The 5 Most Important Skills For a (Micro)publisher

A micropublisher (a term coined by Thom Chambers for one-person publishing houses such as my business, Insanely Interested) wears a lot of hats: she is the writer, the editor, the designer, the marketer, and so on. While she can outsource many of these activities, most of the time she probably cannot afford to do so — so out of necessity, and maybe also of curiosity, she will need to learn a lot of different things.

Here’s my top 5 of skills that help a publisher succeed in today’s digital world.

1. Writing: Publishing doesn’t happen without writing. Read good writing, in many different genres, analyze what makes the writing good, learn from the best. Practice a lot.
2. Design and typography: A publication that looks like a school paper made in Microsoft Word is not acceptable. Today, publishing is the readers’ market: with just a quick glance at what you do, they will quickly decide if it’s worth their time or not. Design (good or bad) is what they notice first.
3. Online services: Knowing what can be done online gets you going fast. Knowing how to choose the right service saves you time and money.
4. Programming: Sometimes, the existing services just are not enough, or require tweaking to work the way you would like them to. Some HTML, Javascript — and maybe even other programming skills will give you a huge advantage.
5. Marketing: Marketing is a wide topic, ranging from picking your product to finding readers and selling your work. Nonetheless, as a tiny publisher, you have no choice but to learn it yourself.

Did I miss something you consider important? Let me know.

I’m still practicing. But from this list alone, it’s clear that publishing is a very good business for an insanely interested mind!