Did you just use YouTube to embed these videos in your blog post? It’s really nice how it pops up when clicked!

Thanks (And sorry about the random question)

Katrina

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 3:00 AM, The Wine Economist wrote:

> ** > Mike Veseth posted: “[youtube > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzQAfAAW96k?rel=0&w=420&h=315%5D – “The > reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” – Mark Twain This post is > provoked by Andrew Jefford’s now-famous speech “The Wine Writer is Dead,” > which he gave at a “

So this brings back the conversation to that which has been going on now for probably a couple decades, but certainly in more earnest over the past 10 years: Can a publisher make a living catering to readers in an era of proliferating free prose?

“The Daily”, an internet only newspaper, just closed. The NY Times is cutting its newsroom staff. These are just two examples in the past 2 days of publishing problems in an era of free prose. What’s a publisher looking to make a dime to do? What’s a wine publisher to do?

To me, the question seems to be: How Do You Create a Sense of “Indispensability” around a publishing effort? Create that and readers will pay. The New Yorker is a good example.It remains to many the home of the best American prose. We’ll pay for that.

The Wine Spectator remains indispensable not because it is home to the best wine reporting or writing, but because it remains influential. It’s important to know what everyone else is reading.

With wine, then, the challenge for a publisher is to create something that is indispensable. To do this, I think you need to find a way to publish the best of the best on a daily basis. That means hiring the best. That costs money. Can you afford to fund that as you develop a reputation for indispensability?

Perhaps the problem is really with wine readers. Perhaps they don’t have high expectations. Perhaps they don’t need indispensability.

Great take on this, Mike.

Tom….