Book Publishers, Newspapers and Magazines say you're not a real journalist/writer because you don't have an editor looking over your work and telling you if you can write about it.
Record Labels say you're not a real recording artist because you don't have a Producer telling you what to record and how to mix.
Television and Film Studios say pretty much the same thing.
All of these industries are in serious decline – so why would you want to be part of a dying media model?
Well, You don't, but they don't want you to know that.
The real issue is Control.
Do You want to be controlled?
The media says that if you don't work for them then just shut up if you've got something to say. Then they have to convince the public that if you won't shut up, then they shouldn't read or listen to what you have to say. Everybody loses. You don't get to say it and they don't get to hear it. Publishers, Labels and Studios would like to keep it that way.
Before the Internet it was simple. If you weren't one of the chosen, then you just didn't get on the air, in the paper, on the radio and you didn't get your book in the bookstores. What you had to say didn't matter, you had no way to be heard. Your potential audience had no way to know that you existed. The publisher, label and studio had complete control. Just what they wanted.
Now everyone carries a portable entertainment device and downloads whatever they want to carry with them.
If you want them to listen to your music, read your book or zine or watch your video, you just need to have a way to deliver your content as a digital download.
That's the good news. Gapingvoid quotes Clay Shirky:
So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this -- the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast.
Just in case you hadn't noticed. That increased pool of potential producers is You. And Me. All of us who were frozen out, pre Internet.
You have just become what Hugh calls a “Global Microbrand.”
As a global microbrand you don't need a Publisher, Label or Studio to tell you what to do, how to do it, or when. You also don't need someone to tell you that you Can't. You Can.
You can say and produce whatever you want to. Chances are that your judgement and integrity are as good as anyone else's – hopefully better than some major "professionals" when you consider the Washington Post article about the reporting at the United States' most important newspapers on the most important subjects of our time:
"The methods and ethics of reporters, and their coziness with unnamed sources, are under attack as never before, just as mounting financial woes are prompting top news organizations to agonize over why their audience continues to shrink. Anyone who thinks these trends are unconnected hasn't spent time in a newsroom lately."
What do you need? Start with your own desire to express yourself. Get your content produced – whether that's a book, a song or a video – then take advantage of the tools that allow you to sell your content as digital downloads.
These tools have become very inexpensive. Computing power, software, internet transfers of information. In the past, part of what made someone legitimate was having someone else pay the bills – now we can see that this was simply part of the controlling factor. As long as the tools and distribution factors were too expensive for individuals to pay for, then the biggies controlled everything. Even now, you will still see someone writing that you should never pay for anything – never pay set up, never pay your own production. But what does that really do if you listen to that? It means that you're letting someone else control what does get paid for. When the costs of getting your work produced and distributed are so low, there's no reason to let anyone else decide what moves forward. If you want to do it and distribute it you can do it now.
My interest started in researching this area for myself, and that's why I'm convinced that there are thousands of creative people out there in that vast Internet Universe who will jump at the chance to decide for themselves that they want their work set up as digital downloads now rather than wait for someone else to make the decision.
It's never been better. You can express yourself just as fully as anyone else and your distribution options are as good as anyone else's. You are Legitimate and they Don't have Control over You anymore.
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