You Can Be a Publisher, Not Just an Expert

I think we’ve become so accustomed to the idea of blogging as a way to demonstrate expertise that we’ve overlooked another possibility.

What if you don’t actually want to be an expert in one particular subject?

Perhaps you’re curious about lots of things. You might enjoy researching, finding information, making connections, and explaining things to other people. What if you’re more interested in exploring ideas than establishing yourself as the person with all the answers?

Well, you can still build a publication around that.

You can be a publisher, not just an expert.

And there’s an interesting economic distinction here. Expertise is one form of knowledge, but it isn’t the only resource involved in producing something valuable. Information has to be found, evaluated, organised and delivered. Those activities take time, judgement and effort too.

In fact, they are central to the economics of publishing.

I’ve always enjoyed helping people understand things

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is my experience as a Supplemental Instruction leader for History of Art.

This was about 30 years ago, but I can still recognise something about the work that appealed to me. I enjoyed helping people understand the material. Taking ideas, looking at how they connected, and finding ways to make the subject easier to follow.

It wasn’t simply about repeating information. It was about helping someone see what was there.

And I think there’s a similar opportunity in publishing.

You don’t always have to be the person who originated the information or has spent a lifetime studying the subject. You can be the person who brings it together, explores it, puts it into context and makes it accessible to someone else.

Think about how much information we encounter every day. It’s everywhere. We have search engines, databases, research papers, product reviews, specialist websites and an enormous amount of published material.

But access to information and the ability to make use of it are two different things.

Information has little practical value to someone who cannot find what they need, distinguish reliable sources from unreliable ones, or understand how different pieces of information relate to one another.

This creates an opportunity for publishers.

They reduce some of the effort involved in finding and understanding information. They make choices about what deserves attention and how best to present it.

In economic terms, they’re creating value by making information more useful.

A publisher does more than write articles

When you think about a publisher, you might picture someone who commissions writers, edits manuscripts, and produces magazines or books.

But I think the role is much broader, particularly when we’re talking about independent online publishing.

A publisher decides what deserves attention. They notice interesting subjects, identify questions worth exploring, and find ways to present information that readers will appreciate.

Publishers might research a topic themselves, bring together information from several sources, compare different perspectives, or commission someone with specialist knowledge.

They make decisions about what to include, what to leave out, what to put first and how everything fits together.

In other words, they’re making editorial decisions.

And those decisions have economic consequences.

A reader has limited time and attention. They cannot investigate every subject, compare every available option, or read every article that might be relevant to a decision.

Time is a scarce resource. So is attention.

A useful publication helps readers allocate those resources more effectively.

For example, imagine someone researching a particular product. They could spend several hours visiting different websites, comparing specifications, reading reviews, and trying to establish which information is reliable.

Alternatively, they could find one well-researched comparison that brings the relevant information together.

The publisher hasn’t necessarily invented anything new. The individual facts might already be available elsewhere.

But the organisation of that information saves the reader time and effort.

That’s value creation.

You could have ten articles covering the same subject, but the one that organises the information in a more useful way might be the one readers actually need.

You can publish around your curiosity

One of the things I find limiting about the traditional approach to blogging is the pressure to establish yourself as an expert in a particular niche before you’ve even had a chance to explore it.

You choose a subject, define your audience, position yourself as an authority, and then spend the next few years producing content around that decision.

There’s an economic consideration here too.

Choosing a niche is a resource allocation decision. You’re committing your time, attention, and production capacity to a particular subject. That commitment has an opportunity cost: the other subjects, ideas, and opportunities you won’t have as much time to explore.

Of course, specialisation can be useful. Developing expertise takes time, and concentrating on a particular subject can make it easier to build a recognisable publication and attract a defined audience.

But specialisation isn’t the only possible starting point.

What if you haven’t quite worked out what interests you yet?

You could start with something you’re curious about. Research it. Write about what you discover. Follow an interesting question into another subject. Notice which topics keep drawing your attention.

You might eventually find a particular area that you want to concentrate on. Or you might discover that your publication works better as a collection of related interests.

You can also make decisions about the economics of production as you go along. Some subjects might require extensive research, specialist contributors, or expensive resources. Others might be relatively straightforward to investigate and explain.

Not every interesting idea has to become an article.

You can assess whether the time and resources required to produce something are justified by the potential value to your readers and your publication.

The point is that you don’t have to manufacture expertise before you begin publishing.

You can develop your editorial interests along the way.

What could you actually publish?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

You could create a publication that:

• Compares products, services or different approaches to a particular problem.
• Explains subjects that readers find confusing.
• Brings together useful information from different sources.
• Explores connections between seemingly unrelated topics.
• Investigates questions that don’t have straightforward answers.
• Introduces readers to ideas, people, places, or things they might not have discovered otherwise.
• Curates resources and makes them easier to navigate.
• Examines the costs, benefits, and trade-offs involved in everyday decisions.

Let’s take something ordinary, like building a salad.

You could write an article listing ingredients and explaining how to combine them. But you could also explore the cost of ingredients, what keeps well in the fridge, how to use leftovers, which combinations work together, and how to make a salad that fits into a busy working week.

You could even look at the economics of making a salad.

What does it cost to prepare one? Which ingredients can be used across several meals? Does buying a larger quantity actually save money if some of it goes to waste? Is a more expensive ingredient worth including?

Suddenly, you’re exploring food, household budgeting, food waste, purchasing decisions, and resource allocation.

You’re still publishing about salad. But you’re also helping readers understand the decisions surrounding it.

That’s the interesting part.

Your publication doesn’t have to be a collection of articles proving how much you know. It can be a place where you explore subjects, investigate questions, and help readers make sense of the choices available to them.

You still need editorial judgement

Now, there’s a distinction worth making.

Being a publisher doesn’t mean you can write about absolutely anything without doing the necessary research. And it certainly doesn’t mean presenting yourself as an expert when you aren’t one.

Readers need accurate information. You need to know where your information comes from, check your sources, and be transparent about what you’ve personally experienced and what you’ve researched.

Some subjects require professional qualifications or specialist contributors. There’s no getting around that.

But you don’t need to be the specialist in every subject your publication covers.

You need to recognise when specialist knowledge is required, find reliable information and make good editorial decisions about how to present it.

You also need to understand that not all information is equally useful.

A collection of facts isn’t necessarily an explanation. A list of products isn’t necessarily a comparison. And a summary of several sources doesn’t automatically give readers a better understanding of a subject.

The value comes from the decisions you make along the way.

What is relevant? What is missing? Which details matter most? Are there costs or limitations that haven’t been considered? Is there another perspective that would change the reader’s understanding?

These are editorial questions, but they also have an economic dimension.

You’re deciding how to use limited resources to produce something more useful than the individual pieces of information from which it was created.

That’s a skill in its own right.

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Your blogger, creator, founder insights are valuable

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Perhaps your authority comes from how you publish

I like this idea because it opens up a different way of thinking about authority.

Instead of asking, “What am I an expert in?”, perhaps you could ask, “What kind of information do I enjoy exploring, organising and sharing?”

You might become known for finding interesting connections. Or for making complicated subjects easier to understand. Perhaps you’re particularly good at comparing options, examining the practical implications of an idea or finding answers to questions that other publications haven’t addressed properly.

Over time, readers may come to trust your judgement and return to your publication because they know they’ll find something useful there.

This is also how a publication can develop an economic identity.

Readers have alternatives. They can visit other websites, search for information themselves, or decide that a subject isn’t worth investigating at all.

For your publication to attract and retain an audience, it needs to offer something that makes the reader’s time worthwhile.

That doesn’t necessarily mean having exclusive information or being the leading authority on a subject.

It might mean having a recognisable editorial approach. Perhaps you explain things particularly well, compare information in a way that makes decisions easier, or consistently identify questions worth asking.

Your authority develops through the quality and usefulness of that work.

You haven’t necessarily become the world’s leading expert on a particular subject. But you’ve developed a publication with a recognisable point of view and a reason to exist.

And that’s worth building.

You don’t have to know everything to publish something useful

I think there’s considerable opportunity in looking at independent publishing this way.

We often focus on the individual as the product: the expert, the specialist, the personality or the person with a particular skill to sell.

But a publication can be an asset in its own right.

It has an editorial purpose, an audience, a body of published information and a way of organising that information. It can develop its own identity independently of the person who produces it.

And, like any other productive activity, it involves decisions about resources, costs, time and potential returns.

You don’t have unlimited time to research every subject or unlimited money to commission contributors. Decide which ideas are worth pursuing and which ones are better left alone.

Those decisions are part of running a publication.

Perhaps the most useful starting point isn’t identifying the subject in which you have the greatest expertise.

Perhaps it’s identifying the kind of information you enjoy working with, the questions you find interesting, and the contribution you can make by bringing those things together.

You don’t have to be the person who knows everything.

You can be the person who knows how to find it, make sense of it, and bring it to the reader.

That’s what publishing can be.

Feature photo image: | Unsplash

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