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Publishing Industry Websites

October 11, 2009 in misc by JDA

If it turns out - which is somewhat likely - that I don’t become a successful author I can see a huge opportunity in publishing industry websites. As much time as I’ve been spending on various websites related to the publishing industry lately, I can think of maybe one that has been done particularly well. Some of the large publishing companies have great websites, from a design standpoint, but they are all lacking usability in some way. The sites that seem to hold the most information are typically 1) not forthcoming with such information and 2) the worst in terms of design. I would think that a list of literary agents would not be something that a company would charge for, especially when the same information is available elsewhere for free by searching Google. If you are asking someone to pay for content on your site that can be found elsewhere, then what you are asking them to pay for is really the way you’ve organized the content. If the organization is poor, then what are you asking people to pay for?