Does the mainstream media bore you? Do you have talent that is going to waste because publishers don't recognize your brilliance? Dissenting voices are being more marginalized by the media everyday. There is a solution: do it yourself. DIY media has always been on the cutting edge.

"Many traditional media can look stale in comparison, and one of the first changes I think is noticeable in society is how swiftly online trends are transformed and remanufactured for the mainstream," says Barbelith publisher Tom Coates.

Matt Drudge turned the journalism industry upside down with The Drudge Report and Harry Knowles has turned his self-published e-zine Ain't It Cool News into one of the most vital entertainment sites on the Web. You can do it too.

A Quick and Dirty Guide to DIY Media: Online Publishing

The Internet has given people the power to easily and affordably publish and/or promote their own work beyond their own local community. Your play, stand-up comedy routine, zine, music, artwork, photographs, movie, novel, comic strip, diary or anything else can be published or promoted online to anyone who is interested--and for little or no cost to you.

Publishing on the Web

Self-publishing on the Web is the most popular form of DIY media. Over 150, 000 people publish using Blogger alone. Whether you're actually publishing your work online or just promoting it online, the web is a very useful tool for self-publishers. The Web's multimedia abilities have become increasingly impressive over the years. You can now easily publish text, pictures, music, and videos to standard web browsers. Web Monkey and A List Apart are two excellent resources for learning Hyper-Text Mark-up Language, the computer language used to create web pages. You don’t need to learn HTML to make web sites but it will give you far more control over your Web site.

Download.com has a wide variety of shareware and freeware HTML editors for Windows, Linux and Macintosh. I recommend AceHTML for Windows. It has a nice split screen interface that allows you to edit HTML code in one screen and immediately see the changes in the other.

After you've built your Web site you will need to publish it online. You may want to begin your web experiments with a free Web space host because it will give you the chance to learn the art of Web building without spending money. Lycos' Tripod and Yahoo!'s Geocities (http://geocities.yahoo.com) are two popular and venerable free space hosts that have many tools for beginners. Click Here Free has a large directory of free Web space hosts, some of which won't even place ads on your site.

There are also services to help you set-up your own topic specific site. MP3.com and IUMA provide free space, promotion, and audio streaming for musicians. They also give you a (tiny) cut of their advertising revenue. Blogger is a free tool for automatically updating news and journal sites (called "Web logs"). You can either host your Web log on their site for free, or it can upload your work to another site via FTP. There are many other services like it such as Pitas and Live Journal. These are excellent services if you are going to be posting a lot of short updates or articles.

You should spend some time searching out free Web space providers and deciding what’s best for you. If you have a lot of big sound and movie files you're going to want a host that offers a lot of storage space. If you are trying to sell something (like a CD or a printed zine) you should make sure your host allows business. Remember that free Web hosting always has a catch: you may have to host ads, buy something else, or host a certain type of site. Don’t forget that free Web space might be included with your Internet subscription. Your local Internet provider may be the best choice for hosting your web site for free, but you'll have to move your site if you change providers.

Eventually you'll want to get your own domain name and a host with more storage space, fewer restrictions, and no ads. Dreamhost has been recommended to me several times as a good, low priced Web host. Things to look for in a Web host: how much bandwidth you're receiving and how much additional bandwidth costs, storage space, support for CGI, and support for streaming media.

Publishing on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) File Trading Systems

Peer-to-Peer file trading programs ("Napster Alternatives") are an excellent way to expand your audience. You don’t have to pay expensive bandwidth charges or even disk space.

FastTrack claims their network (used by KaZaA, Morpheus, and Grokster) is the largest file trading network online. But many people have become fed up with FastTrack programs because they are only available for Windows and generate a lot of pop-up ads that cause system crashes. And they're currently being sued into oblivion by the nefarious Recording Industry Association of America. Many users are switching over to the Gnutella network, an open decentralized network that is growing quickly and constantly improving. Limewire is a high quality Gnutella client and is available for the big three operating systems.

Many people try to promote their creations through file trading systems by labeling their files as something well known. Have you ever searched for Radiohead MP3s and ended up with some an MP3 of some random garage band? But mislabeling your work can make it almost impossible for your audience to know who you are or how to get more of your work. This is fine if you want to annoy your audience and just get your work published without worrying about receiving any credit for it. But most of us have enough ego to want people to know who we are. Instead of mislabeling your work, try including a note such as "if you like William S. Burroughs . . ." after your file's real name. You may get fewer downloads, but people will be more likely to appreciate your work.

Change Your Future

What you publish online is only limited by your imagination. Publishing online can be a great way to network with interesting people, get across important messages, and of course have fun.

The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.