The Economics of Writing & Publishing in the Digital Age

On the right: Manjula Martin & Jane Friedman

This past week, I was interviewed along with my Scratch business partner, Manjula Martin, about the economic realities of writing and publishing during a very transformational time for the industry.

The interview was for an episode of an hour-long podcast by BoingBoing, The New Disruptors, hosted by Glenn Fleishman. I’ve pasted a few show notes below, to give you an idea of the wide-ranging territory we cover. Click here to find out more and listen.

Things mentioned in the episode:

We talked about a bunch of ways in which people can get paid as journalists by patrons and supporters, including Patreon, Beacon, and Tugboat Yards.
You can watch Ira Glass’s short series on storytelling.
There are a ton of electronic publishing platforms, which include29th Street Publishing, TypeEngine, Glide, and Creatavist. Medium is a blogging platform, an independent producer of journalism, and a partner to existing publications, like  The Magazine . It also purchased  MATTER , which now publishes its articles for free reading. Richard Nash has his finger on the future of publishing, and is now working with Byliner.
Nicole Cliffe of The Toast; Dan Kois, a senior editor at Slate; and Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at the Atlantic spoke to Scratch about what they pay writers.
Harlan Ellison says, “Pay the writer!“

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