Just got back from the orthopedic doctor. Looks like I'll be doing surgery sometime soon because I screwed up some tendons in my shoulder. I tend to need those tendons, so, yeah, surgery.
That aside, let's see about this week's subject. The top 5 trends I see in publishing.
1) A surge in audiobooks. Technology is making it easier and easier for people to produce them and they are in demands. This comes with an audio glut. Too many books that would never have made thew grade as it were will come out and fall on their faces. bad writing, bad production and bad voice overs will linger like a bad taste in the mouth. This will eventually level out.
2) Ebooks will get cheaper. Really, that's inevitable. Some of the big houses are still charging prices comparable to the cost of a hardcover, but it's not working for them and they'll eventually all catch on. Those that do not will a) be the exceptions or b) regret it.
3) I agree with Jeffe. A lot more people will do ebooks through their sites. As with audio above, your mileage will vary depending on how ell made the books are and how well edited. As we have already seen on Amazon, quality DOES make a difference.
4) Piracy will continue, but will be more costly. What do I mean? I mean as viruses get more adept at hiding a lot of sites that offer "free" versions of books that are for sale on Amazon, etc, will end up costing the downloaders dearly. Hackers are getting creative when it comes to stealing information and causing mayhem. You don;t pay to play and some of them will make you rue the day.
5) Traditional publishing will continue, with a boost from more brick and mortar booksellers and with a dash of specialty presses. The thing about specialty presses is that they are vey often labors of love. Some will come, some will go, but love will continue on. The brick and mortar stores will expand slowly, and in the process they will cherry pick the best of the specialty presses.
Those are my predictions and I'm sticking to them.
In the meantime I predict that I will finish four novels this year. That does not include the Predator novel that I already finished.
Boomtown, Spores, As We Know It and one more as yet unnamed. All three are in various stages of completion, and the unnamed one is potentially something that will be contracted in advance.
