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Will publishers live on?

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Eoin Purcell

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It really is bizarre. My discussions in Kilkenny centred on the role of a publishing company in the modern age. My friend believed that not long from now they will look completely different then they do now. Almost everything will be outsourced and the company will manage book projects (of a vastly fewer number) by assembling the necessary elements from free-lance and specialist firms. Book Publishers in his eyes would morph into lightweight brand based firms providing the finance to make books happen and perhaps the marketing know how to push the book to the top of the pile. He sees this as immensely positive as it will open the door for smaller nimble and more innovative firms to succeed.

On my arrival back in Dublin I settled in for a few hours of feed catch-up and found that the same theme has been floated (though with different outcomes) this weekend on the web too. Two new and fascinating posts crossed my path and are well worth investigating. The first to read is by The Publishing Contrarian and it came by way of and as part of more comment on Booksquare.

I don’t know that publishers are likely to lie down and take this type of result too calmly. After all they are large corporations with finances to back up large acquisitions and partnerships. The first situation described by my friend may indeed be plausible. It would remove much of the physical and capital costs of publishers and that would surely please some executives somewhere, but allowing themselves to be sidelined. I don’t see someone like Richard Charkin going “gentle into that good night.”

And as I have said before I cannot see the benefit to authors of exchanging one task master for another. You only need to read two previous postings by Robert X. Cringely to see some of the possible flaws to trusting Google.

4 responses to “Will publishers live on?”

  1. Cas Stavert Avatar
    Cas Stavert

    As always, as hugely interesting post, Eoin. I had some issues with what was being said by The Publishing Contrarian, once again, I believe she was thinking in terms of non fiction only. I can see how what she was saying would have more relevence for non fiction. But fiction?

    But you’re right, reading all this stuff, I can’t see that it would be an improvement on the current situation for me as a writer.

    Reply
  2. eoinpurcell Avatar
    eoinpurcell

    Thanks Cas,

    I think that unquestionably there will be a twin track development. Non-fiction books which will benefit most from linking and other web enabled technology will leap into digital soon and at a pace that may surprise us all. It struck me yesterday that most users of such “books” will be using them either in classes or offices where access to power points for recharge will not be an issue.

    Fiction will remain as it is for some time I think. In much the same way as local and commuter newspapers have resisted the draw of the online news supply better than national or regional newspapers. Fiction is stickier, there is less need for it to use the web. You can only physically read one book at a time in any case so why do you need seventy on a flimsy digital device every morning on the train?

    Reply
  3. Lynne W. Scanlon Avatar
    Lynne W. Scanlon

    Thanks, Eoin, for stopping by The Publishing Contrarian.
    Yes, I am talking about fiction as well as nonfiction. Absolutely.

    Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing

    Reply
  4. Cas Stavert Avatar
    Cas Stavert

    I’ve been ruminating on this issue for a while, particularly in the light of Ms Scanlon’s response.Then suddenly today, it occurred to me that the future is already here and it’s called Fanfiction.net, the largest archive of the internet where people publish their fiction for free. And you know what? 99.999999999% of it is so bad it makes your eyeballs bleed. Now this is largely because most of it is written by teenage girls writing about true lurve and Harry Potter, but just imagine if Miss Snark’s slushpile, instead of going through the gatekeeper, all published their books on their websites and called themselves “published authors”.

    Fanfiction readers and writers deal with this problem by having, in addition to ff.net many smaller, specialised archives, often with high quality thresholds (although not as high as for commercial fiction – nobody gets paid, remember)

    Is this the future we really want for books? Sure the more enterprising publishers may morph into fiction archives, that you’ll probably have to subscribe to in order to read, and everyone else has to use Google to find a book.

    How is this better?

    Reply

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Hello,

I’m Eoin,

Co-founder and publisher @fullsetbooks 📚. Expect books and 🍰.

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