Parts 1 and 2 of this series can be found here:
http://www.beaufortbooks.com/2014/02/the-future-of-publishing-part-1/
http://www.beaufortbooks.com/2014/02/the-future-of-publishing-part-2/
So how can publishers stay profitable against the shifting tide? By finding ways to incentivize print copies. Remember, books are becoming a luxury, so their aesthetics are more pivotal to their success than ever before. This might necessitate investing more money in better design. For example, people can google recipes online, or download interactive apps that will put all their cooking needs in a simple, organized place:
Source: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cake-recipes-by-recipe-world/id407364073?mt=8
This app costs 99 cents. Who’s going to spend money on a recipe book unless it is absolutely gorgeous? There’s no room for mediocrity. The book must be luxurious—it has to surpass being purely functional to a significant degree, or what justifies purchasing it? Luddites and the technologically inept will surely account for some of the sales, but that market is shrinking daily. Making nicer books will have the secondary benefit of combating the growing market of those turncoat authors, like my roommate, who have decided to forego traditional publishing contracts and self-publish instead. Their books typically lack effective marketing and good designs and layouts. Publishers need to keep it that way by insisting on a tangible difference in quality.
For example, check out Le Cordon Bleu’s The Chocolate Bible. Carroll & Brown Publishers clearly recognize that a cook book’s appearance has to be as decadent as its content. The thick, large hardcover book filled with enormous photographs delivers more than just functional recipes—it serves as welcome addition to be displayed in the kitchen of any gourmet.
Available for purchase here: http://www.midpointtrade.com/book_detail.php?book_id=55257
Better yet, why not also start creating apps to go along with print books and offer supplementary material, rather than simply competing with them? Publishers must embrace mobile technologies as the way of the future and invest in them immediately, given how fast the exponentially growing app market is moving.
The idea that stories have to be limited to books is already being challenged. Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction, has stated his Twitter activity can be considered a novel. Author Geoff Ryman has a completely free internet novel called 253, available at http://www.ryman-novel.com/home.htm. It details the thoughts of every single one of the 253 people aboard one of the London Tube trains. It is built to be an interactive digital experience: readers can freely hop from train car to train car, and click on passengers at will. The order they click on people will affect the order they read the novel. These characters often make observations about other passengers on the train, who can then be reached with an included hyperlink. Ryman even allows readers to submit their own 300-word character descriptions to be considered for his sequel. The concept seems absolutely seminal.
Publishers need not feel constrained to either traditional books or e-books. The future lies in applications, and there is an ongoing race to provide media in the most convenient and easily-digestible format. App technology will only continue to develop, and the only question is who will be profiting on this share of the market first? Will it be companies like Apple, who already have a multitude of book apps out there? Will it be self-published authors who decide to take a course on creating mobile applications? Or will publishers realize what’s happening before it’s too late?
As Josh Fisher, creator of an award-winning poetry app, describes in a blog post:
“Greater distribution, customization, social integration, and engagement can be found by putting time into producing a book application. It frees you from the design constraints of an ebook, and allows you to build stories that aren’t just books, but mobile experiences” (Source: http://www.appoet.org/2014/02/05/in-response-to-richard-nashs-lecture-on-the-future-of-publishing/).
Another technological innovation with far-reaching potential is the automatic book printer, like NYU’s Espresso Book Machine:
Source: http://www.bookstores.nyu.edu/main.store/selfpublishing/
It can print “bookstore-quality” bound texts in customizable fonts, including an already 3.8 million+ titles in its database (some are even out-of-print), or allow self-published authors to print however many copies of their books they want. As such devices become better, cheaper, and more widespread, they could eventually challenge or even replace the need for traditional print runs by providing infinite inventory. Will publishers be a secondary part of this industry, simply supplying some of the titles, or will they be involved in developing and spreading it? It’s decision time.
Conversely, the quality of the books these machines can produce further highlights the need for design innovation. Traditionally published books will soon need to begin significantly surpassing the machine-produced texts in design.
Another technological marvel that can have far-reaching applications for book publishing is 3-D printing. It is a miraculous new development whose potential is only beginning to be explored. For example, it will be used to create cheap replaceable machine parts, grow entire living organs out of cells, or create life-sized models of fetuses for pregnant women. Book publishers need to innovate, and 3-D printing offers a fairly limitless potential to create objects, including books, like we’ve never seen before. It has already begun:
Source: http://www.appoet.org/2014/01/27/what-will-3d-printing-do-for-the-book/
3-D printing can even hypothetically be combined with automatic book printer machine technology. Limitless potential to reinvigorate the market is there. But book publishers need to hurry. The dour prophecies of people like my roommate need not come true, but like with any species or industry, it’s the survival of the fittest, and publishing will need to step up its game and evolve to stay alive. Today’s Darwinian scramble will determine tomorrow’s future.
–Beauchamp Bagenal