The Future of Publishing

I was reading an interesting blog entry on The Reading Experience about the future of publishing which also referenced this article at Backspace by Richard Curtis. Both are good reads if you’re interested in the topic.

Normally I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the future of publishing because I am too busy with the now of publishing but I do find the topic fascinating. The Backspace blog talks about Amazon.com’s Booksurge program which is intended to allow publishers to keep titles in print longer by using POD. An order comes in to Amazon, they print the book and ship it to the buyer. Curtis believes, as I have for a long time, that once big publishers figure out how much sense it makes not to print 3 times as many copies as necessary everyone will move to the POD model. In The Reading Experience blog, Daniel Green supposes that this will cut out many of the middlemen in publishing; book sellers, editors, agents, and publishers as we currently know them.

It is my feeling that if publishers want to stay relevant they need to concentrate on promotion of titles and authors. It has become easier and easier for a book to be published through self-publishing. But because of the huge influx of titles it has become more and more difficult, just in the past 10 years even, to get reviews and get attention for a release. So I see publishers almost as consultants for authors who can coordinate media campaigns, get reviews, assist with blurbs and production aspects of the book.

It’s a fascinating time to be in the publishing business.

Update on the score:
13 editions in
12 more to do
9 weeks left