Have you noticed how, whenever you ask anyone who’s worked in publishing for more than twenty years, what has changed in the industry since they first started, that the answer is invariably a variation of “nothing but everything”?
It doesn’t matter what area of the business they work in, the answer is always the same.
Core journalistic, commercial and marketing principles have remained constant whilst virtually everything else has changed out of all recognition: publishing channels, consumer behaviour, the competitive environment, the technology, the tools we use et al.
Georgina Rushworth made these points well in our latest podcast.
In her twenty five years in publishing, since starting as a subscriptions marketing executive at RBI – she is now head of marketing at Pharmaceutical Press – Georgina’s guiding principles have been:
- Understand your audience and how your products help them.
- Never stop looking for better ways of doing things.
- Never rest on your laurels.
- Keep asking questions, and listening to the answers.
- Make sure you’re in touch with your organisation’s goals.
- When things go wrong, use the learnings and adjust.
The pace of change is dizzying and can be overwhelming, but it seems to me that if you never lose sight of this timeless approach, then you should manage to remain grounded and heading in the right direction.
Incidentally, the ‘nothing but everything’ theme also puts in an appearance in our special feature on publishing workflows, coming up in the May/June issue of InPublishing magazine. Not on our mailing list? Well, that’s easily rectified…
