Harbingers of Doom or Balanced Media Coverage?

By Darren E Laws

You have to love the media's ability to embrace all consuming bad news.  It would appear to someone looking at the coverage of the latest global economic news from a truly objective point of view that good news is extinct.  High street stores are closing, banks are going under, the car industry is close to collapse, the stock market is in meltdown and if you are British, the value of Sterling is teetering on a precipice.

Redundancy is the new buzz word and don't companies love it. They embrace it like an old friend, because it is an old friend.  Many companies are using the current situation to trim the fat in preparation of a downturn, and others whose profits will be affected are using it as a tool to keep shareholders happy. The media reports on all of this with what appears to be apparent glee, which is surprising considering the desperate situation a lot of the media finds itself in.

Unwilling or perhaps unable to adjust to the arrival of the Internet, the media has seen an erosion of advertising revenue that is unparalleled in recent years.  Let's face the Internet is such a new medium they have hardly had time to react, I mean, the rise whilst being spectacularly fast is no overnight success.  The net has been growing in the popular sense since 1993 and it appears that only now with the widespread popularity of broadband, has the threat been taken seriously or the opportunities explored by a media that is now almost on its knees.

So, we have a scenario where the media that is reporting the current financial situation (and it is an extraordinary situation) is not exactly reporting from a media neutral point of view.  Talking down the economy is damaging, spreading fear and uncertainty is also less than positive but this is the position we find ourselves in and at the mercy of a media that is smarting with many newsgroups looking set to follow the banks, high street stores and the car industry. 

With such an uncertain future ahead of us we need to have balanced reporting and trust what is being written and broadcasted.  If we can't trust the news being reported in in these trying times to at least be balanced then they may just become the harbingers of their own doom as we abandon the trusted media for a fresh and more positive approach from the new media. 

The 'F' and the 'C' word

By Darren E Laws

Steel yourself because this posting is going to be peppered with words that it seems the world is not prepared to hear at present.  Namely the 'F' and 'C' words. These words are not popular at all at the moment and have seemingly slipped from the vocabulary of traders and people working in the financial industries.  I know, it's hard to imagine that, especially as during the past decade we have automatically thought that their language was peppered with them and that almost every sentence was filled with one or the other word. 

I am talking about 'Faith' and 'Confidence'.  Our financial institutions were built upon these attributes and somehow seem to have forgotten the meaning during these past turbulent months.  It would appear that every piece of bad news, no matter how small or trivial has them running for cover.  The last time I heard of something so spineless it was crawling from the primordial swamps as an invertebrate before evolution. 

Unless these institutions get a grip or 'grow a pair' real soon there is a very good chance that we face a downturn that will make the crash of 1929 and 1987 look like a financial blip.

Faith and confidence are two key components that can make the difference.  Our Governments need it, our banks need it, our industries need it, our media especially need it.  We are all suffering from the inbuilt skepticism and cynicism of the media who, so it would seem, thrive and feed off of the misfortune of others.  The parasitical nature of the reporting trend currently in the media is depressing.  I believe they are so used to telling bad news they no longer understand the impact this negativity causes.  I am not for one moment blaming the media for starting this malaise, merely of fanning the flames and throwing a little gasoline over it.  Nor am I suggesting we turn a blind eye to the news, but we now need more than balance to restore the 'F' and 'C' words back into the vocabulary.

Today has been hailed as one of the worst days in the history of publishing with the announcement of job losses which show the impact into what has often been thought of as a bullet proof industry. We need our Governments to realise that industry and business need support.  Cutting interest rates is fine in a scenario which reacts in the normal way.  This action would achieve growth through increased spending and stimulate the housing market.  But these are far from normal times.  We need action that restores 'F' and 'C' in business so that it filters through the economy and increases 'F' and 'C' in the beleaguered workforces who fear that with every passing weak they are one step closer to redundancy.

We can all play our own part in restoring 'F' and 'C' by adopting a policy of positivity and trying to banish negativity from our thoughts, so that unlike our morbidly obsessed media we do not drown in bad news.  Don't talk down the situation, don't become obsessed with the bad.  Negativity is a virus sweeping through the world, positivity along with immediate action for business is the cure.   

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Gripping, disturbing, twisted...inthenews.co.uk

The Trees Are Falling...

Surviving the next year is going to be a major challenge for many publishers and businesses in general, small and large alike.  There are no longer any guarantees of safety for anyone.  Many household names have been shaken to their foundations and some have tumbled into the abyss. Lehman Brothers in the US, HBOS in the UK, GM, Woolworth, Citigroup, all of them going, going, gone!

Book sellers are undoubtedly going to feel the squeeze, and this will probably be reflected in reduced sales which in turn will lead to reduced orders.  So what are you going to do, how are you going to react?  By reducing prices to make yourself more competitive, by toughing it out or by raising prices in an attempt to claw back some of the lost ground. 

Often companies react by slashing their marketing budget, a senseless move that leaves a company weak and vulnerable when their is an upturn and a move that also has an immediate impact on its current products.  It may be that the most pro-active thing you can do is to raise the amount of PR and advertising you can do to capitalise on the weakness of your competition.  As with houses, cars and retail in the high street, in the world of media a position of strength can be gained by negotiating a bargain. 

Many publications and media outlets are in the same position of taking the best offer or reducing their prices.  Take advantage of your competitors misfortune or its inability to react ,and maximise your opportunities where possible and when appropriate.  There are no guarantees as I said earlier.  I dare say not one of the major banks ever considered for one moment that they would be where they are now, but their failure to act and respond to a situation crippled them.

If you listen very carefully you can hear the trees are falling

Tell it like it is - The Power of Local Marketing

By Darren E Laws

The other day I was reminded of the power of excellent local marketing when a leaflet popped through the door from a pub trading about a mile from my home.  The leaflet was a folded A4 newsletter, it had spectacularly bad design.  In fact its lack of design was part of its genius or rather the simplicity of it was.  There was no graphic design, just a few sectioned areas that related activities the pub was undertaking through November, some samples of the food sold in the pub, and special offers.  

A simple message told without any distracting graphics.  The result of this naive missive was that it grabbed my attention.  I knew of the pub in question and of its perceived reputation, but one A4 sheet had told me more about the establishment than 13 years of hearsay. 

When I said genius, I meant it.  Had the pub tried to fill the publication with images or even dabbled with some graphic design it would have weakened the achievement it accomplished.  This newsletter, printed on the cheap, undoubtedly delivered to every home within a two mile radius managed to get its message clearly and succinctly to thousands of houses.

Like all good marketing initiatives it delivered news to an audience that was unaware of its product.  If the pub is really astute it will follow the process with a further newsletter before Christmas. I am not for one moment suggesting that we all follow the footsteps of this pub and abandon good graphic design to deliver whatever it is we are selling (hopefully books), but what we can learn is never to forget the message we really need to tell.

No matter how good our images and design is, it is the power of the written word that really sells.  Spurred on by my local public hostelry I have decided to run a test experiment within my local neighbourhood and produce a simple newsletter backed with a nicely designed postcard with some Caffeine Nights Publishing titles and target around a thousand randomly chosen houses.  This will take time and effort but I think it will be interesting to monitor the response especially on the run up to Christmas.

Sometimes it is so easy to spend time looking at the bigger picture that we forget our own back yard.  If nothing else I am sure this form of marketing will raise the profile of our books and publishing company at a local level and this is an audience that should never be neglected, because with it comes loyalty and local pride. If this sounds hokey it might be time to reevaluate your own core values.  If it sounds like something you have been thinking of doing but never got around to, now might be the time.

Be Afraid...be very afraid

By Darren E Laws

Halloween is almost here, the Frankfurt Book Fair has just finished and six months after the end of the London Book Fair it is sad to report not much progress has been made by the publishing world and its eagerness (or lack of) to embrace the digital future of publishing.  Paul Coelho makes some very interesting observations that the industry is still struggling with the Internet.

Coelho says there is "a lack of understanding of the web on the part of the industry", which could mean they end up travelling the same path as the film and music industries.

"Instead of seeing in this new media an opportunity to invent new ways of promotion, publishers concentrated on creating micro sites, which are totally outdated, and a few of them complained about the 'misfortunes' of the other cultural industries, perceiving the web as the 'enemy'," he said.

Coelho's answer is to give his books away in electronic form on his blog site The Pirate Coelho.  He says openly that for the industry to survive content must be shared freely.  This is a similar challenge faced by the music and film industries both of which are investigating forms of digital rights management.

Coelho is experiencing a growth in sales even though he is giving his electronic content away.  The music industry has also survived despite the messengers of doom that foresaw the end of the industry.  The majority of young people who get their music now from the net instead of a record shop balance paying for downloads with using peer to peer (P2P) torrent sites.  Though the majority of free P2P torrent sites share illegal content young people do not consider the actions they take to be breaking the law.  In fact many bands are now joining the actions of Coelho and either giving away their content on controlled sites or allowing it to happen because 'word of mouth' from these downloads actually lead to increased legal sales.

Tackling how to produce a working model that maximises web exposure while generating income is obviously important to all artists.  Without income, artists will be severely hampered.  MJ Rose today launched her novel The Reincarnationist as a time limited free download because she knows the value of word of mouth and of giving potential customers something of value to help generate a sale.  I tend to agree with this approach and it is a subject I have been trying to come to terms with as well. 

From the perspective of an independent publisher who appreciates every sale, the decision is do we follow the trend and give away eBook versions of titles and if we do will this hamper printed copy sales.  Personally I do not think sales of physical paperback or hard back copies will be affected.  With that in mind we have decided to give away eBook versions of my next novel 'Dark Country' direct from our web sites - www.cnpublishing.co.uk and www.thefictionstore.co.uk on its publication day for a limited period to monitor the impact on sales. 

Is giving away digital content an act of madness, altruism or simply recognition that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.  Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Coldplay among many other bands have given away content and seen exponential growth in actual sales.  Nobody believes for a moment that because they gave their content away it was of a lower quality or worse still, worthless. 

Free can be a good thing, it scares the establishment. Quite apt for this time of year.

'How to get a lot of money out of desperate authors...

while making a very nice living as failed author!'


How many 'How to write a successful novel' or 'How to become a published author’ novels have you seen advertised both on the net and in bookstores from authors you have never ever heard. Surely if someone was to be an expert on the subject they should have a modicum of success. Often when you delve a little deeper into the background of the authors of these 'successful' authors who put their names to the 'How to' brigade of books you find that their only publishing success has been the publication of the 'How to' book in the first place. Is this not a little misleading? One thing is for sure though that there is a lot of desperate writers out there who gobble up these books and their words of wisdom without stopping to check the credentials of the author or indeed have no measure or yardstick to digest what they have to say.

A quick search through Amazon shows that this is a growth market with little or no signs of it being impacted by the current credit malaise sweeping through the world. It would appear that there are a lot of would-be writers keen to know the secrets to quick success and the riches it brings. If this was the case and the authors of these books were making their wealth through their own creative writing ability rather than suckering people wishing to lean the trick of the trade then surely we would be reading a lot more 'How to' books from famous authors and not unknowns capitalising on the dreams of the desperate. Furthermore, these authors by the very nature of practicing what they preach would be successful.

So the next time you're tempted to buy a shortcut to success, at least stop and look at the resume of the author.

P.S. This is NOT an extract taken from my latest book. How to become an incredibly successful author in only 10 days or you money back…