An acquaintance of mine (and fellow military historian with an interest in fantasy literature) wrote yesterday about the future of publishing [1], part of a larger conversation [2] about the subject.  As a writer who is deeply interested in publishing, I would like to add my two cents worth to the discussion to examine my own thoughts about the future of publishing.

Much of the discussion over the future of books relates to the e-book.  To be candid, I’m a fairly old-fashioned person when it comes to reading, but I have no problems whatsoever with e-books, and would not mind picking up an e-reader if there can be some sort of recognizable standard that is not too restrictive about reading materials and that would allow me to have a meaningful reduction in the horrendous storage requirements of my personal library (which must be seen to be believed).  Despite my own personal fondness for the tactile aspects of writing, I see a lot of possibilities in ebooks, especially when it comes to adding multimedia as well as expandable content.

But unlike those who fear that the internet will be the demise of the paper book, I think that the trends allow for a healthy development of both markets, though clearly publishing companies, book distributors, and writers are going to have to change their attitudes when it comes to writing.  One thing the trend towards computerization has done that is an incredibly positive development as a writer is the development of print on demand.  With memory being as inexpensive as it is, to create a digital version of a book that is fully formatted and that can be printed individually upon a customer order makes publishing niche works of some obscurity that would otherwise have languished out of print (which would probably include almost everything in my own very extensive body of work) a reasonably profitable task.  Since books can be printed reasonably on-demand, what is the point of printing out copies of books and sending them out to languish in warehouses or remain on store shelves?

This is where companies like Amazon have a major advantage over brick and mortar stores.  If a reasonable sample of a book can be provided to read online (and Amazon.com already does a good job of providing this), then by “flipping through the pages” of an e-book one can then purchase either the ebook and/or the physical copy on-demand, and only those books that are actually purchased by customers will then be printed.  If you buy a book and your credit card goes through, the book is printed and then shipped to you, or downloaded to your ereader.  This not only cuts down on wasted books, but it is a lot less expensive in overhead, making the economics of book publishing much easier.

If single-copy print runs can become economically feasible by the development of epublishing, then the amount of people who can create worthwhile content for books can expand by a large amount.  As a writer, my difficulty has never been creating content–as any reader of this blog or any of my writings can attest, I write very prolifically–but rather finding the right sort of market for my writings.  Lowering the cost of entry into the publishing world means that once a person has developed a sufficient market even in the dozens or hundreds, it would be worthwhile for an epublisher with a print-on-demand setup to contract with an author for a book deal for a vastly lower cost than is the case right now.

As a niche writer at this point in my writing career, that is quite an appealing vision of the publishing future, but on the higher end of writing, there are some implications as well.  Those people who are bestsellers can offer a great deal of content in their ereaders.  For example, purchasers of an ebook who are part of an author’s fan club may get ebooks of manuscripts for the next book in a series, or trailers to the film of a book one has bought, or interviews with the author, or gets the opportunity to join a community of fans and participate in fan fiction writing and other activities.  In these ways, the book-buying public can become involved in the creating process and can actually form relationships with the authors they love and others who love the authors they love.

So, despite the threats to certain aspects of the current publishing business, it appears that if companies and writers act sensibly, and are able to utilize the full potential of the advancing technology both to reduce inefficiency and waste in the printing and distribution side of business as well as increase content for the book-buying public, the opportunities for increased profit as well as the development and maintenance of a genuine community of readers is possible.  Once these opportunities are available, it remains for the individual authors and publishing companies to take advantage of them, or not, and to deal with the repercussions.  Despite the concerns of many, I believe that the future of publishing looks bright if people are able to understand and adapt to the changing conditions and to recognize the potential for growth present in the lower cost basis and greater flexibility of the new publishing environment.

[1] http://andrewliptak.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/the-future-of-publishing/

[2] http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/01/mind-meld-the-future-of-publishing/