The changing media landscape coupled with the economic downturn has forced the recent closure of longtime newspapers such as The Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Even TIME offered its predictions on the top 10 major newspapers that will fold or go digital this year including the Miami Herald and the Boston Globe.

With so many of our nation’s newspapers fighting to stay alive, many are evaluating strategies to update their medium and make it relevant for today’s consumer.

According to an article in Advertising Age, “The nation’s print media may be on life support, but some are quietly building digital portfolios again – albeit on a smaller scale – and some are starting to bear fruit. We’re not talking about the digital editions of papers themselves, but startups that take old media in new directions.” For instance, Gannett Co. Inc., a leading international news and information company which publishes 85 daily newspapers, including USA TODAY, has been busy building strategic relationships with startup companies to shift its business model and become a leader in the digital media market.

One of Gannett’s portfolio companies includes Pointroll, which powers innovative rich-media display ads on the web. Pointroll’s CEO Jason Tafler said, “The ultimate goal is to transform Gannett into a real digital leader by leveraging the strength of content and the audience that it has and extending that into the digital world.”

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Authors and even for very seasoned authors, their new first choice is to use the services of a self-publishing company or co-publishing company.

They pay these companies to walk them through the publishing process. Many of these companies do not offer editing services, but give the client a list of possible editors whom they can hire on their own to edit their work. Some companies will edit the manuscript, but with a very hefty price tag attached. After the manuscript is edited, they will use a software program (often without human hand’s and human oversight) to typeset the manuscript into a book. In the end, it is not unusual for an author to end up disappointed with the overall quality of the book and frustrated with the entire process.

While most self-publishing companies do offer to assist the author with marketing for additional fees, their help in this area is usually minimal. Some of them will see that their book is listed in the Ingram Distributor’s Database (which then goes to bookstores), and then make sure the book is listed on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other related book-selling sites. Other companies will only list the book on their own website where it is unlikely that many people will actually find the book to purchase it.

While many of these companies feel proud of themselves for doing all this “marketing work,” authors soon learn that they will have to “peddle their book on street corners.” The harsh reality is that listings in the Ingram Database and on book-selling websites do not necessarily translate into book sales. Unless authors are willing to do their own marketing work, the prospects of people knowing about and buying their book is grim. Those who have their own website, send out their own review copies, schedule their own public events, and perhaps have their own following due to being on the radio, or sending out a newsletter. etc. will have a better chance at getting their book into circulation.

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