The Future of Publishing
Penny Sansevieri is an author, former marketing executive in the corporate world and the founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.
Penny has written about The Future of Publishing. Passive Guy agrees with some of Penny’s prognostications and disagrees with others. Since it’s dangerous to live in an echo chamber, he tries to listen carefully to people with whom he disagrees.
Excerpts:
A lot of people claim that traditional publishing is broken and will eventually die. I disagree. Much like the changes that have occurred in the past in publishing, the big six will survive and so will agents. I do not have any insider knowledge or hidden agenda, nor do I profess to know everything about publishing. Not by a longshot. But I do know how to read the signs of this evolution or revolution, depending on which side of the fence you are on. I believe there have been many signs. Here is how I foresee they will do it.
Self-publishing: In the very near future, all of the houses will spend some of their equity on self-publishing. In order to survive, they are going to have to reinvent the way they do business. This means digging into the self-publishing arena. It’s rumored that two major houses are already doing this, and there are likely more to come.
. . . .
Direct to consumer: While some publishers are dabbling in this, I’m not clear how successful they will be. Consumer engagement on e-commerce sites such as Amazon, etc. will significantly change the way we buy. What does this mean? I think you’re going to see a lot more social buying in the future. Social engagement, consumer recommendations, etc. We’re already seeing a lot of this, but I believe we’ll see much more of it. Can publishers offer this? Yes, they certainly can, but first they have to overcome the hurdle of consumer awareness. Consumers don’t know publishers, they know authors and they know the big e-commerce sites like Amazon, et al. Direct to consumer is great, but when you’ve been a behind-the-scenes entity for so long, the awareness process can take a while.
. . . .
I have heard this directly from a few agents – that in five years literary agents as we now know them will be gone, or at the very least strongly diminished. Will agents go away? Doubtful. I believe the savvy agents will stick around and, like publishing, completely reinvent themselves.
. . . .
It’s already brewing out there; several savvy agents are taking it upon themselves to become book consultants. Let’s face it, while publishing opportunities may diminish vis-à-vis the traditional houses, the number of authors who want to get published will continue to grow. There will never be a lack of material, and agents are perfectly positioned to make sure that the majority of it is quality material.
Link to the rest at Author Marketing Experts
(I’m curious what prognostications do you disagree with?)
Savvy agents becoming consultants makes sense to me and I’ve seen tweets of agents offering editing services.
“Direct to Consumer” has me confused. Is Penny saying Publishers will not sell their stable of authors’ books at Barnes & Noble or Amazon etc. that Readers will have to shop at different publishers to buy different Author’s books? Do this instead of just finding them all at Amazon or the bookstore? And readers would do this why?
Maybe I’m reading her wrong.
Karen – I disagree with Penny that the Big 6 (or 7) will survive. We may end up with a Big 2 or 3, but there will be consolidation because the weaker players will sell out rather than go under.
I think it’s great if savvy agents can move out of making money as gatekeepers and into another book-related field, but I haven’t seen evidence that experience being an agent necessarily means you can be a successful book consultant.
Direct to consumer is publishers setting up their own online bookstores – see Bookish for an example – http://goo.gl/tFcDv
I have serious doubts that the publishers have the chops to compete with Amazon online. If they try to cut off Amazon or limit it, their authors will go ballistic, with justification.
I agree with you, Passive Guy, that there will be consolidation among the Big 6 – but other things are happening too making the scenery even more complex:
- agents are going into publishing their authors (raising conflic of interest issues);
- Amazon.com is becoming more than a distributor and poised to become the next Big Publisher (I blogged about that recently)
This said, neither agents nor publishers will disappear…
Claude – I agree with you. Publishers and agents will continue to exist. How many/how big is the question. I also agree that Amazon will be one of the publishers.
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