I watch a lot of crime dramas on television. Tonight’s (11/18) episode of Law & Order: SVU featured a storyline revolving around DNA replication. The protagonists of the show, two cops, discovered that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence that can lead to wrongful convictions. The antagonist laughed and said, “It’s a whole new world. Guess your free ride is over.” and the camera panned away to show the horror on the main characters’ faces. I sympathized with their reaction to abandoning what was considered inviolable and facing an unknown future with changed rules. I knew just how they felt.
A year ago today (11/18/08), I wrote a column here at RTB titled Less is More where I talked about the state of the economy and how it might affect the publishing industry. I have to say, looking back a year later, I have been blindsided by certain developments. I’ve been saddened by the number of friends struggling with their careers, and I have felt pessimistic about the future of career-focused authors. I have heard of print run numbers so low my jaw drops. I’ve watched one writer after another take on new pseudonyms, new genres, new agents… trying to stay published.
Yet despite how downright depressing some of my conversations with writer friends have been, I’m still holding out hope. I have long been one to embrace change. While some people crave stability and hate surprises, I love to try new things. If there’s something better, different, unusual… whatever, I want to check it out. From moving residences to changing genres, I like switching things up. I’m waiting/hoping/praying that the publishing industry finds a viable and sustainable new business model–soon!–that will benefit writers and readers as well as the publisher.
What will publishing look like in six months? A year? How will writers be getting their stories into the hands of readers? Any guesses?
No related posts.
I LOVE change, especially if I’m a newcomer to the industry. Change creates opportunities. Opportunities open the door up to new players (authors/publishers). It is very challenging to enter a castle if the walls are sturdy, the gate is lowered, and the moat is deep.
There will be failures but humans are wonderful beings. We take these failures, learn from them, profit from them. Every success if built on the foundation of failures.
That’s why I never really understood why people fear failure. (shrugs)
Writers should submit one chapter at of their manuscript at a time through their blogs. That’s what I’m thinking of doing.
As long as you know, hani, that most publishers (there is always an exception) won’t publish stories that have been posted on the net. Very challenging to sell something available for free.
I can understand that about complete stories*, but what about individual chapters, as hani mentioned?
I’m not going to go so far as to post an entire novel online as a serial, but I have been considering including two or three chapters of my WIP as part of a chapbook that’s mostly made up of short stories that have appeared in online publications It’d be available via print on demand (POD) and perhaps as eBook/.PDF/etc. as well, I haven’t decided yet.
The idea is to give folks a nicely-produced physical edition of some of my work that’s currently only available in pixels, plus some new material that isn’t available anywhere yet.
Do you think that including a sample of a longer work would actually affect the eventual publishability of that work? It seems to me that hooking an existing audience (for example, people who follow my blog or read my work online, Facebook fans, etc.) with a taste of the novel would be a positive rather than a negative in terms of its eventual sale.
Taking it a bit further, I think there’s an increasing convergence between Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans” idea and the author-driven marketing and publicity efforts described by Jeff VanderMeer in “Booklife.” Publishing houses, strapped for cash and hurting like every other company, aren’t giving most authors nearly as much as the once did in terms of publicity and marketing support, so authors are having to handle an increasing proportion of that work.
With the rise of print on demand services, it’s increasingly easy for writers to sell their work directly to their readers. Pay 30 bucks to Bowkers and you can get 10 ISBN numbers, which means you can use a company like Lulu to publish, and then distribute through Amazon or a non-profit like Small Press Distribution. Warehousing and distribution companies like Ingram, which once had near-monopolies on book distribution because they controlled what got shipped to chain bookstores and independents alike, are no longer essential.
So: add all of this together, and the idea of genuine one man (or woman) publishing houses doesn’t seem entirely absurd, particularly if you throw freelance editors into the mix.
Instead of just writing “Carrie” in his cramped trailer, the next Stephen King might very well write, publish, distribute, and market it from his laptop.
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*I’m thinking about Spencer Dew as the sort of exception you’re talking about. Many (if not most) of the stories in his 2008 collection from Vagabond Press first appeared online and are still available on websites.
I think writers will become much more versatile. They’ll branch into multi-media. I think you’ll see them self-publishing at the same time they’re selling to New York and to the soon to be Indie publishers. I foresee a rise in Indie Publishers picking up the slack that has been left in New York. It should be interesting times.
I think the smaller publishers might rise also. They have less overhead and with the technology for POD improving all the time, those small business are going to start taking bigger chunks of the market. But that said, I’m not sure it will translate into authors making more money.
This has been a good writing/publishing year for me, but I am coming from a rather new epublished author outlook.
I am comfortable with the three epubs I’m with, am beginning to get sales and website hits, haven’t had a rejection on a submission in a year(yeah, I know THAT won’t last!).
I’m thankful for any sales at all at this point, looking at the economy and at the sheer number of epublishers and romance authors I’m competing with for contracts and sales.
Hopefully I am building a career, starting at the bottom. That is my intent, anyway. I don’t know where it will go. I know that eventually I will need to look at print publishers–but maybe not, because who knows where all this change is taking us? I just try to make the best decisions for what I am facing in the Now.
My take is that along with an increase in digital offerings and authors self-publishing (not just new but established ones seeking alternate ways to connect with their readers), we’ll see more online communities centered around a certain genre/sub-genre.
Publishers and authors could benefit by tapping into these communities as they represent a core fan base that’s invested in seeing the stories not only survive but thrive. I would definitely purchase books directly from authors who are active participants in such a community. This will especially benefit niche genres like…science fiction romance (what, me biased?!)