Politics

(I got this conceptual picture from here.)

I don’t have too much to say about this, I just want to say something, because it opens up so many possibilities when it happens.

Basically – Apple entering the eBook market via a tablet-sized iPod Touch.

(That link actually goes to a story on how it would affect the comic book market, but it’s a general article.)

Anyway, while Amazon’s Kindle has been great and moderately popular with hardcore reader-types, it’s not had a mass affect yet.

The eBook is a tough market, because there’s really no standard format or anything. Right now, my book PTSA sells as a secured PDF doc, and who knows where it can and can’t work right if it’s not on a computer.

I’ve tried to do formatting for the Kindle, but it’s beyond my ability and I’ve got better things to spend my time on.

Apple would force a more general format, or at the very least make it easy to buy/sell/read, and like with music, gobble up and/or create the market share. (I think I mangled that sentence.)

Really, I think it just opens up a floodgate of possibilities, not only for books and comics, but for those dying newspapers, as well. More specifically, for investigative journalism.

I have a few reporter/newspaper friends, and they’re all living with a perpetual “is this the week I get fired” hanging over them. I suggested the following based on the mythical tablet iPod Touch:

Like [redacted] – look at it this way.

Let’s say you did one hardcore, in-depth investigative report every month. Like really tackled something heavy, that only you could/would do, but with a broad appeal/interest. It’s your story – like the kind where you’ve dug up stuff on Senators and loans or whatever.

Would 10,000 people pay a buck or 50 cents a month to subscribe to that? And remember – you’re marketing to the entire WORLD here. 10,000 people is nothing. (Or maybe you do two/month – I don’t know how long these things take.)

There are certainly enough political junkies out there who would have interest in that. You might see 10K people in DC alone.

In any case, that’s 120K a year, before taxes and Apple fees and such. Basically a personal newspaper of sorts – what’s missing right now is the distribution method, and if Apple supplies it, we’ll see something like this.

Plugging in your Touch and having all your content appear every morning in an organized (and mobile) fashion is much more appealing than sending money via Paypal, lugging your laptop around, logging in to a website, etc.

The thing is, people will pay for things like news online, if you make it easy and user-friendly. Apple would be a company that could do that.

Remember that the music industry was a mess before iTunes came in and blazed a more definitive path.

Yes, music is not in the best shape, but it’s a better time than ever to be a musician, because you don’t need to go through the whole “get signed to a label” process to make it.

It’s the big labels who are hurting most, because their old business model no longer works. The artists have more opportunity than ever, and that should be exciting to creative types.

Anyway, I know this was kind of rambling, but the sky doesn’t have to be falling just because the Rocky Mountain News shut down.

(Follow me on Twitter here.)
(Download the first 55 pages of my epic, pretentious, and stupid book, Prelude to a Super Airplane, here.)

{ 41 comments }