Re: future of publishing

Marion Gropen wrote:
> Jon Noring, ...transition from filter then publish to publish then filter:

>> Thoughts? Alternatives? Criticisms?

> Do you then see no role in the future for all of the things that
> publishers do, besides selection and marketing?

I did not delve into any detail on this, but traditional publishers
wear multiple hats. Certainly those who self-publish can avail
themselves of help with each of these tasks, including all of them,
either from a variety of people, or a single source.

The term "vanity publishing" has developed a bad rap, and for good
reason since the "vanity publishers" tried to sell, and still sell,
themselves as "old model publishers."

But services which simply assist self-published authors on a fee
basis with the technical details (and editing) to get their book into
a final, finished form, certainly should not be considered vanity
publishers, nor disparaged. Such services only assist the self-
published author to improve their product before it is made available
to the public (i.e. self-published.)

I see such services becoming more prevalent as more and more people
self-publish their "dream book."

(According to Dan Poynter, the number of people in the U.S. who have a
"dream book" they want to publish is in the tens of millions! That's a
huge market. And even if only 1% of these will reach the writing
quality of those published by the majors, that's still well over a
hundred thousand outstanding books by new authors -- and most of these
authors will be able to write many more great books -- so we are
talking millions of great books by today's standards -- with the
"old model" most of these books would never be made available to the
general public.)


> Do you think that the untrained will be able to publish (as in
> secure editing, copyediting, cover images, and text design/
> composition) as well as those with years of experience and
> education behind them?

Yes. <smile/>

The core argument of my original message is the belief that the future
of textual content delivery and presentation to end-users will be
primarily electronic (e.g., books as e-books.) In fact, today
digital is the dominant form of textual content delivery and
presentation: The Web -- by a huge amount.

The more formal types of publications will also move all-electronic,
although that is occuring more slowly. And this changes the whole
economy of publishing, opening the door for self-publishing, and there
is a *huge* self-publishing market waiting to spring forth. When it
does, it will swamp everything in its path as it flows out, changing
the whole publishing landscape. I'm only trying to predict what the
landscape will look like afterwards, and obviously there will be a
number of possible scenarios.

Publishing for the Amazon Kindle is an interesting archetype that,
in my estimation, presages the future.

Certainly, those who self-publish should avail themselves of the
software tools (e.g. powerful copyediting systems) and human help to
improve their books. But they don't have to in order to publish a
very nice e-book.

I believe the post-publish filtering systems of the future will help
readers to filter out poorly-written and poorly-formatted books. (For
example, from what I understand, it is now possible for software to
analyze writing and determine to a good-degree of probability the
quality of the writing.) So all will work out in the wash, with the
winners being the self-published authors and book readers who will
have greater diversity to choose from.

And with the right publishing tools it will even be possible to
publish in POD using pre-defined scripts to get a professional-look
(As an e-book technologist, I've scoped this possibility out, so it is
certainly possible -- not sure if anyone will -- my BookX work is an
attempt to build an underlying framework to enable such "push button"
authoring tools to allow both easy POD and e-book publishing.) As I
mentioned before, I see POD as an intermediary to the e-book future.


> What about publishers' role as venture capitalists? Investing
> heavily (see above functions, plus of course, marketing budgets) in
> many books, and relying on their skill in picking the best to
> improve the odds of success enough that the AVERAGE result (over a
> large number of titles) is a decent profit. A single title
> publisher, or even one with a small catalog, is up against odds
> that are likely to mean they lose their shirt, even when they do
> everything right.

This is the "old" model. <smile/>

The whole point of my original message is simply that the vast
majority of books (as e-books) available in the future will be
self-published, and that new systems will arise to assist readers in
filtering through that giant catalog. I covered some ideas on what
such tools may be, but also held back some ideas. Others will no
doubt come up with their own ideas... some may even make millions
of dollars from their ideas.


> I hope that ebooks don't mean the end of publishing. I THINK that
> they'll make it more important than ever. They may, though, make it
> broader based: a few thousand companies of decent size, instead of
> the five we have now.

If you mean "publishing" to be the "old model", I believe this will
change. Amazon Kindle is, as noted already, a presage of the future.

The key is that the "old model" is a filter-first and then publish
system. And this model will lose its monopoly, in my opinion. Not that
the old system has no merits -- it has merits -- but I'm just reading
the tea-leaves of where I see things will naturally head.

And regarding the few thousand new publishers (I assume you mean who
follow the old model), that still won't be enough to publish
everyone's books -- and many of these will be worthy of publishing. If
these dpublishers choose to follow the "old model" of filter-first
(which they have to), there will still be millions of self-published
books flooding the e-bookstores, a good number of which will be great
books.

(My friend, who I am helping publish her "dream book" using Lightning
Source POD, has decided not to even bother finding a publisher for
her book, large or small, because of the time and likelihood of
rejection. I see millions others come to this same conclusion,
especially when they can easily self-publish. Btw, her book is quite
good, and includes details of her childhood in Cuba when Castro took
power, and her family fleeing to the U.S.)

As already noted, I foresee the rise of "publishing services" which
simply assist, on a fee basis, self-published authors to improve their
book product with no promises of being an "old model publisher". New
systems will arise to assist readers to find the books they will enjoy
reading, a "post-publish filter" system.

*****

Now I don't see the "old model" necessarily dying out and all that
experience being washed down the drain, but I do see it morphing over
the next one or two decades in a major fashion, and that expertise
will still be very valuable to the new system, whatever it will be.

Anyway, whatever the future will be (I admit I may be off in reading
the tea-leaves) it will certainly be a lot different than what we have
today. If the "old model" still dominates, I certainly hope we will
see "the thousand flowers bloom" with a renaissance of small,
independent publishing that will be profitable and in aggregate
publish more books than the majors.

I am not against "old model publishing", but I do see its limitations,
especially in that it is an inherently unfair system (due to technical
and resource limitations) which has kept a lot of great books from
being made available to the public, both by sheer ill-luck of the
submitters, and by dissuading millions more from even trying to break
into the "system" they see as stacked against them (almost like
playing the lottery.) The market eventually replaces an unfair system
with a more fair system when technology allows that to happen -- when
the technological barriers are removed.

I do not fear a future where the old model is predominately replaced
by a "self-publishing model" since I know systems will come into being
to help readers to filter through the published catalog and find the
good books they want to read.

That is, the "junk" will remain mostly unread, as it should. But even
such "junk" has value, especially for future generations for
data-mining and insights into our present generation. (A whole 'nuther
post or blog article I've thought of writing... even in scholarly
publishing I believe everything should be published, but only the
worthy papers should be "blessed" via peer-review.)

*****

Thanks, Marion, for your thoughtful reply! (And thanks for the advice
you have given me on other groups as I POD publish my friend's "dream
book." For the details of print publishing, which POD still requires
today, I have had to learn a lot of things. Pete Masterson has also
been a valuable advisor -- not sure if he subscribes to this group...)


Jon Noring




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