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There is a macro-trend where the world that is inherently and fundementally divided into places, races, ideas and prejudices is moving to a single planet with common problems and aspirations.
While overall that seems inevitable, we are still divided and some of those divisions are growing during our lifespan. One great trend enabler is the internet and the media. Paradoxically it is enabling two opposite trends, globalization and localization/tribalization, a major social media platform for instance may concurrently provide a sense of community to the global warming interest group the same time as it provides a sense of community on the small island that I live on or a fringe interest that has only a handful of followers worldwide.
Mobile device and print on demand publishing has brought the accumulated wisdom of mankind into your hand as you ride on the bus or listen to an eBook on your walk.
The Global/Social media with its concentration on memes and reinforcement of echo-chamber thought has been well server by this. But the thoughtful, niche (local) tribal part of the equation has not been utilized effectively except by the extremist cliché driven elements.
We are in an era where the information we posses, and our personal ability and willingness to communicate the information we posess, determines our worth and success.
Everyone is still blocked by coronavirus from their past diverse social interactions to their immediate physical neighborhood or to their online tribe.
It is the right time to publish your ideas and passions, even if you are not paid, even if its only to 10 or 100 family and friends, to make the record of your community or life or mind, we have the technology to put it on any hand-held or media for consumption or platforms like Amazon books for paid distribution in a largely automated process.
There is a misconception that our times and technologies only empowers the biggest and most global of us, however it is equally true at all scales and actually the smallest and weakest who have the greatest potential incremental advantage.
Sustance develops or consults in developing evolving publishing and information business.
There are two poles to the orbit of spreading your ideas to the wider world.
One pole is the historical publishing routes, be that professional publishing or a vanity or niche route. This optimizes the copyright control at some upfront cost in cash or time and effort.
The pole is modern revolutions like Wikipedia and Google are all about free content. And will get you to every remote corner and niche of the world but with no control over the use of your intellectual output.
Our focus is on the large although less rewarding area of inexpensive distribution of more freely licensed content, This be one of the Creative Commons Licences or similar, provide for full attribution with various of levels of copyright.
This may also be analagous to the tech industry concept of "minimum viable product" where you go to market sooner at less cost in a market that is tolerates you polishing up the rough edges as you go.
The market that we are targeting are both writers and those who want to be writers but don't want to burn time or money in establishing themselves on a very long journey. We view our approach to this market as a kind of modern printing press, publishing free on the Internet or allowing others to print hard copy at their own cost without wanting to publish to just one niche or to forfeit the chance to profit fro their work.
The more we publish, the more readers we reach and the more exciting it gets for all of us. Publishing on the Internet or in hard copy may be very different for different kinds of writers, but at what point does it become so good that you stop caring about the tiny print and readership you might get?
We think this is the best solution for authors with a busy lifestyle or who prefer to spend more time writing and less time managing rights, licensing and permissions.
Sustance Pty Ltd,
established and publishing since June 1994
An associated open source capsule
kym.michael@sustance.net