The problems with publishers are many. First, publishers determine the content and they are prone to buy the things they can best sell. This means that niche products, specialty markets, and unusual outside-the-norm writing is almost impossible to sell. Second, publishers keep most of the money. Granted, I know they take the risks but the deal is set up so that publishers get rich and writers don't. True, there are exceptions. But for every J. K. Rowling there are dozens of Randolph Hearsts and Rupert Murdochs. Third, it's the publishers' game; they make the rules. Writers have very little leverage.

The beauty of the Internet is that it made the publisher obsolete.

Now if you want to publish a novel in hardcover form and have it on the shelves of every brick-and-mortar bookstore on earth simultaneously, you are going to have to try to break in to the traditional publishing model (good luck).

But what if I told you that you could now set up your own online magazine in the form of a website? You make money (or "monetize the site" as the cyber crowd says) by selling products or advertising space. If you can write an interesting how-to book or have a great collection of recipes, you can sell these online as a digital product (ebook).

The line between writer and publisher has more than just blurred, it's disappeared.

The first people to recognize the tremendous potential of the Internet as a new publishing venue were the technical geeks. In an ironic twist, they were the very ones who did not care about it.

The next wave of recognition is going on now as professional marketers and former denizens of the infomercial and direct sales world hit the Internet. These marketing gurus realize they can now sell information products and online advertising cheaper, faster, and easier than anything else.

This is the part that I don't want you to sleep through. Writers have a tremendous natural advantage here. Most Internet marketers complain loud and long about one thing: content. That's the new word for articles, podcasts, videos, and all of the other information that people online are seeking.

Content is tough for most Internet marketers. Of course, these marketing people still need to master the technical skills to set up a workable website and then drive traffic to it, but the thing they complain about is not the technical side, it's this. Content.

As writers, we are natural born content-making machines. Most of us can write well and easily about a wide range of subjects; we know how to do an interview and how to do basic research; we are deft at crafting sentences and we don't flinch when we're asked our opinions--about anything. In short, we're communicators.

Nobody on earth is better poised to take advantage of the Internet than writers.

Yet most writers are not aware of the Internet, don't know a revolution just happened, and even if you could convince them to test the waters online, they would howl in protest at having to learn technology.

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