I'm writing for AnnArbor.com these days. 5 days a week I write something with a deadline that goes online; 1 day a week I write something with a deadline that goes into print.
My sense for the feedback I get from those two sets of writing is really different.
The online work I do is extremely links-heavy; the printed page gets an essay that doesn't try to reference everything I mention with a URL. Online has as much space as I want, but print only has 500-600 words. Both of those differences would be enough to have it make a difference.
But the biggest difference is the geography of the readership. The feedback I get from the work that goes online is from people in my online social circle, either the one that I brought to the paper myself or the ones I've accumulated from being part of a larger publication. They are online, relatively geographically diffuse, and likely to know me through technology.
The feedback from people who read things in print is not tied at all to online closeness, but has so much more to do with geographic proximity. Everyone who sees the printed edition is within 20 or 30 miles of here, and most of them are less than 5 or 10 miles away. They might not be online at all.
All so very noteworthy, and I don't quite know what to make of it yet.
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