Chapter 1
Everything you know about publishing is wrong

Just what is publishing?
Just what is publishing? Publishing means “to make public”. It’s all about taking an idea, polishing it up and sending it out to a group of readers. Publishers make money by turning ideas into valuable content. In this new economy we are all publishers. Publishing supports the sale of our products and services. It tells people why they should buy something, how they get it to work, and how to fix it when it goes wrong.

The majority of us already participate in at least some sort of publishing process. If we work with content that is intended to reach a readership, whether that be our managers, colleagues, customers or investors, we are already participating in a publishing process.

Here are a few fundamentals of publishing that are relevant to everyone involved in creating content:

• Publishing is about quality control. You will reject far more than you will publish. At the American Economic Review, for example, about 12% of the submitted articles are accepted.
• In publishing, less is invariably more. Critical content is precise and to the point. In this information overloaded world there has never been a greater need to keep it short, simple and snappy.
• The reader is king. If nobody reads you, you’re dead. The publisher who doesn’t truly understand their readers – and publishes content for those readers – goes out of business.
• ‘Time-to-publish’ is critical. It’s not enough to have great content if you don’t get it to your reader before your competitor does
• Publishing is the business of profiting from content. A viable publisher knows how to make money – either directly or indirectly – out of content.

Today, we are working with content more than we have ever done before. Tomorrow, and for the rest of our careers, publishing will become key to our success. Understanding and gaining the skills of publishing will help us progress. Not gaining publishing understanding and skills will limit our progress.

The key difference between commerce and ecommerce is that commerce is selling with people and ecommerce is selling with content. You buy from a website because it has content that answers questions about product range, features, availability, price, support, customer references, company background, etc. A publishing strategy delivers such content.

Those organizations who have made the Internet work have all embodied publishing principles in their approach. That goes for AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and Cisco. In fact, there is hardly a successful website that does not embody a professional publishing approach. All great websites are fueled by great content.

Just what is content? And how does content relate to information and knowledge?

• Knowledge is the useful stuff that’s inside our heads. It’s our ideas, our experience, it’s what we know about how things work, about how to make things better. We read content so as to gain knowledge.
• Information is the communication of knowledge. Information is a process, an activity. To inform is to impart knowledge to someone else. “10 percent off all TVs if you buy now!” is information at the point at which it is communicated. Information can be communicated in two ways. The first is informally, verbally. I meet you and I inform you: “Do you know there’s a shop down the road and it has 10 percent off all TVs if you buy now?” The second way is to formally communicate information through content.
• Content is how we formally structure our knowledge. We do this by putting it on paper, by putting it on film, by putting it on tape, by putting it on the Web. The Web is a giant container for content! It has become the ultimate place we go to get content. The type of content that this book deals with is the content you read, because that represents the vast majority of content on the Web.

Next: Part 6: Time to publish
Previous: Part 4: Everything you know about publishing is wrong

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• Augustana College, United States
• Drury University, United States
• Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
• Indiana University, United States
• Monash University, Australia
• University of Applied Sciences, Germany
• University of Regina, Canada
• University of Teesside, UK

"The term "bible" is now highly over-used in reference to tech books – but if it weren't, that's how I would categorize Content Critical."
Rowan Wilson, Knowledge Management Review

"Content Critical is the best non-technical book on the subject of web content that I have come across to date … For those interested in the ‘change management’ dimension of content and knowledge management, Content Critical may well become the standard text."
Andy Harrison, Content Management Focus magazine

"Content Critical is highly recommended. It belongs in every design library. It should be on the reading list of every course in Web design. Any Web designer who plans to be in business five years from now should read this book."
Ken Friedman, Design Research News

"Content Critical is amply provided with reality checks, examples, and practical ideas and suggestions … The authors have succeeded in writing a book that will appeal to both beginners and experts."
Geert Jan Kraan, Net Professional magazine, Holland

"Content Critical offers a multitude of useful tips, tactics and strategies for creating and managing your website … makes the subject as easily understandable as it is disorganized in reality."
Robin Sherman, American Society of Business Publication Editors

"Content Critical is an excellent book for academics and practitioners alike … It should be read by anyone involved in Website content management, of course, but it should also be required reading for those with responsibilities including internal or external communication (and what academic or executive does not?)"
Colin Jevons, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Australia

 

Content is how we formally structure our knowledge.