I hate print publishing

You don’t hear that much. Most writers live to see their names in print. Even with the print media world in decline, print is still considered the most prestigious venue. There’s nothing quite like seeing your name printed on the cover of Boston magazine, for example. Even AVN Online’s print edition is considered to be more important than the web version. Don’t get me wrong, I love the gigs that pay– whether in print or online– but I like being on the web more.

Of course, the web holds the future of journalism, so by latching onto the web now, instead of print, I am hitching my wagon to the future of the industry. This just makes sense. Someday, the web will pull ahead of print. In fact, it’s already starting. I don’t read Page Six, but I am an approved and active commentor on Gawker. Gawker is the future of New York gossip. Blogs are aggregating similar news, making it easier to find. I now hit the Silicon Alley Insider regularly, at the expense of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times deal pages. I got a real laugh when the Silicon Alley Insider announced its “offer” for the NY Times digital media assets– because it just makes sense.

But, this is secondary to my real motivation. I love being first to market. Like most people in my work, I’m addicted to breaking a story. And, it’s getting harder and harder to do in print. Great example: I had a kickass interview with the founders of Zivity back in October. They were extremely open, and I got some great material. In fact, I learned– first– that co-founder Cyan Banister would be posing nude for the website (the site offers Web 2.0 and social networking capabilities built around art nude photography).

I filed the story at the end of October for publication in the January issue of AVN Online. This had me pretty jazzed, because it was the issue distributed for the Adult Entertainment Expo and Internext conferences. But, here’s the problem. That left two months for somebody else to pick up a story that wasn’t being concealed. Cyan’s plans were in place site. All you had to do was ask. I just happened to ask first. And, she answered. Who’s to stop someone else from asking.

I was surprised at how long it took for the rest of the world to ask this simple, obvious question, but it nonetheless happened too soon for my story. Major technology blog TechCrunch picked up the story on December 30, 2007, beating me by only two fucking days. In fact, depending on when the print magazines shipped, I may have come out a day or two ahead. But, since AVN was changing how it published print articles to the web, my Zivity story never made it, and I lost the opportunity to pitch it to ValleyWag for coverage, which I would have done long before ValleyWag’s competitor (TechCrunch) had picked up the story. So, I lost the chance to ingratiate myself into a powerful blog. Damn.

Had I just gone straight to the web, I would have one– by far. In the adult industry, the concept of breaking news isn’t as powerful as it is in the mainstream, but I straddle the two worlds. So, it’s pretty important to me. Also, as a porn journalist, I would have beaten the mainstream to market. That would have been a double-victory. But, it didn’t happen.

The big challenge is finding a publication that will pay for online-only articles, let alone pay as much as they do for print publications. The market hasn’t caught up with my thinking yet, but when it does, I’ll be ready.

~ by migrantblogger on July 26, 2008.