The future of publishing (part four)

[This series started on 2/20/08]

So why will authors need publishers in an all-electronic, all-digital world?

First of all, I think physical books will continue being sold for a long time, just as CDs are. While paperbacks won't last once a good ebook reader comes along, hard cover books will continue to be important for a number of reasons. Still, their sales (and the profit from them) will pale compared to the cheaper and more easily produced ebooks of the future. And for publishers, this is an enormous problem.

Individual authors can set up their own web sites and, in an environment where the ebook dominates, cut their own deals either with the customer directly or retail channels. Stephen King essentially did this several years ago. Most analyses of his experiment grade it a failure, and in one sense if clearly was: King could have made more money by going through traditional channels.

But that experiment shouldn’t necessarily be judged by that standard alone. King couldn’t achieve mega-author status on the internet alone – but he could still sell a significant amount of “product” at a time when the technology was far from perfect, and the tools for exploiting the technology (marketing on the web, etc.) were not yet (and are not yet) fully developed.

I don’t think that authors working alone will be able to reach mega-sale status, and that’s one area that traditional publishers can continue to leverage. They can also still deliver some amount of prestige and, at least in theory, increase the quality and therefore value of the book by careful editing. (Of course, if they're not doing these things to begin with - but that's another topic . . .)

But those are things that publishers can offer to writers – what can they offer readers?

1) A convenient place to acquire books. To do that, they have to control the distribution – their websites, etc., have to be the only place to get the product.

2) When they’re selling a book, publishers are really selling an experience. That experience is not just that one story, but the feeling of belonging to a community of readers that has experienced that story, and wants to experience similar stories or adventures. By collecting a number of authors together, the publisher enhances and expands the experience and community – and not coincidentally, sells more books. The web offers publishers a chance to create mini-salons and cyber cafes that complement and add to the experience of reading the book.

3) Publishers can use their resources to enhance e-books, adding to the virtual experience. While authors can do this on their own, the ability to finance better productions and thus raise the readers’ expectations can benefit the publishers, marking their product as more professional and therefore desirable.

Note that none of these things necessarily help writers, at least not directly. Even if they were all done successfully, the changes in technology are so fundamental that publishers may not be successful. But if they don’t at least start thinking along those lines, I think they’ll all be out of business by 2020.

* * *

The interests of publishers and writers are not precisely parallel, but they don't have to be diametrically opposed. One often gets the feeling these days that they are - not so much from the editors, but from corporate-centric decisions that harm the product and the industry in general.

As traumatic as the changes in technology have been and will continue to be, people will still want a good story, will still want usable information, will still long for the sort of reality-suspending experience books currently provide. The question is, how and who will provide them in the future.