To visualize the industry a decade from now, let’s first look at the biggest agent of change: the reader. For all the gadgets introduced into the world, all the innovation that will take place in the next decade, all the great marketing campaigns, nothing will stick unless it appeals to the reader.
What do readers want?
1) To find a good story that is easy to acquire, portable, and sharable. Take the library model of 1947 as an example. My grandmother would go to the library, ask her old friend Mabel the librarian for a recommendation, and check out a book. America was an agrarian society made up of small towns with convenient libraries, friendly communities and long-standing relationships. Sixty-five years later, we live in faceless, anonymous cities with revolving employees at libraries and chain bookstores. Goodreads is proof that readers are looking for a reading community that provides recommendations from like-minded individuals. Readers want convenience and community.
2) To have easy access to books in either rental or ownership formats. I have a library at home. Small and overcrowded, books flow off the shelves into stacks on my desk and the floor, spilling into the living room and bedrooms. Awful fire hazard. I loan books to friends all the time. My wife has a library of 162 ebooks (as of this morning). No fire hazard. She knows she can, but doesn’t know how to, lend an ebook. I also have a Kindle which I keep strictly for emergency purposes and travel. Occasionally I find myself stuck somewhere without a book, so I read on my iPhone or Kindle or PC. I love the convenience of “synch to furthest page” and having a book wherever I carry my phone. I am not a fan of being married to Amazon to get those features. As benevolent as Amazon has been, I just don’t like proprietary formats. When I buy a hardcover book, I do not have to worry about whether I bought it from now-defunct Borders or the still-going-strong Poisoned Pen. We want device and source independence.
3) Reliably written, edited, and proofread books. I like a good story. I’ve reviewed several wonderful independent books which exhibited such enthusiasm and energy that I was forgiving of small problems. The quantity of forgiving I’m willing to do is max’d out. Just because Amazon will let you publish what you think is a book does not mean you should. Many independents decried Sue Grafton’s rather mean-spirited comments about indie authors. Hate to break it to you, for 80% of the stuff that’s out there, she’s right. I used to review books on my site. I had to stop due to the number of desperate pleas I received to read things that had no business being proffered as a book for sale. They did not meet my standard, “A story so compelling people will pay money to hear it.” One need only look at books like RE McDermott’s Deadly Straits or Joanna Penn’s Prophecy to see professionally edited, compelling independent stories. They exist. One does not need a Big 6 publisher to write and publish a compelling story. Readers do not care about publishers, they care about stories. In the end, readers want to receive a value for their money. Readers want high quality stories.
So where does that leave the business of publishing? What about the delivery technology? Free market capitalism is about as romantic and sentimental as a hungry great white shark. Kindle versus Nook? Not a reader concern. Traditional versus Independent publishing? Not a reader concern. Book store versus online? Not a reader concern. How then, will a reader acquire a book a decade from now? That question will drive the future.
Community: Readers will seek recommendations for books not from a proprietary reseller/distributor, but from trusted peers in the reading community. Look at Goodreads for a model. Group forums exist for every genre and niche. One can post, ‘If I liked Plutarch what should I read for Medieval history?’ and get both intelligent and sarcastic responses. The reader can then filter for preference. How will this community support itself? Today Goodreads, and other forums like it, are supported by advertising. The day is coming when ads will either bury the community in debris, or the community will discover the one-click sales model. In other words, Goodreads could be the source for the books I buy. (Amazon tries to create that community feel but they’re just too big.) Imagine, you read a good review from a trusted reviewer, click BUY NOW, and it shows up on all your devices at once with portable re-load/backup capabilities supplied by your book community.
Big 6 Publishers: Adapt or die. The business model of today’s large publisher is not supportable in the future. Everyone outside the Big 6 gets that. Weighed by M&A debt, internal change-resistance, distribution eco-system demands and high profit expectations, these companies will not continue in the same form. Survivable bankruptcy, like so many airlines, is one option. Revolutionary change, giant layoffs, break-offs and spin-offs are all probable evolutionary scenarios. The new corporate structure for the publisher of 2022: a venture capital services company. A publisher in 2022 will offer various degrees of publication paths from covering complete advertising, marketing and editing costs while returning smaller royalties (today’s model), to higher royalty models with services provided a la carte in relation to the royalty option chosen. With the sublimation of some successful independents (Amanda Hocking) as well as the departure of established authors (JK Rowling), not to mention the hybrid option of others (John Locke), this change is already underway. Starting a publishing company in 2013 will take relatively little startup capital. Look for spin-offs, co-ops and startups to populate the first half of the decade followed by consolidation and winnowing in the second.
Literary Agents: This is one of the toughest futures to call. Most people believe the future of an agent is limited to a couple more years at best. Judging from an email I received this morning from a household name in agenting (unrelated to a query), it is clear to me that some of them do not see the handwriting on the wall. They believe in the status quo. That’s nice. The reader doesn’t care about today’s agent any more than he/she cares about the publisher. However, I believe the agent plays an important role in the future. More as a career manager closely tied to a smaller number of authors. Today they pick one author out of a slush pile of a thousand and champion that one project until it sells or they lose enthusiasm. The latter being a shockingly short time frame. Whine about it all you want, but with the paltry advances authors get today, that model is the only model that makes economic sense today. Future authors will have a bigger royalty pie to share. And agents will not have to pull out of a slush pile but instead have authors with a track record coming to them. Agents are salespeople without huge capital commitments mired in the old model. They can adapt a lot more quickly than large companies. Agents will adapt.
Bookstores & Resellers: A popular mistake is to believe that books will disappear. Those who believe this are usually unaware that today 50% of music is distributed via CD. Yes. The CD that was introduced in 1982. Why? Some people like to receive something tangible when they fork over their money. Me, I’m still paranoid about how Amazon remotely wiped books off Kindles after a copyright dispute. Books will live. So will resellers. See the aforementioned “community”. Boutique resellers such as the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona, or Chevalier’s in LA, or Partners & Crime in NYC, will always survive as a reading community. Some might survive as much on coffee and live music as books but they will never disappear. Big stores will downsize and develop some form of community. Starbucks & Barnes? Noble & Seattle? Who knows. But big box bookstores are hardly required today, much less in the future. I love my local B&N but have never set foot in half of it. Like the video rental section. I don’t need the accessories they peddle. Target carries candy and calendars and book lights. Bookstores will install kiosks for those one-click offerings the online communities will have. The smart ones will form a tech-co-operative to host their blogs and cloud offerings. And the really smart ones will host fun events. Not just author tours, but music and wine tastings, live theater, artwork. Anything to bring in readers and build a sense of community. Book stores have always been a place for intellectuals (and wannabes like me) to gather. That will continue.
Distributors: Sorry. Not everyone survives the future. A smattering of distributors, a fraction of today’s Ingram volume, will survive because some books will never disappear. Smart distributors will build efficient print-on-demand sites.
Indie Authors: All of us billionaires! Yeah. Right. Nice thought while it lasted. Gone are the James Pattersons and the JK Rowlings. A few authors break out with movie deals, but more authors are making a fulltime living. With more authors jumping in and discovering they need the editing and vetting and marketing, the algae-like bloom of independent authors will fade. Those wishing to press on will make personal investments in their books and therefore have a more vested interest in the market’s reception. I don’t have to convince ten people at Penguin that my book will sell. I have to convince my wife that emptying the savings account will result in the sale of 350,000 ebooks. She’s a lot more skeptical. And so are the readers. No longer will some established author hire a ghost writer and crank out debatable-quality books that sell on his/her name alone. No longer will giant companies bank millions on banner names while leaving debut authors to sink or swim on their own. Each book will face an individual investment decision based on the quality of the story inside it. Between the e-covers will have to reside a story that is so compelling people will pay money to hear it.
Please take a moment to watch my Kickstarter project video. If it appeals to you, join in, we’d love to have you.
Peace, Seeley
