The Future Of Publishing – An Unqualified Opinion

Part of the problem I have with the argument over ebooks vs. print is the absolutism that runs through it. You get more reasoned, even-handed arguments over abortion and gun control.

One of the reasons I distrust pretty much every prediction about the future of publishing is that ebooks gained their traction during a really bad recession.  As a result, everyone seems to assume either the growth in ebooks will continue on a steady slope, or it’s just a fad. Here’s a fact no one seems to consider: Every technology that experiences sudden explosive growth plateaus and settles into more realistic growth rates. Go all the way back to the telegraph, which no longer even exists. The telegraph as we know it was invented in the 1830′s, with Morse building the first viable system in the US shortly thereafter. By the Civil War, a mere twenty-five years later, you could dot and dash a message to even the most remote parts of the US and Canada and even England. The railroads, the telephone, automobiles, the computer, television, cable, cell phones, and the Internet all experienced this growth.

Furthermore, every media format with the exception of print has gone through the same thing. So why not print?

Movies required first a projector, then a television, and now a computer file.  Without some powered means of illumination and movement, you don’t get a movie. Same with recorded music. Start with hand-cranked wax cylinders, move to wax disks, the glass 78 rpm record, the vinyl LP and its 45 single companion, cassettes, CD’s, and now MP3′s and the like. Whether it’s a handcrank or your smart phone’s battery, music is dependent on a power source.

Books are not. Which, if you’ve read this space for a while, is not a deterrent to ebooks, but it should temper the idea that no one will buy printed books in the future. Not only do I not have to plug in a printed book, but the book will remain on my shelf until I remove it, unchanged from the day I brought it home.

So, what do I think books will look like in the future?

• The biggest advantage to ebooks is that you can read them on your smartphone. He who goes the app-based route will win that race vs. device driven formats.  Sorry, Apple, but I want to read the new Micheal Connelly whenever, wherever.
• What’s killed self-publishing up until the Age of Kindle and iPad has been a piss-poor print-on-demand model. Trade paperbacks, which are the best print format for on-demand printing, cost too much and Ingram, which owns the biggest POD printer, Lightning Source, may be guilty of anti-trust measures. Indies tend to depend on Baker & Taylor and independent book distributors. Ingram, the 800-pound gorilla in book distribution, doesn’t play nice with others. Then there’s iUniverse, which makes more money off authors than off readers. Their books are overpriced compared to the average traditional press’s books. Never mind PublishAmerica and Authorhouse, which refuse to admit they’re printers, not publishers. (Sorry, but publishers pay the author and do not charge for editing. No exceptions. Ever. Ever. Ever.)
• That said, I do not believe the only place you will be able to buy books in the future will be Walmart and Kroger. I believe you will buy most of your bestsellers and celebrity “books” there. Who will sell the most books? The independents, believe it or not. The Espresso machine that does on-site print on demand will become a must-have for those selling print books. Authors will not want to pin themselves to a single brick-and-mortar location, which will spell doom for the chains, already in trouble. Indies, on the other hand, will do what they do best: specialize. You will see science fiction bookstores and mystery bookstores and even shops specializing in paranoid wingnut politcal screeds. (Those will not get a dime of my money, but knock yourselves out. Glenn Beck needs that gold scheme money.  Keith Olbermann just needs attention.)
• The indies that will survive or thrive will have an ebook component to their business. How?
• The epublisher will rise. Right now, it’s good to self-publish electronically. Done right – good editing, good covers, good promotion – which is now easier than ever, one can make some good money self-publishing. But as this model grows further, it will be a return to the bad old days of POD self-publishing, wherein there’s a lot of garbage out there. An epublisher will be able to cut deals with indie stores, Amazon, and so on. Print authors will be able to offer electronic editions of their print books. More importantly, books will still need to be edited, formatted, given cover art, and so on. New authors generally suck at this. Plus, a writer will need to have someone who can help them stand out above the crowd.
• Established authors will become their own publishers. The smart established author will go it alone once they’ve built their brand, hiring their own editor, artist, and publicist and leveraging their existing relationships with bookstores. If you can offer a print version by emailing your book to Partners in Crime in New York or any other indie you may know, the Big Six become sort of extraneous.
• Will it be a brave new world? Sure. It may even become what the 1990′s were to computer nerds. (Hey, that gave me a decent day job career.) But getting there will be ugly. It’s like everything else. We are between booms in this country and in most of the world. Does anyone deny that, right now, it’s pretty ugly? That applies to everything.
• James Bond will return.

Yet Another Publishing Wonk

Everybody who’s anybody, and quite a few nobodies, are pontificating on the present state of publishing.  Things are rough right now.  My agent sent me a couple of nervous emails about what type of project we should pitch next.  (Maybe evil yet awesome?  Oh, wait.  That’s in April.)

Everyone has an opinion.  You know what they say about opinions, but this is a big Internet.  I will not take it personally if you pass on this one.  Hell, enough of you read my political rants.  So why not have a go at my wholly unqualified opinion on the publishing industry.

I want to hit four points based on what I’ve seen these past five years.  But first, I want to make a very important point:

Yes, it’s bad.  It’s a dark time for publishing.  But if history teaches us anything, it’s that dark times are what come between the booms.  (Conversely, booms happen between downturns, so keep that in mind next time publishing gets all giddy again.  That goes for everything else.)

I want to address newspapers, distributors, electronic publishing, and print-on-demand.

• Newspapers – My original post was longer and rantier and made some points about the free alternative weeklies doing better than the dailies.  And then Matt Groening had to go and invalidate everything I said with a comment about his Life in Hell strip’s future.
  
  But one point I do want to make.  The newspaper as we know it is disappearing.  It’s not coming back.  Nor is the broadsheet or the single-section paper of the pre-Hearst/Pulitzer era. 
  
  For that reason, I believe publishers should shift their focus away from newspapers until they figure out what their new role will be going forward.  There’s a role for newspapers in the future, but until they figure out what that is, publishing needs to shift it’s advertising dollars elsewhere.  Go where the eyeballs are.
• Electronic – Recording saw electronic formats coming and panicked.  As early as 1995, major artists suggested that sending music to record stores via those newfangled broadband cable thangies might be a profitable revenue stream when coupled with another cheap, new technology:  The CD burner.  Recording’s response?
  
  Run screaming into the night.  So rather than embracing something that would have ushered in a new golden era for recording, labels buried their heads in the sand and let Napster do for free what they should have done a buck a download.Publishing’s response to the Internet and electronic formats?

  Um…  The PDF (fine for replacing the fax), DRM (only works for movies), and proprietary ebook formats.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love the Kindle, but if electronic books are going to become competitive with hardcover, trade, and mass market paperbacks, they’re going to need to be standardized for any device and reasonably priced.

• Distribution:  Distribution of books is in the hands of one or two companies.  That is not competitive.  In fact, it’s the biggest obstacle to independent bookstores surviving.One or two big companies decide it’s more competitive to send big orders to a few chains or Wal-Mart, and the independents are screwed.  No, that’s not capitalism.  That’s an oligarchy bordering on monopoly.  Last I checked, those were illegal except in a few cases. 
  
  Since we’re talking about books instead of cars or pro sports, book distribution doesn’t pass the exception test.
• Print-on-demand:  It has it’s place, and small press is not it.  I know this from personal experience.  I think the in-store press has a future, as does the small print run on POD.  But the model of no advances, no inventory has simply lost any credibility.  I know.  I was in the lab for the experiment, and that rabbit stunk when it died.

Obviously, I don’t have all the answers.  I do know distributors have a lopsided amount of influence on publishing.  I know New York and London have twiddled their thumbs on electronic formats, possibly handing Amazon a monopoly.  I don’t think newspapers are dead, but I do think they’re overdue for a transformation.  And I don’t see a future for POD as a major force in publishing.