Publishing Update : Smart Publishers

An overflow this month presents essential info from the hardware side of publishing to improving your writing! This issue is two pages on the publishing scene

Fred Showker's Publishing Update An overflow this month presents essential info from the hardware side of publishing to improving your writing! This issue is two pages on the publishing scene:

* 10 tips for migrating technical content from print to digital
* What happens when a newspaper is just another digital voice?
* Today, printers. Tomorrow, ‘integrated peripherals’?
* The chart that explains media’s addiction to print
* Why don’t associations publish more e-books?
* Newspapers Cut Days From Publishing Week
* 10 ways to improve your writing today
* Guide to Great Learning Videos
* Newspapers: who needs ’em?
and more …

10 ways to improve your writing today

Your prolix prose isn’t holding readers’ interest, says Ann Wylie of Wylie Communications. Your lengthy sentences are pythons that loop themselves into knots. They drag subordinating conjunctions around. You are backed into thoughts by passive verbs.
      Wylie urged communicators at Ragan’s Corporate Communicators Conference this week to write simply, even if your audience comprises Harvard professors and MacArthur geniuses.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : Russell Working

Guide to Great Learning Videos

Shooting video is easy, right? Find a subject matter expert, turn the camera on, and press record. If only it was. Like any form of effective communication, good video that is both easy to understand and remember takes time and skill to craft.
      If video is new to you, here are important principles to follow when creating a learning video, as well as practices that will ensure your video looks professional.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : Association Media & Publishing

Why don’t associations publish more e-books?

Ebooks have been in the news lately. A Department of Justice antitrust case is pending against Apple for price-fixing ebooks. On Monday, Microsoft and Barnes & Noble announced they’re creating a subsidiary to compete in the digital reading market with Amazon and Apple. Andy Lees, a Microsoft president, said during the press conference, ‘Clearly, we are on the cusp of a digital-reading revolution.’
      Are associations part of this revolution? I’d like to think so, it seems like a no-brainer for content providers, but ASAE’s store lists only four ebooks among its 148 digital products — the rest are PDFs.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : Avectra

Newspapers: who needs ’em?

You don’t read good news about the news industry every day. But the April/May edition of the American Journalism Review featured an article about the American media that was full of optimism.
      The piece was by Paul Steinle and Sara Brown, who have just published a full-length report about the American newspaper business based on visits to 50 papers across all 50 US states.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : Editors Weblog

Today, printers. Tomorrow, ‘integrated peripherals’?

With less office printing going on, printers are struggling to redefine themselves.
      Out went 42 aging black and white copiers with interface boxes that let them serve as printers. In went 42 new networked multi-function printers (MFPs) that could do color printing and copying and scan directly to e-mail, fax or files. And the owner, the Park Hill School District in Kansas City, MO, saves $19,000 yearly.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : Computerworld

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10 tips for migrating technical content from print to digital

Here are some things to consider when beginning the digitization process of lengthy scientific and technical books, standards, proceedings, and journals.
      Association in the scientific, technical, and medical fields are often publishers of books, monographs, standards, symposia, conference proceedings and scholarly journals that need to transition from print to a web-based delivery system, including mobile apps. However, as the demand for digital products varies from publisher to publisher, there is no single formula for planning your digital future.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : Association Media & Publishing

Newspapers Cut Days From Publishing Week

The news waits for no one. But newspapers might start asking readers to — at least for print copies.
      Almost two weeks ago, The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, which is owned by Advance Publications, announced that it would cut back its print schedule to just three days a week. Within hours, its sister publications The Birmingham News, The Press-Register of Mobile and The Huntsville Times followed suit.
READ THIS REPORT Full story : The New York Times

The chart that explains media’s addiction to print

The past few weeks have seen some fairly dramatic moves by newspaper chains in both the U.S. and Canada, who have chosen to stop printing their papers on certain days in an attempt to save money.
      But in most cases this has been a result of what Ken Doctor has called a ‘forced march’ towards digital, rather than a choice to embrace the online world at the expense of print. A single chart used by veteran internet analyst Mary Meeker in a presentation this week illustrates why that decision is so difficult
READ THIS REPORT Full story : gigaom.com

What happens when a newspaper is just another digital voice?

The fact that print is declining as a medium for journalism, and that newspapers are going to have to deal with that in a variety of ways, was brought home with a thud recently when Advance Publications and Postmedia announced they would no longer print some of their papers on certain days, in order to save money.
      In the case of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the loss of the printed version of the paper three days a week has been criticized as almost a dereliction of public duty by the paper’s owner — as though something digital doesn’t have as much force as the printed version. As more newspapers are forced to make similar decisions, what impact will that have on their ability to serve a public purpose as an information source about the community?
READ THIS REPORT Full story : GigaOM


GO SEE previous PUBLISHING UPDATES

And, thanks for reading

Fred Showker

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