A few days ago I wrote a blog titled BoSacks Speaks Out: On Fee-Based e-Edition Newspapers. In it I stated the following:
"Will there be plenty of room for profit in print? Absolutely. Printers will make tons of money and so will plenty of publishers."
I stand by that statement today and that is why I have picked up this press release from Publishers Press. Talk about seeing and profiting in the future. Look what my friend Michael Simon calls his company. He calls it a Content Distribution Provider. I think Michael has nailed our future perfectly. Publishers Press may print but they have their eyes firmly on the future.
Several years ago Michael once asked me if I would recommend that his children continue in the fifth generation family printing business. I assured him then, and I still feel that way today, that there is and will be a huge and profitable future for print if he handled the direction of his company with an eye on digital progress. I counseled that print will be around for a long time, but it might not be the predominant way that people will read in the future.
For whatever it is worth to my readership, I love the concept of a printer morphing into a Content Distribution Provider. I have said for over fifteen years that publishers are now in the information distribution business. It never occurred to me to extend that concept to my printer friends.