NOTES FROM THE FRONT – The Digital Book Revolution and The Author

The Winds of Change

The world of book publishing changed forever in 2009. The New York legacy publishers suffered a serious economic setback as their antiquated book publishing and distribution business models imploded at the very moment the Digital Book Revolution began to gain traction. Since then, powerful market forces have disrupted the old ways of book publishing and significant financial headwinds from declining sales and crushing corporate debt have forced the traditional publishers to fire editorial staff, reduce the number of titles they publish, shutter hallowed imprints, merge high overhead operations, reduce author advances and royalty percentages, and look to authors to share marketing costs.

Further challenging the traditional publishing model is competition to bookstores from the online distribution of books via the computer and portable devices like the Kindle, the iPhone, the iPad, the Kindle Fire and other tablets, aggressive deflationary discounting by internet retailers that redefines the real price of the book, expansion of internet retailers into publishing, the bankruptcy of newspapers and the reduction or elimination of time-honored Book Sections, the closing of Borders, and a concurrent rise of mountains of free content delivered by the high speed broadband internet. These factors have combined to accelerate a tectonic shift in how books will be published, distributed, and marketed in the future.

For the author, veteran or debut, these events offer a sober reality check of an industry in chaos and of the diminishing opportunities to be published in the way of days gone by.

The Democratization of Distribution

Moreover, with the evolution of digital book technology and global internet distribution, authors have become empowered to publish their own work via digital book platforms and print-on-demand. And, because the act of publishing is now relatively easy, the availability of books on the internet will resemble the “big bang” as the sheer quantity of digital books available will grow at an overwhelming pace in a great democratization of distribution.

The Dawn of A New Age

Given the dynamics of this new age, authors are faced with significant and increasing challenges in their drive to have their works published and read. Those who choose the traditional route of submission to legacy publishers will find that fewer and fewer deals get done. Even veteran authors with fine track records are being frozen out because of dwindling publisher resources. Of those deals that do happen, fewer authors will have the benefit of significant marketing support as risk/reward calculations become more critical to publishers and authors are looked upon to spend their own funds for promotion without any increase in royalty percentages. No longer will legacy publishers have the luxury of losing money on nine out of every ten titles.

On the other hand, for authors, both veteran and debut, who cannot make a deal with the legacy publishers, their only remaining choices are to put the manuscript in a drawer or to self-publish and accept the full economic risk and the marketing challenge to be noticed in the avalanche of new digital book content flooding the market. It is indeed the beginning of a new era for authors and the path they choose will have significant consequences to their professional and economic futures.

And this is exactly where the Stay Thirsty Publishing story begins. Click here to read more.