are the days.