The Agile Publishing Model

by Matt Bamford-Bowes on 8 February, 2012 - 21:11

I’m doing research into modern publishing models and how they can affect the way magazine brands distribute content. Although there isn’t a lot of exciting stuff apart from the standard – treat digital as its own publishing channel, I did find this interesting piece from Sourcebooks. They refer to what they are trying to do as The Agile Publishing Model and it is quite new, although actually I think Guy Kawasaki tried to do this with his recent books.

The Agile Publishing Model is based on Dominique Raccah’s theory that:

“building audience participation before the writing and publication of a book was a way to help readers discover new work, as well as leading to greater sales”

This seems to make sense and of course feels true. Build participation before you launch is smart and means when you hit activation stage, you already have a willing band of followers. This applies to most industries really, but the publishing industry does always seem slow to keep up.

Raccah told the audience: “We’re going to develop the book and build a community [around it] and the community is going to influence how the book is developed.”

I think it is smart, modern behaviour. So we shall see how it pans out.

You can also see Futurist David Houle talking about it below (poor sound quality but you get the idea)

Original Post: http://digigen.co.uk/2012/02/07/the-agile-publishing-model/