Being a publishing curator – a fancier term for being an editor who decides whether to accept a manuscript for publication – isn’t the same as being a curator who works at a museum and searches for yet another masterpiece to hang on the walls. You know, the actual definition of curator. Editors don’t curate. They buy. They edit. They make business (and sometimes artistic) decisions.

Publishers are important for many, many, many authors. Many fine editors work at the big six publishers, and these editors have helped shape the works of countless authors. Sometimes publishers even manage to do something to break through the wall of noise and create a buzz around a new book.

But they don’t curate. They edit. They acquire. What an acquiring editor does isn’t curate. Unless to curate means to accept a manuscript that the editor thinks: A) will fit in with the list of books that the publisher wants to present to the world and B), that the editor thinks will sell. Both are well within what an editor should do. But this isn’t curating. This is making a business decision.

After all, publishers publish many books, many well written, many badly written, that go on to sell well (or not). It’s the rare museum curator who finds and convinces a museum to buy a work of art because it “feels right” for the market. Many people go to a particular museum because they respond to the art that a curator has chosen. No one buys a book because it’s been published by a particular publisher. Readers don’t care. Authors and editors (and agents) care, because among them a publishing house’s name signifies something. But readers care about what’s on the page (or on the screen), not what’s on the spine or the name of the imprint.

So, what does this all mean for an entrepreneurial author (as all authors really should be), who’s building a platform for his or her work? It means that your decision to try to get published at a traditional publisher or to decide to self-publish should be based on what you want to get from either. You shouldn’t have to rely on the word of an editor who calls himself or herself a “curator” to determine whether what you’ve written is good.

If someone is trying to convince you that you need to publish one way or another, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s because publishers have a lock on quality.

Your audience is already telling you what’s worthwhile.

Why is that important for people who aren’t readers of Victorian novels, or English majors or those who follow literary history?

Well, apart from his being one of the greatest writers in the English language (alongside such other Victorian giants as George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Charlotte Bronte and Anthony Trollope), Dickens was one of the first writers to build a platform for his work. And to engage with his audience in a particularly modern way.

Sure, Dickens didn’t have the Internet. But, having started his writing career as a court reporter and journalist, he knew how important it was to stay in touch with an audience of eager readers. And the world was rich with all sorts of journals, daily rags, fine magazines, all sorts of ways for writers to get the word out (the overload of information isn’t solely a modern-day phenomenon).

Dickens originally published many of his works in serial form, in monthly installments, ending each chapter or episode with a form of cliffhanger. Kind of the fictional equivalent of the call-to-action you find at the end of many blog posts, which encourage you to comment. Only in Dickens’ case, you were compelled to buy the next installment to see what was going to happen. It helped spur sales of each series of chapters.

But this way of writing – almost up to the moment before publication – proved beneficial in another way. According to a study of Dickens’s working methods, he valued and reacted to the opinions of his readers – and this installment form of publication permitted readers to voice their opinion while Dickens was in the middle of working out a novel. He sometimes altered the story depending on what the public reaction was.

Sounds a lot like what many authors do nowadays, refining their voice and strengthening their message as they interact with their audience.

You may not be writing fiction, but being in touch with your tribe is a great way to ensure continuing feedback and a continuing audience for the work you are writing, the book you are creating, the message you are sending. Take it from Dickens.

At least, that’s the speculation. According to an article in The New York Times, among other newspapers and news sites, since Amazon is in the process of opening more, and larger, distribution centers, can an Amazon physical retail presence be far behind?

Well, never say never, but it seems unlikely. Amazon is not only the largest vendor of books, but also a significant retailing presence for a wide variety of products, from shelf-stable grocery items to rugs and furniture and clothing.

Sure, bookstores sell more than books nowadays, things like toys, stationery, souvenirs – they have to, to cover the costs of selling books. But it seems that as digital sales of books themselves soar, Amazon would be foolhardy to open stores to offer all sorts of merchandise (or a carefully selected choice of all the merchandise it offers).

And Amazon sells so very many different things, a store would seem to be more like a crazy dumping ground like something you’d find in the sci-fi series Warehouse 13 than even the best-supplied Walmart. And does Amazon want to become like Walmart?

The discussion itself, though, reveals the interest in Amazon, as a kind of merchandising version of computer maker and seller Apple: seemingly all-powerful.

What does this represent for writers who are creating books (either for online or physical distribution), or building a platform to increase their audience?. Not much, really. As an author, your concerns are content, and distribution. As someone building a platform, you’re working on creating content and you’re building an audience to follow you wherever and however you distribute that content.

After all, the content is more important than the delivery system. And whatever Amazon does in terms of opening physical stores or not, it’s pretty likely that once you’ve built a large enough platform and finished your book, you’ll be able to sell it anywhere.

But you probably knew that.

Still, the latest figures from the American Association of Publishing show that while year-to-year sales for that month decreased by nearly 21%, e-book sales jumped by 123%.

So the increase in e-books more than made up for the decrease in hardcovers.

This is not great news for traditional publishers eager to shore up earnings in the face of shifts in book-buying habits. But it does show that people are still reading books.

Or at least buying them.

Which is good news for any author. Especially one who’s building a platform for his or her ideas and who wants to engage with a growing audience through that online platform.

Still, e-publishing isn’t the cure-all for any sales ailment the publishing industry might be feeling. It’s another option – albeit one that is getting to be a more potent one. The future is digital, as author J.A. Konrath notes in an excellent blog posting, “Franzen and the EBook Bubble”. And, bit by bit and perhaps byte by byte), the power is returning to the author as the creator of content, rather than resting with the publisher as its distributor.

You are more likely to make an impact, regardless of how your book is published, if you’ve devoted time to building your audience through blogging, social networking, interaction with your tribe and commenting on other posts.

But it seems to be an increasing likelihood that the e-book is the book that will be in everyone’s hands (via e-reader of some sort) in the very near future.

Apart from that, however, what’s important is that you still devote time to finding your voice and crafting your message. No matter what method of information delivery you choose, you’ want to be transparent.

Authors are entrepreneurs (and many entrepreneurs should be writers to increase their reach), and should act, not react. Embrace the platform concept, and move forward in finding an audience.

So much for the enduring nature of the printed word in book form.

Barnes & Noble has decided not to stock physical books published by Amazon. It will offer them online, but not in its brick-and-mortar stores . Comments from readers on the Galleycat.com, which had reported on this, were generally opposed to Barnes & Noble’s actions.

The thing is, how many physical books does this mean? Well, not many for now. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will distribute print books from Amazon Publishing, and that represents only a fraction of what Amazon offers in digital form anyway.

Still, what Barnes & Noble is doing in the name of protecting its interests – or in simply making a statement that it opposes Amazon’s increasing power – is limiting the choice of consumers. What Barnes & Noble is doing in the name of protest is saying that choice is important, but only when the retailer is doing the choosing for the consumer.

As more and more books are being read on electronic devices, the rejection of physical copies of books may not amount to much. But Barnes & Noble’s actions underlines the fraught conditions in the retail marketplace.

What does this mean for authors? At this point not much – unless you’re an author who will have a physical copy of your book distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and will need to tell your fans that they can’t find it at their local Barnes & Noble. Not likely, right?

But how authors distribute what they write is important. They want to be heard, to be read, to reach their audience, to make a difference. They have been building a platform to get their ideas across and their book is an extension of themselves. Even if one consumer is unable to find the book he or she wants because a retailer has decided against stocking that book, that consumer – and that retailer – suffer.

That shouldn’t happen.

If you make $50,00 a year and you live to your means and spend $50,000, you have no room for error. In other words, when those inevitable breakdowns happen, you get stressed and have to scramble for the extra money. Life gets a little bit tougher. Don’t the dishwasher and car transmission fail at the worst possible times? Typically, as we make more money, we spend more money because isn’t that the reason we strived to make more money in the first place? We’re vulnerable to the consumer mindset, and the advertising mavens know this: they prey upon our weakness.

Networking on the margin is as stressful and detrimental as living on the financial margin. You go out to events, shake hands, pass out cards, chitchat and move on to the next event. Once you go to one mixer, sure enough you’ll be invited to others and as you gain momentum, you’ll see your weekdays and nights filling up with events.

At first you feel great: Most of us are social animals who like to be included in groups because it strengthens our sense of belonging and self esteem. Soon, however, you’re likely to find yourself with no down time to follow up and strengthen those valuable relationships that you’d made so much effort to initiate in the first place.

The margin allows for those spontaneous meetings that often come up because someone wants to review an idea or project with you. How can you have time for those unplanned events when you’re rushing around from one group meeting to the next? If you try to squeeze everything in, you end up shortchanging your business and family because you won’t have enough energy to juggle everything. Networking and allowing yourself time to follow up, make calls and spontaneously set up meetings with key contacts is only possible when you have allotted scheduled gaps of time to be free.

The margin in your life, whether it’s financial, networking, relationships or whatever you invest your energy into is that gap of resources that you don’t allocate, that you leave open and free to allow for the unplanned events which happen in life.

My feeling is that special things happen in the “margin” because since circumstances and our energies are always shifting, it allows you to accommodate for those events in a stress-free fashion.

Living below your means, only keeping a handful of close relationships near you, networking within your capacity to follow up and build strong relationships makes life much more manageable and productive.

Lester M. Salvatierra has 15 years experience as a licensed Finance Specialist with First U.S. Finance (http://www.FirstUSFinance.com). He helps small to mid-size companies lease or finance a wide variety of equipment and special projects nationwide. He is passionate about referral marketing and is a business networking coach in Ventura County, California. Sign up now to follow his business networking blog at: http://theRogueNetworker.com

Definitely, says James Altucher, a writer and entrepreneur. In a riveting and informative blog post on TechCrunch he describes how self-publishing has worked for him, and why it should work for any entrepreneur.

Altucher makes many of the points we here at Beneath the Cover do when discussing why having a book is so important for an entrepreneur:

1. Entrepreneurs can exploit their knowledge and content
2. They can strengthen their role as expert by having published a book (and this includes self-publishing)
3. A book is a great way for an entrepreneur to stand out and, as Altucher writes,

“At the very least, when you hand someone a book you wrote, it’s more impressive than handing a business card. It shows that you have enough expertise to write the book. It also shows you value the relationship with the potential customer enough that you are willing to give him something of value. Something you created.”

For anyone, entrepreneurs especially, who want to become known, a book is perhaps still one of the best ways toward that. It becomes a part of your platform to help you spread your ideas and build your business.

Equally interesting is Altucher’s argument about why self-publishing is viable in an age when traditional publishing, though still powerful, is less of an option for the vast majority of writers. Writers who might make money but who are often overlooked in favor of the handful of big-name authors whose sales support the publishing business’s operating models.

Altucher is the most recent, but not the only, writer to extol self-publishing. Self-publishing may not work for everyone (it helps first to have a platform to reach people), but it might be something that more and more writers – good writers who are rejected by literary agents and publishers (not that good writing is an indicator of potential success – will consider going forward. More and more consumers are choosing to spend their time reading self-published books. So more and more authors will undoubtedly self-publish.

He boldly declared that content is no longer king. Indeed, he said, we already have enough information and the game is now more about:

1. Developing a deeper relationship with the individual.
2. Positioning the product appropriately by presenting existing information properly.

Although I agree with those two points are important—they are ancillary. The relationship and the presentation play a big role, but I completely disagree about the status of content. Content will always be king!

Some five or ten years ago, we went through a phase called the Democratization of Media. We quit relying solely on news anchors and big media agencies for information and content. Instead, we moved toward getting it directly from the source—or the closest individual to the source, including: bloggers, eye witnesses, and individuals that are actually in the trenches reporting real, raw, relevant data. These people aren’t massaging the message, or trying to build a relationship with me, instead they are simply delivering the information.

In fact, sometimes in life there are individuals that I don’t even like (both their personality and their style) but if I recognize that they speak authoritatively and truthfully…then I listen carefully to the content–regardless of how it’s presented. I usually value people who don’t spin the message, more than those who end up positioning it for me.

This reality trend is not going to stop. In fact, this isn’t a trend. It’s a revolution and it’s going to become deeper and closer still.

People desire valid, honest information and that is precisely one power of the Internet.

Of course, I agree there’s all sorts of useless fluff and incorrect blather online. Luckily our built-in BS meters are becoming quite adept at quickly sifting through this stuff. Additionally, anyone who writes or presents content that isn’t valid is quickly dismissed and disengaged from the conversation at an ever-increasing rate. At the end of the day, the information we value is truth, honesty, and hybrid thinking.

One can ask, “Do we have all the information we seek in life?” The answer is clearly, no.

To drive this point home, simply ask anyone suffering from a disease, a challenge, or personal issue if he or she has all the information that they need to triumph over their ordeal. Or consider if someone found a cure for AIDS or cancer. How important would this new content be? Would the positioning really matter? Would a relationship be necessary? The answer is no.

I punctuate this post where I started it…content will always be king.

I hope not.

An interesting article about Barnes & Noble’s efforts to compete against Amazon showed how even the largest and once-feared retailer can become a victim of changing buying habits and the new realities of the digital marketplace.

But more people are probably going to gravitate toward online book-buying rather than the leisurely pursuit of reading options at a bookstore. Barnes & Noble is aware of that, and its CEO William J. Lynch Jr. emphasizes that the company is a technology business, and he’s looking for ways to make the retailer viable, and competitive, as a purveyor of electronic media.

For the author, this might be a sort of sidebar to writing and marketing a book. But no one can take for granted any step of the book-publishing process. Sure, you may opt to self-publish either through print-on-demand or through a digital download of your book. You may think that bookstores are not in your future anyway, as a forward-thinking author. But bookstores are important for everyone. We need spots where we can actually unplug once in a while, even if the bookstore becomes plugged-in. What consumers should have, and authors as well, is choice.

Sure, the music industry underwent enormous changes, and musicians now rely more on performing than on the sale of their records to earn their living. But authors are less performers than musicians are. Authors need to build a platform to ensure that their ideas begin to reach an audience and broaden that audience. And then use that platform to strengthen their business. For authors, a book is a tool toward something else (we’re speaking here mainly of nonfiction authors). It helps build a business.

Even if you eschew traditional publishing and traditional methods of book distribution in favor of digital publishing and distribution, you should be aware that bookstores continue to do one thing well: promote the very idea of books. That’s strong. That’s important. That can help any author, regardless of how that author’s book is distributed.

Close to a million books are published each year, which means that books remain an essential part of our culture.  We nevertheless need to be reminded stop and think and experience words at less-than breakneck speed. Your message is important, and you’ll be building it in increments, adding followers, readers, consumers in a gradual and strengthening way. You want them to last, and stay with you as your platform grows and evolves.

And, after all, you can download a book in seconds. But it takes a bit longer to actually read one.

That’s a nice headline-grabbing remark – but the thing is, new books have long sprung up like Tribbles in that famous old Star Trek episode about multiplying creatures that threaten to overrun the Enterprise. This book-upon-book-upon-book phenomenon has been happening for the past couple of decades, and the rate at which new books appear will probably increase further as more people release e-versions of their works.

But while we’re awash with words most go unread. This was the case in 1950 and before, and this is the case now. It doesn’t matter how many books are published. What matters is how many authors are noticed. And how you are noticed.

It Takes a Platform

That takes having a platform from which to spread your message. It means finding, building and engaging with an audience.

It doesn’t matter what your specialty is: you’re going to face stiff competition. According to Bowker, the book-industry organization that handles ISBNs (those international standard book numbers) and conducts research, the number of books in just about every category it tracks increased substantially between 2002 and 2010. From agriculture to travel, the arts to technology. Even books of poetry and drama increased almost 100%. All told, the number of books published in the more than 25 categories that Bowker includes in its listings increased by 1148%. What’s an author to do?

Well, you can be heard. It takes focus, a continuing engagement with an audience, and the willingness to wait as you build that audience. It’s rare that authors find overnight, unexpected success in publishing. And even those who seem to have made it big quickly have often spent a long time laying the groundwork for their success.

So, yes, more books were probably published even in one day this today than in some past year. But that doesn’t mean you need to be confined to the sand piles of unread authors. You just have to learn how to raise your voice to be heard against the waves of books that are constantly crashing onto the shores around you.