My new book IS pertinent to the theme of this blog!

By Don Keith

MATTIE C.'s BOY is the remarkable true story of a man who overcame a horrible childhood, dominated by family violence (he witnessed his father murdering his mother at age five), racism, and more to become a successful businessman, a true inspiration to millions, and a powerful leader during the human rights movement in the 1960s.  So what does Shelley Stewart's story have to do with technological change and its effect on society and media?

Everything!  Shelley was a hugely popular broadcast personality.  He used that influence on the radio to help rally the school children of Birmingham to stage the Children's March of 1963...the few days of demonstrations that resulted in the famous images of police dogs and fire hoses that led directly to the end of harsh Jim Crow laws in the country's most segregated city.

The power of radio.  The power of one man, using a microphone and turntables, to change the course of history.  Just think what brave, creative people could do with today's technology.

We're doing some of that with old technology: the printed book.  But it is also available in e-book.  And even if I am the author, trust me when I tell you that Shelley Stewart's story will inspire you, no matter how you read it.

Is it worth the effort to try to save AM broadcast radio?

First, let me admit right up front that--even though I worked in broadcasting and was a personality on the AM radio band for many years--I am on record as predicting that the current 550-through-1700 kilohertz  portion of the spectrum will be an amateur radio band in less than ten years.

Well, now comes news that a current member of the Federal Communications Commission has mounted a crusade to try to save the AM broadcast band.  You remember what AM radio is, right?  There is probably a button on your car radio that says "AM."  The one you never push unless you live in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

HERE IS an article in the New York Times about Commissioner Pai and his hopes for keeping AM radio viable in the face of rapidly changing technology.  And, more importantly, in the face of consumer desires and preferences.  The article does a good job of refuting the ideas the commissioner has so I won't repeat them here.

For many reasons, I hope he is successful.  My heart says it is worth the fight.

My head, however, says, "Go find some other windmill to joust."

AM radio is dead.  Kaput.  Deceased.

Whether they know it or not, technology puts authors in the driver's seat

By Don Keith N4KC

Rapid technological change has affected few industries any more dramatically than book publishing.  Granted, it has remained an archaic business until very recently.  However, with the blurring of media such as I discussed in the previous post, it has had the effect of actually putting the book-writer, formerly the most abused and disadvantaged of all media-content producers, in a much better position.

Since I am a published author with some modicum of success, I get plenty of email from would-be writers who want me to give them the magic key to breaking through, to getting their books published, gain millions of fawning readers, and make millions.  Well, good luck with that!  However, now more than ever, authors have some leverage thanks to the technology, even if, as noted below, the big publishing houses have yet to realize it.  But I do reply to them, have a short article with advice on my web site, and have even written and published a short, inexpensive e-book on the subject.

Below is a recent reply to one person who wanted some ideas and guidance, and one whose expectations seemed realistic.  This is what I told him:

Well, as you have noted, writing a book is plenty of work, blood, sweat and tears (but I am happy to see you have a positive feeling after getting it done…many don’t) but let me warn you.  Getting it published is even tougher.  And that is even truer in the last few years.  Traditional publishers are becoming more and more restrictive on what books they will buy because today’s publishing “battlefield” is more treacherous than ever.  They are very much afraid of making a mistake and don’t have the luxury of having a few bestsellers to cover bad decisions they might make, simply because best-sellers do not make the kind of revenue for them that they once did.  There are fewer brick-and-mortar bookstores, too, and online retailers are discounting works to a minimum since they don’t have storefronts or warehouses to keep up.  Also, publishing houses still do not totally understand the advent of the e-book and the myriad e-book readers now on the market.  It goes contrary to their business models on many levels and, frankly, has turned the business upside-down.

On the other hand, authors now have many more options to see their works in print and be available for sale.  This, too, takes some of the leverage away from the big traditional publishing houses, even if they don’t yet admit it. 

First, let me suggest that you visit my web site at www.donkeith.com.  There is a tab there labeled “On Writing.”  The short article there and the inexpensive e-book that expands on it will show you where I think most would-be authors should go and how you can do it.  I talk at length about the mine fields new writers might encounter along the way, and there are plenty of them.

Despite all the change, I still believe the best plan for getting your book published and in front of readers is to use a traditional publishing house—one that buys the rights to your book, publishes it, and pays you an advance-against-royalties (maybe), then pays royalties on each copy they sell.  None will charge you money up front.  However, to sell a book to most legitimate publishers, you will need to have a literary agent to represent you to the major houses.  Most legitimate publishing houses (and NONE of the big ones) will read submissions that come directly from authors.  I give suggestions for locating an agent in the article linked above.  It ain’t easy!  But it is worth it.  Note, too, that agents work with a limited number of potential publishers.  If an agent rejects your book, it does not necessarily mean it is a bad book or not marketable.  It simply means the agent does not readily know of an editor/publisher with whom he or she works who is looking for a book like yours at the time.  Or that the agent does not represent books like yours. 

Agents are becoming more and more specialized.  When my old agent retired last year, I went looking for a new one.  I could not find anyone who wanted to represent the broad array of book types that I write.  Now, I have settled on one who does my military thriller novels and another who does my historical non-fiction.  I am still looking for someone to handle my commercial and/or literary fiction.

Another option is to self-publish.  This method of getting your book out there has changed dramatically in the last few years.  Before, you would contract with a so-called “vanity press” to print your book and get it into the usual distribution channels.  You would, of course, pay for those services, as well as any additional so-called “marketing” they offered, which usually turns out to be minimal and decidedly ineffective.  In practically all cases, the author ends up with boxes of books in the basement, sizeable invoices from the vanity press, and nothing else.  If those phone calls you are getting are from companies like this, I would suggest you politely tell them to go elsewhere.

Now, though, it is possible for authors to publish through various on-line vendors.  You can not only do a paperback version of your book but various formats of e-books as well.  The major vendors include Kindle Direct Publishing (e-books for Amazon’s Kindle reader and other formats), CreateSpace (print-on-demand paper books) and SmashWords (e-books for other e-reader formats, including Barnes & Noble’s Nook, the Apple Store, and more).  You can actually make your book available through these vendors with no cost to you whatsoever.  CreateSpace charges a one-time $25 fee if you want to put your paper book into what it calls “Expanded Distribution.”  This means the book will be in the catalogs of the major book distributors and can be ordered by any bookstore or library.  It also means the book will show up on and can be ordered from the web sites of Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and other online sellers. 

The only other cost would be anything you decided to pay to a book designer or artist to format your book and do a cover.  You can do that yourself if you are handy with the computer, PhotoShop, or other design software but the vendors maintain lists of people who can do this for you for quite reasonable rates.

Note that if you use CreateSpace, you can order books for your own use and sale much more cheaply than you can get books from some vanity press, or even from a traditional publisher that might publish it.  Example:  I can buy copies of my books published by Penguin/NAL—a major publishing house—for a 40% discount.  However, with my self-published books, I can order at a better than 60% discount off cover price.  That is because the books are printed-on-demand.  If someone orders a copy of my self-published novel THE SPIN today from Amazon.com, and if he pays for overnight delivery, that book can be printed, shipped and delivered to arrive tomorrow.  In my case, if I order books for an event, such as copies of my amateur radio book, I not only get them cheaper than any vanity press would print them, but there is no minimum order, and I can almost always get them in a week without paying a bunch for expedited shipping.  (In the spirit of full disclosure, if I want to, I can return books to Penguin/NAL for credit.  If I buy books from CreateSpace, I can't.  I own those until I sell them...if I can sell them.  But remember--no minimum order, so I can order as needed and don't have to keep a big supply in the basement.)

Now you see why the big publishing houses are a tad concerned!  Still, though, I believe for now they are the best avenue to get your book in front of the largest potential audience.  But you need an agent.

Incidentally, whether you self-publish through a vanity press or the online vendors or even if you sell your book to Random House or Simon & Schuster, you will still have to do much of your own marketing, including publicity, making readers aware of your book.  That is a whole other subject, and there are many books available if you go to Amazon and search for “marketing books.”  Again, I would avoid unknown companies who want to charge you an arm and a leg to “publicize” your book, or who promise placement in People Magazine or a guest spot on The Tonight Show.  There are many, many snakes lying in wait for you in that grass!

The Blur-r-r-r-r-ing of "Media"

By Don Keith N4KC

Are you ready for the continued blurring of media?  Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

Have you seen the onrush of interest in Google's Chromecast dongle?  Have you actually tried to buy one and, as have I, found them out of stock everywhere you try?  Have you considered what effect that little device--along with AppleTV, Roku, and the like--will have on how you and everyone else on the planet view "television?"

The truth is television is radio is Internet is smartphone is tablet is movies is newspapers, etc.  Soon there will be NO "television," "radio," "web," or, for sure, "newspapers."  There will be no "video" or "audio" or "print," either, for that matter.  The lines between one medium and another have blurred and the continuation of that blurring is only going to speed up exponentially as we go.  

I can think of no other area in society in which technological change is having a greater effect than what we are now seeing with media...how people consume audio, video, and the written word.  Even now, as we stubbornly continue to call media by their traditional names, how we are actually using them has already changed a staggering amount.

What we are actually doing now is consuming "content."  And that "content" is more and more being consumed by you and everyone else the way you want to consume it.  Sure, there will be a football game, broadcast on a TV network that primarily feeds over-the-air TV stations.  But that game will also be available on the Internet and can be viewed on a computer monitor, a tablet, or a smartphone.  But there will also be different views of that game that you can see (think NASCAR racing's feeds now that actually put you inside the race car with the driver), a separate feed that offers commentary and analysis from an expert, and maybe even a delayed feed of the coaching staffs' communications with each other from the sidelines and press box.  Would you pay an extra $100 a season for something like that or put up with the occasional commercial?

Think, too, about all the sideshows we saw in the last few weeks around the premiere of the final season of AMC's series Breaking Bad.  You had to try hard to avoid podcasts, Q&As, discussion groups and other events with fans, critics, actors and creators of the show.  The time is here already in which a big media event without all the ancillary content is rare.  Or in which a sporting event or major news story does not also come with a true multimedia (or "blur-r-r-red" media) blitz.

Here's a final example.  Researcher Mark Ramsey recently hosted a great forum that brought together key players discussing the continual blurring of media and how, in the case of his company, such radical change affects broadcast radio.  Here is one session that talks about Google+ and Google's new service, Hangout, and how media outlets can use them to give consumers what they want.

And what they want is far more than a continual stream of music with a big-voiced announcer occasionally telling us that we have just heard "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas one more time.

Is over-the-air radio "special?"

By Don Keith N4KC

Some in the radio biz would have you believe that their medium is somehow "special," immune to the same forces that have radically changed every other mass medium there is.

Ain't so!

If you are in the over-the-air radio business--or if you care about what is happening to it--then take just 20 minutes and watch this presentation on the subject.  It is the best summation of the situation I have seen so far.  Congrats, Mark Ramsey, on the insight and the perfectly-staged presentation!


Change is inevitable.  Rapid change can be painful and frightening.  But keeping an open mind, being creative and, at the same time, smart, and being willing to take some risks and maybe even fail a time or two...all these things help people and companies take advantage of change, not get steamrolled by them!

Note: if the link above does not work, copy this URL into your browser:
http://www.allaccess.com/area-51/archive/16804/solving-radio-s-attention-crisis---mark-ramsey?ref=mail_news

How the world's largest broadcasting company thinks

By Don Keith N4KC

All Access ran the second part of their interview with Clear Channel Communication’s Chairman and CEO, Bob Pittman, today.  (If the name is familiar, he is the same Bob Pittman who once programmed some darn good radio stations, started MTV, and was CEO at AOL, Six Flags, and Century 21 Real Estate.)  

In the first part, he talked a lot about technology and little about programming content.  He also talked about how CC has top-notch talent on the air, even in their smallest markets.  They do that by having big-market talent voice-track shows on other stations.  I think regular followers here know how I feel about that.  If they were truly doing more than just "That was Fleetwood Mac and this is Journey on Rock 107" then I might agree that was a good thing to do.  

They aren't.  And it ain't.

There was nothing too pithy or incendiary in the second installment, either, but his final answer sort of made me see red.

JD: And finally Bob, what are your biggest goals for the next five years?

BP: First of all, our goals are to bring money to the radio sector. We have to do that. Then we have to continue to embrace technology and make it work for us. And, we have to continue to develop new products and services that help our advertisers make better use of radio and help us deliver more for them than we have in the past.

Did I miss something or was there nary a word about improving the over-the-air product…unless that vague third goal includes putting something on the air that nobody else has and that people would be excited enough about to seek it out on whatever technological platform on which they could find it?

I would hope that the man who controls more radio stations than anybody else on the planet would realize that trying to compete with Pandora, iRadio, Spotify and other pure music streaming services by streaming music over the air is a dead end.

I applaud Bob's comments about showing advertisers that their commercials worked, and to work harder to develop a plan that helps advertisers sell widgets.  But I would also hope that someone who has been so visionary in the past would have a plan to do something revolutionary that assures that the brand equity that many traditional broadcasters still have can be leveraged in new and exciting ways.

"Broadcast-speak" warning!  Pittman and others in the biz MUST start thinking beyond smart-phone apps for FM, 30-and-60-second commercials, time sold based on average-quarter-hour share-of-listening estimates from Arbitron, and playing "the most and best hits of the 80s, 90s, and today!"

There is talent and music and other content out there that can bring people to the FM band (maybe even the AM band, but I now believe that is a lost cause) as well as a plethora of other ways of distributing it.  Listeners want more than a constant stream of music.  They also want companionship, empathy, two-way communication, and to be part of a tribe of other folks just like them.  Radio still has the power to provide all that.

I just hope Bob Pittman and his peers know that and are willing to take the chances necessary to provide it.

Is "traditional" book publishing going the way of buggy-whip makers?

By Don Keith N4KC

I came across an interesting blog post talking about whether traditional book publishers were doomed or not..

Well, it is the age-old question, isn't it? Yes, traditional publishing--as is ALL media--is changing rapidly, mostly based on evolving technology.  However, the needs and wants of readers (read: book buyers) are evolving as well.  Those who regularly follow this blog know that I don't limit the rapid technological change and its effect to only a few media or industries.  It is everywhere!  And it ain't gonna stop!  Those who cannot accept rapid change are almost certainly miserable right about now.

Evolution is inevitable.  Sometimes it is not pretty (See; platypus.)  But is always interesting and, to some of us, damned exciting!

Consumers today want media delivered on a variety of platforms.  And they want it when they want it...e-book, audio, and, yes, old-fashioned sheets of paper bound at the spine.  Can you visually read a book--whether it be paper or e-book--while driving in rush hour traffic?  Ever tried to read a book on an iPad or other tablet screen on the beach?  Can you really store a few thousand paper books on a shelf the size of a smart phone, or locate the book on that shelf you want in a few seconds searching by keyword?  Can you hold an e-book or audio book in your hands before purchasing it, thumb through it, read any segment you want, feel the heft of it or get that visceral reaction to the full package?

The traditional publishers that truly understand what their customers want and need will thrive.  That implies that the publisher learns to employ creativity in all aspects of marketing: formats, pricing, distribution, and more.

That also includes offering the creators of all that content that traditional publishers hope to sell...authors...a compensation package that makes sense.  Make it more attractive for creators of content, like me, to allow publishers to purchase rights from us than it would be for us to go do-it-yourself.  That, too, is part of good marketing: the purchase of raw materials that makes growers, miners, or, in our case, the creators a successful part of the whole operation.  Too many traditional publishers try to skimp on or still don't understand this part of marketing, based on all the centuries when they controlled the channels of distribution exclusively. For the first time in history, creators of content may finally be gaining the upper hand because we do have options for selling our raw material, so long as it is not too "raw."

Other media are going through the same paroxysms.  The music industry was slow to evolve and look what happened to them.  (How many record stores do you see in your local mall?)  Daily newspapers hardly have a pulse.  Big magazines are barely avoiding flat-lining.  (See Newsweek, Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post.)  Network TV and over-the-air radio are facing the same fate if they don't react more quickly and intelligently. (A prime-time number one network show recently reached fewer than a million homes, and that was the first time this has happened since the '50s.) Pick up any movie trade pub and look at all the angst that medium is experiencing.

It is an exciting time.  It is a frightening time.  But as with any rapid societal change, smart, innovative people will prosper.  Those with their heads in the sand, opting for denial and stone-walling, will fall to the wayside.  Evolution is an inevitable and brutal thing.

The answer to the question in the headline will only come when--and if--traditional publishing is no longer referred to as "traditional."  Or when "traditional" is universally accepted as referring to those publishers that produce content for users across all platforms, including those that have not even been thought of yet.