I think the future of publishing will depend on the desires and eccentricities of 3 vague groups: Publishers, retailers, and authors. The interesting thing will be to see how their nuanced and individual wants and needs will find balance after the current earthquake that has dislodged several generations of power and control structures.
Basically, everybody still wants something, but the rules fell apart. We're writing the new set now.
1. What Publishers Want
I think publishers want to make money and put out good enough books that people keep wanting to read. On some level I think they also are staffed with people who love and value good writing, so I think they will fight for some level of integrity and quality writing.
Yesterday I wrote about the 5 key publishing paths and what they mean for the future of the industry. Jason M., an author like me, left an insightful comment that I've excerpted pieces of here:
...Publishing houses will become more like talent scouts, looking among the huge piles of rubbish for the one or two gems that pop up.
I think he's right about publishing houses becoming more like talent scounts. How they define talent will be the question.
What Retailers Want
Profit. That is pretty much it. Every decision within a retailers boils down to how do we sell more stuff and make more money and grow bigger. Which is fine! I don't hate that. But it's good to know that when you think about what a business like Amazon wants.
Jason M. continued:
I really hope this [new landscape] doesn't mean exclusive deals whereby the biggest distribution platforms (like Amazon) start requiring a publisher on your side to get promoted properly...
I agree. But I think that the reality is that Amazon doesn't care who creates the book, just that we all use Amazon to sell that book. If you do that from your living room, great. If you do it from a huge building in New York City, that's fine too. The key is, you are doing it.
Key Publisher + Retailer Note: They both want authors who are already selling books. Publishers don't want to market authors. They want to publish books by authors who have an audience. Retailers like Amazon want to take the top-selling books and feature them, because that's a proven formula for selling even more books. The moral? Figure out how to sell 1000 books. Show a publisher that you did it and they'll want to talk about your second book. Then do it again and make sure Amazon knows you are rocking it.
What Authors Want
Most fiction authors I know just want to write great books and make enough to make a living writing. Most non-fiction authors I know want to write a book or two that boosts their profile and brings in more clients. There are variations, of course, but the bottom line is that both kinds of authors want to keep being able to think and create around something they are interested in. Authors at our core are people who want to create things from our brains into containers for other people to read. We have big egos and we want other people to read what we say-- otherwise we wouldn't spend all this time and energy doing it.
But really, we tend to want to keep enlightening people about our discoveries and creations. Give us a decent wage and we'll work our tails off to make it happen.
What do you think? Is this what you want as an author?
Image source: Steve Snodgrass via flickr
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