How do you envision the 'future' of publishing?

[ficbot]

I have been reading a lot of articles lately that, summed up, seem to say this:

1) People are reading less because there is more competition now for their hobby/entertainment time and dollars

2) Publishers have made a mistake by not changing with the times and/or embracing digital technology

3) The current publishing 'system' is broken for authors, publishers and consumers and something's gotta give

So with these three premises in mind, what do you predict is going to happen? What do you think the 'future' of publishing will look like, assuming some visionary person takes the first steps and moves things forward to 'save' the industry?

Here are my thoughts.

1) I think they will have to open up the e-market a little. At first, there will be some resistance, some awful draconian DRM schemes (Scrollmotion for iPod, anyone?) and some pricing scandals ($50 per title for Stephen King's 30-year-old backlist? Come on!) There will also be some device battles as people try and introduce silly formats to go with exclusive storefronts.

2) Eventually, they will realize this is Not Working. Nobody wants to have to go to each publisher's website separately to buy multiple books. Does anyone even know who is published by which publisher anyway? So, they will band together and create some sort of uber-site where individual publishers can sign on and be members. Possibly, someone like Apple (iTunes?) will be the storefront for this.

3) All e-books will be encrypted with social DRM (e.g. the eReader scheme of using your credit card number) but will be transferable among the customer's many devices. Publishers won't be happy, but the people will demand this.

4) Print-on-demand (POD) technology will improve and will change the physical bookstore forever. Some people will continue to not be e-book readers and will only want print books. Also, even the e-book fans will want to buy books for gifts. So the 'print run' of the publisher will consist solely of demo copies to stock the bookstore. When a customer at the store wants to buy the book, s/he will take it to the POD machine, scan the barcode and print the book. I envision some customization options here, e.g. you can choose (and pay accordingly) for paperback, 'collector's edition' hard-cover perhaps with some extras to make up for the higher price, large-print, perhaps foreign-language translation on the spot, etc. Also, if it is a gift, you can have it inscribed.

5) A portion of the sale will immediately go to the bookstore to cover their costs in paper etc. for the machine. The remainder will go to the publisher, who will split it with the author according to whatever arrangement they have with that particular author---I am predicting the authors will organize at some point into a professional guild or union that will collective-bargain for better deals, and authors who sell more titles will get bigger shares than novice authors.

6) Bookstores will continue to diversify, as they are now, with many near me now selling paper products, e-book reading devices, coffee and snacks etc. I suspect e-book reading devices and accompaniments (carrying cases etc.) could grow cheaper and cheaper to make and have good profit margins. Also, the whole POD idea could lead to some specialized products right in the bookstore, like those formerly mail-order only books for children which are customized with the child's name.

The bottom line would be more books for sale, more people buying them, and more profit for everyone. The technology is there for e-books now. It's almost there for POD. All they need is for someone to step forward and say 'let's embrace the future and get more people reading books again.' They need to be makers and sellers of books again, not 'gate-keepers of intellectual property' whose primary function if to thwart their paying customers from being pirates and thieves.

So those are my thoughts. How do you think publishers and bookstores will be in the future?

[Krystian Galaj]

Whatever else happens, I'm sure at some point you'll be able to go to the bookstore, browse paper books, and when you like one, point a cellphone or some other device at it to buy its electronic form and transfer it, ready to read, wherever you set it up, with a press of a button.

[DaleDe]

I do not believe POD Kiosks will exist anytime soon, if ever. Printing pages is easy but binding is not. I suspect there will be no demand at the dealer level for this while I do believe eBook Kiosks will need to exist in a dealer store for the survival of the eBook store itself. eBook Kiosks will start to exist in places like Walmart with an obvious impact on traditional Book stores and they will follow suit.

Dale

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Publishing, like the music industry, will have to alter itself to deal with a new proportion of digital to printed product, increasingly more digital and less printed as time advances. Publishing will eventually become a primarily digital industry, and printed matter will be an incidental that will probably not net publishers much compared to the digital products.

Bookstores will allow people to browse books, but said browsing will more likely be onscreen, either on store displays or demos beamed to your own device... in other words, no more big stores with shelves and shelves of paper books sitting around (not even demos... that will prove to be too big a cost for too little a return in the future). Most users will then download the e-book format (most likely a universal format that their personal device can instantly translate to their format, and maybe even language, of choice). E-books will be the cheapest form of book available, bar none, and the dominant format for literature worldwide.

Bookstores will either add POD to their stores, or form alliances with POD-specializing printers. There will be some ready-made printed books in stores, for sale not demo, at the highest premium price, for those who want printing and can't wait for a POD printing of their own. POD while-you-wait will provide 2 qualities of books, one very simple and simply bound (glue-tape, spiral, etc), and one more finished like the on-shelf books, for gifting and print-preference use. Simple-bound printing will cost more than e-books... fancy printing will cost more than that... ready-made will be the most expensive yet. Many people will never touch a printed book in their lives, yet will have access to libraries of material.

Literature will be more in competition with magazines, which offer more varied content, in more bite-sized forms, and are capable of being reshuffled according to taste. Presently, magazines are like scrapbooks filled with short and medium-sized articles and bits devoted to a particular subject. Individuals will embrace e-versions of these magazines, and create scrapbooks of their own from multiple magazines, further refining the scrapbook concept to a personal level.

I expect the scrapbook to be the dominant format of personal information storage, where people will keep literature, pictures, articles, videos, music, etc, arranged by subjects and available at a moment's notice... such a storehouse of personal information device may never leave a person's hands/pocket/purse/whatever.

[Phogg]

My prediction, based on scholarship supporting it and my sense of the public mood is that copyright length will be drastically reduced. probably back to the original 14 year mark in the US

Study here

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Phogg

My prediction, based on scholarship supporting it and my sense of the public mood is that copyright length will be drastically reduced. probably back to the original 14 year mark in the US

Actually, outside of publishing and forums like this one, "the public" seems largely unaware and uninterested in copyright issues. This is why it's been so easy for corporations like Disney to manipulate copyright for its own ends. If any part of the equation depends on the support of the public, copyright will likely get longer and harder to challenge.

But I don't challenge the findings of the study, and I think copyright would be better served by a revision from current models.