,,Go kill more trees”, my friend Edial cheerfully replied when I told him about my upcoming blog book. ,,While you’re writing articles for the newspaper, don’t forget your personal blog”, Erwin Blom warned me on Twitter. Are you a journalist or a blogger, people ask me frequently. Hell, I don’t know guys. I just publish. And for every story, I pick the most suitable medium.
Twitter piece in NRC weekly magazine
This week, the Saturday edition of NRC Handelsblad printed a story I wrote about Twitter. It was a piece for the beginner, the kinda person who has only heard about Twitter on the news here and there. I tried to convince the reader to give Twitter a go for a few tweets. Sure, I could’ve written that piece for a NRC blog, but I bet most people who read blogs have a fairly good idea what the use of Twitter is.
Same goes for the book I’m writing. I want to promote the use of blogs, since I think it’s a great medium for people to share knowledge and experiences about their profession or hobby. I could’ve published it as an ebook. But since I wanted to reach people who don’t really know what blogs are, I’ve opted for a traditional book.
When finding an awesome Internet movie (like the QT mixtape), I don’t write a short article about it for the newspaper. No, I blog about it and embed the movie on the nrc.next blog.
And uhm, when considering an inside story like this, I always choose to save it for my blog. My personal blog.
Are you switching between medium types?
That’s about it guys. Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and publicize.
Publicize everywhere you can, when you can. It’s the message that counts. Then again, you wil probably make more writing a book about blogging, then by blogging. Lets spread the word, even if that means writing in stone.
And how do you feel about switching to television? I.E.: the writer takes the place of the television reporter?
Yes, of course – use whatever medium is right!
I too am published in magazines – and publish myself in my blog.
Early to bed, early to rise,
Make your choice
Where you publicise.
Something else:
“Go kill more trees” is a misunderstanding. Not only because most papers (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the NRC Weekblad is it as well) are printed on reclycled paper, but also because of the fact that the paperindustries runs (witch means plants, grows, en cuts) it’s own trees. Simply because the can’t afford to run out of trees.
So, EJ, don’t be afraid you killed some beautiful trees in a tropical rain forest. Probably only a meant-to-kill-sprew in north scandinavia.
Sorry for the horrible English,
Tjeerd
I think I’ll sleep better from now on, thanks to you Tjeerd. Thanks! ;)
I’m all for blogging, tweeting and gleefully heralding a new era of online publishing and all that – but I’m overjoyed that I just received an OK by my publisher to publish my first book on old-fashioned dead trees.
I like Seth Godin’s ideas about why one might want to consider writing a book:
“A book is a physical souvenir, a concrete instantiation of your ideas in a physical object, something that gives your ideas substance and allows them to travel. [...] A book envelopes us, it is relentless in its voice and in its linearity. ”
When you want a powerful idea to spread or change to happen, a book may be the medium of choice. And at least we’ll be able to tell our grandchildren we were among the last guys to publish on dead trees, and among the first to professionalize publishing online. Awesome!
Congrats Jaap! When will it be published? And who is the lucky publisher?
Sorry, additional info will be released soon :-)