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On a scale of 1 to 10, how much experience do you have with publishing?
If you think a writer writes and then, like magic, books appear in a book store, give yourself a 1. If you fully grasp everything involved, including: different types of editors, the role of serif fonts, how offset printing works, the work required to build a “platform”, and a mastery of ebook distribution channels, give yourself a 10.
Everyone else: pick a number somewhere between those two extremes.
Now… how much do you know about the digital world? If you’re reading this because someone printed it out for you on paper, give yourself a 1. Or if you are true native, understanding the difference between friending and following, know the importance of CSS3 and HTML 5, can recognize the most custom of WordPress installations, own and manage more than a dozen domains (with active websites), and have successfully synchronized your life across three or more digital devices, give yourself a 10.
Everyone else: pick a number somewhere between those two extremes.
If you plot these two values on a graph, with “publishing” on the X-axis and “digital” on the Y-axis, you can see what quadrant you fall into. It should look something like this:
Spectrum of Digital Publishers
We’ve put some names to the quadrants, which we define as:
- Fresh Prints – Neophyte to both publishing and digital.
- Ink Slinger – You’ve got traditional publishing experience, but aren’t all that familiar with the digital space.
- TechnoScribe – Loads of digital knowledge, but you’ve yet to experience the world of publishing.
- ePostle – The ultimate prize. There can be more than one.
Welcome to your starting point on the digital publishing continuum. Get ready, because the flag is about to drop. Yes, it’s a race.
Everyone is at different spots on this continuum, but everyone has areas they can improve. Even the ePostles in the upper right can’t rest on their laurels. The continuum is not static, for the world of digital publishing is undergoing constant change in both directions.
That’s what we’re gearing up to do: help move you along this continuum. The news stories we link to will help. The blog posts we make will help. The classes we teach will do the same. The workshops, the 1-1 consultations, the conferences. Our focus will stay on those spectrums and how they interact together, ultimately leading to you moving up to that upper right-hand corner.
Maximum digital knowledge mixed with maximum publishing knowledge. We exist to get you in that upper-right quadrant.
Shall we begin?
[...] This is a relatively new venture for Evo and Jeff for helping authors embrace what it means to be a “digital author”. The eight hour workshop covered some excellent and diverse topics that were good for writers at [...]