Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Yes, it is. And the industry is changing, but everyone is still reading the tea leaves, trying to figure out what the new environment will be, and how they'll need to change to adapt to it.
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I am not sure that "the industry", as we know it, can survive the change. It is to big, to slow, to inefficient to deal with the challenges of the digital content delivery. That delivery has opened a possibility, for the first time, to go "samizdat" with the minimal cost. There is no need for big publishing house and the printing plant.
What most of us would like to see is a situation where authors
don't sell the rights. Instead, let them use the percentage of proceeds to finance editors, proofreaders, typesetters, cover artists. Grant them percentage of profits, let them share the risk and benefit from success.
Marketing? Easy. Let the accomplished authors use their names to appear either as co-authors (Baen is already experimenting with similar concept) or editors.
I sure would be interested to take a peak at any work that Neil Gaiman, Guy Gavriel Kay or Orson Scott Card decide to edit or co-author. Or to write a foreword for! A guild, a manufacture, a primitive form of ad-hoc project can concentrate the resources needed for high-quality works, and probably deliver them at very reasonable prices. Those reasonable prices are NOT enforced by customer rebellions, they are mandatory anti-piracy measure.
The authors or their works will not disappear as long as there are readers. That much is certain.