Alarming News

Today I have returned to tell you this:
The end is nigh.

Well okay, not really. But news of publishing on the web and how hard it is to attract readers to your story just keeps getting worse.

Recently I came across an article from the website Digiday, which is run by a media company (also called Digiday) that covers media industry news. It's called "15 Alarming Stats About Online Publishing." Now, since I'm writing a blog that's (partly) about online publishing, this was naturally of interest to me. And I've got to say, it only got more interesting as I read on.

Today the internet is all about advertising, right? I mean, there are things wedged between the advertisements like videos, news stories, games…but it's mostly advertising. So should I have been surprised by the stat that said "Over 5.3 trillion display ads were served to U.S. users last year"? I mean, I was expecting a lot, but not that many.

Or how about "The top 10 Internet ad sellers control 72 percent of the market"? I mean, jeez. It really is nothing but advertising.

But what does that have to do with publishing on the internet? Well, everything. See, you want to attract readership for your book/short story/article/whatever, right? But how do you do that? How do you distinguish yourself from the ocean of other information out there? ….Advertising? Yeah, that's original. So what is a self-published person to do?

I'll cover that in my next blog post, so if you want to know stay tuned. In the meantime, check out the article to see the other 13 Alarming Facts. And try to have a nice day before the world ends. D: