Friday, April 27, 2018

Predictions! 4 of Mine and 1 Guest Prediction

Predicting the publishing future - my stabs in the dark heart of the publishing wilderness. Totally sounds like I should be filming a Predator movie somewhere. Alas. Not happening. Yet.

1. All the Eggs in One Flawed Basket - I'm seeing discontent and conversations going on about how certain LARGE empires are treating authors and books of certain genres. I see the call outs about how scammers are gaming said empire to the detriment of actual authors with actual novels. The writing on the wall says to me that the age of centralization is going to have to come to an end. If you are a reader or writer of content that isn't treated well, it's time to get subversive and create alternative outlets. I'm thinking of co-op publishing models run by the authors and readers themselves.
2. Newsletters Dying a Well Deserved Death - Yes, pretty much every single marketing guru out there who wants to tell authors how we're all doing it wrong (and given the number of people signed up for my mailing list *I* might be doing it all wrong) is pushing mailing list, mailing list, mailing list, I want hard numbers on open rates. Cause nobody under thirty that I know actually reads email unless coerced into it by work. My own email inboxes are so inundated that newsletters I willingly signed up for over time are now auto-filed in the trash. Only so many hours in a day and only so much bandwidth. Makes me sad. Do I know what's going to take the place? Nope. Not that clairvoyant. But when I want to know what an author I love is doing, I search for them on my book store of choice and start clicking buy buttons for the books I don't have.
3. Books that Have Actually Been Edited - This follows Jeffe's point about craft. A well written book is a book that has also been subjected to the fine and knowledgeable eye of an editor. I won't claim a book has to be perfect. It doesn't. But the plot holes need plugging. The turns of phrase need to make sense. Just because *I* know what I meant on page 163 doesn't mean that you know what I meant. I need an editor to tell me that the lengthy paragraph about the green and brown striped haviz makes no sense and maybe some of what I know in my head didn't make it to the page. So yes. I think books that have obviously been rushed and tossed online to cash in on something might start slipping as reader annoyance with such tomes begins growing.
4. Diversity - I suspect we'll begin to see authors of color and LGBTQA authors getting more subversive about publishing with co-ops. (I hope!) I don't see the major publishers, which seem to all be particularly tone deaf to the issues, pivoting on how they're asking their mostly white, straight authors to write diversity. We're already seeing authors using privilege to attempt to signal boost AOC and LGBTQA authors. I'm hoping for a lot more of that.
5. Hatshepsut's Prediction: MORE CATS!
I will do my best.


7 comments:

  1. Do you have any examples of co-op publishing outlets? How would those work? I'm super curious.

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    1. I'll jump in and say I know of this one: http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/ But I don't know how successful they've been. (I've heard not so much, but I'm not sure how much credence to give that rumor.)

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    2. I know of co-op marketing that seems to work well for authors of a single genre. I know of several authors who've opened their own publishing houses. I just think there has to bring people together along genre lines, create some kind of democratic process whereby a board is elected to run the business end of a publishing/bookstore co-op that then gives member authors a voice in how everything goes down. I'm thinking of a local food co-op model where people buy a membership in order to get access. It would take some major research, I suspect, and likely at least one person with lawyer creds to keep the whole thing on the right side of legal. I still suspect it will happen in the nearish future if there isn't something like in the works already - especially among erotica authors.

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  2. I'm doing my best to make Hatshepsut's prediction come true, I've got cats in two of my books.

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