Financial Times Deutschland -- RIP

The American media paid attention today to Australian-American immigrant Rupert Murdoch's reshuffling of News Corporation and the announced closing of his iPad news publication. In Europe, a media event quietly took place that spoke to the challenged economics of the print media. Gunnar + Jahr, part of Bertelsmann, the German publishing Goliath, is shutting down the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD). The story, as reported in the Parisian daily Le Monde, noted that 300 people will lose their jobs and 100,000 subscribers will have to find new ways to read reliably reported information.

Meanwhile, Bertelsmann's planned shotgun wedding of its scion Random House with book publisher Penguin (owned by Pearson, which publishes the UK-based Financial Times) continues on schedule.

PS. The Financial Times sold its fifty percent share of FTD in 2008.

Seth Godin to Traditional Publishing: RIP

The Financial Times published a story about literary agent Andrew Wylie and Random House kissing and making up over their recent e-book spat. Looking at Mr. Wylie's photo, I'm wondering who at Random House couldn't wait to smooch with the publishing world's version of Scott Boras.

The more interesting part of the story involved best selling writer Seth Godin. He has decided to abandon publishing traditional books, and focus on a viral, guerrilla-style marketing/publishing hybrid business model. Key to his approach is personal appearances, which are very lucrative for highly visible authors.

Godin's approach isn't for everyone. It's hard to imagine publicity-shy writers, such as Don DeLillo, embracing relentless self-promotion tactics. Sometimes, privacy is a virtue, and many writers have preferred productive privacy to publicity's siren song.