Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The future of publishing

Many of us who care about the publishing industry have already read hundreds of stories about authors who finally got book deals because they decided to self-publish and managed to become online successes. I think it's fascinating though that some authors have such faith in their work that they self-publish. I'm beginning to wonder if the publishing business model is changing to reject more manuscripts in the hope that the author will self-publish so the publishing houses can measure the book's success before investing in it. It's an interesting development in the publishing world. Anyway, I thought you all might be interested in this story in Time Magazine about this very topic.

3 comments:

Serena said...

I've often thought about this phenomenon. I think its an interesting decision on their part, but I wonder if authors will put up with it for long.

Also, I tagged you for a meme.

Unknown said...

The same thing happens in music. Bands put out their own music and through word of mouth and/or by promoting themselves online (myspace being a prime example) they get an "underground" following who support their music. For the record companies a built-in fanbase is a win-win. The band has already done a lot of the promotional work and the record company is assured they will sell "x" number of copies of that band's album. Self-promotion and self-publishing are the wave of the future in all media.

Aaron Dietz said...

In some ways, I wish we had authoritative publishers eliminating the bad stuff from the market by not publishing. The self-publishing craze is awesome, but it's not helping filter out the bad stuff. Unfortunately, most publishers weren't helping do this, anyway, so...it's up to the people. I guess it's always up to the people, but now more than ever, in the publishing world, it's up to the people to find the good stuff. This is both refreshing and scary.