Self Publishing: Wild Predictions For The Future
Joel Friedlander wrote a great post about self publishing’s tipping point over at The Book Designer last week. For ye lazy link jumpers, the gist of the post is this: As more and more unknown/reputable/bestselling authors self publish, publishing in general will achieve a tipping point at which there will be a widespread and systemic change towards self publishing.
Being the informative and level headed pro that he is, Joel refrained from making any wild predictions for the future. Fortunately, we (okay maybe it’s just me) here at Pens and Cojones are anything but level-headed and so we will don the shawl that Ms. Cleo herself bestowed upon us and tell you what the publishing future holds. Never mind that predictions of publishing’s future are numerous and almost always incorrect, just trust in the shawl.
The Tipping Point Is Closer Than We Think
Almost every month it seems now, another established author decides to self publish. These writers introduce their many fans to the self published books and further break down the self publishing stigma. Imagine the day James Patterson or JK Rowling decide to self publish, imagine the loss in revenue to publishers, the financial gains for Patterson and Rowling, the collective improvement in the perception of self published books. Every time a well known author decides to self publish, we get a step closer to the tipping point.
But the real potential lies in unknown writers who decide to self publish. All it takes is one self published novel to win the Pulitzer (I’m rooting for you Wanda Shapiro) or to sell a 500,000 copies and the cracks in the status quo will lengthen into chasms.
What Happens After The Tipping Point?
Bestselling and unknown authors alike will pursue self publishing as a viable and mature alternative to traditional publishing. Agents, publishers and booksellers will see even less money coming in due to lost readership and increased competition from self publishers. Amazon, Apple and other online distributors/content aggregators will wield even more power than they do now.
The reading public will be overwhelmed with the plethora of books available now that the gates have been destroyed. Authors will be overwhelmed by the amount of effort it will take to get separation from the pack. Publishers will have a chance to save the day for the reading public (by instituting another form of gate keeping) but will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Traditional Publishers Will Survive
The only option left to publishers in this frenzied future will be to make traditional publishing more attractive to writers than self publishing. To do this, they will have to change or modify many of the policies that make writers look elsewhere. Royalty rates, time to market, time to payments, copyrights; they’ll all have to be favorable enough for writers to come back to traditional publishing in significant numbers. At the end of the day then, we’ll have a fully hybrid industry, traditional power on one end and self publishing on the other.
A Vision or Mere Hyperbole?
Do you think publishing is ever going to hit that tipping point? If it does, will things be as chaotic as the post says they will be? Do you see any nuggets of truth among the hyperbole?
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I have no idea what will happen. But I depend on you to help me foresee it. Thanks Mayowa!
Shoot, I don’t know either. That’s the thing with these predictions, they’re all guesses at best.
I do know we’ll get through it all.
But who will pay for all these self-published books? I always thought (perhaps naively) that one of the purposes of a publishing house was to front the money/shoulder the risk of publishing a book? And that they needed the income stream generated by established/bestselling authors in order to take a chance on a new author not guaranteed to sell? Speak o’ shawl!
It used to cost a lot of money and take a lot of wrangling to print a book. These days you can create quality novels through any of the POD companies like CreateSpace, Lightening Source etc for zero to low dollars. When a reader buys a copy, they price includes printing costs and the book is printed right then (on demand). The risk is much much lower and broke writers everywhere can afford it.
The shawl thanks you for your trust and curiosity :)
Even if the author pays for editing and cover art, the cost is not much more than say, books on how to write, writing conferences, writing workshops, etc. that many writers will invest in to learn the trade.
True.
The costs for self publishers seem to be dropping really fast with POD. Those two (cover art and editing) are not dropping as fast though. Maybe that’s a good thing because I think they are the two most important weapons in a self publisher’s arsenal.
Thanks for stopping by.