The other day I cleaned my old roll-top writing desk. What prompted me to clean it was that I could no longer see the chipped and stained wood because it was littered with scraps of paper. The desk was chock-a-block with notes and ideas for future pieces and character sketches, and I found a setting description for a novel I’m writing. There were a few short stories, and a mess of fish/hunt ideas that hopefully would find a home somewhere someday.
My regular desk was filled up, too. On it was body copy for eblasts, a content calendar for social media posts, text for press releases, drafts of editorials, spec creative and outlines for brochures. While I tried to determine how I’d sort it I realized that we are living in a Golden Age of Content that remarkably resembled what occurred during the early part of the last century.
From the 1920’s through the 1950’s, writers, artists, illustrators, and designers were busier than ever. Print media like books, magazines, and newspapers spread all the news that was fit to print. Many towns published both morning and evening newspapers that communicated the local-regional goings on in a timely fashion. Advertising grew in leaps and bounds and copywriters and commercial artists were hired in leaps and bounds. Radio scripts were badly needed, and as film grew in popularity screenplays were in high demand. Other types of writing were needed like plays for live theatre and text books for schools, but suffice it to say there was a tremendous need for content.
The digital age has reawakened that demand. From websites to eblasts to ezines and youtubes and blogs, written and visual content is in high demand. Read it on a desktop computer or in your car on your smartphone, there is no shortage to the volume of words and pictures that are consumed by audiences every day. Everyone has a voice, and many are choosing to use them. And like in the past, the better ones find themselves in high cotton. Ours is a very exciting time indeed.