Authors will start selling directly, as with music there is no need for publishers now.
I wish there was no need for publishers. Unfortunately, publishing is not isomorphic with printing/distribution. Editorial services and book design are pretty much vital to the process of turning a manuscript into something people are willing to pay money to read, and marketing is necessary if you want to convince folks to read your book, rather than Dan Brown's.
We may see a realignment of the way publishing services are applied to books (e.g.: author hires editor and PR folks to work for them, or literary agents hire editors and turn into virtual publishers -- they've got the accounting infrastructure to handle royalty payments), but we already have authors selling directly, and there's a reason most readers usually avoid self-published books.
You are right when you say marketing is important and some very good writers are very bad at it. But there are people that could do both too. There are other books that need artists(text books of history, biology...) and other support people too.
When I say there is no need for publishers I mean the hard logistics and financial experts that today are needed. Other people will be needed, like web store experts, but you don't need to have a minimum of 20000 readers to print like today.
Today, like yesterday CD labels, publishers hold the rights because they have access to the physical market and you can't sell without then, they then get all the money and no cost in ebooks. This is going to change when writers don't need physical market because people buy digital.
Comments
Authors will start selling directly, as with music there is no need for publishers now.
I wish there was no need for publishers. Unfortunately, publishing is not isomorphic with printing/distribution. Editorial services and book design are pretty much vital to the process of turning a manuscript into something people are willing to pay money to read, and marketing is necessary if you want to convince folks to read your book, rather than Dan Brown's.
We may see a realignment of the way publishing services are applied to books (e.g.: author hires editor and PR folks to work for them, or literary agents hire editors and turn into virtual publishers -- they've got the accounting infrastructure to handle royalty payments), but we already have authors selling directly, and there's a reason most readers usually avoid self-published books.
You are right when you say marketing is important and some very good writers are very bad at it. But there are people that could do both too. There are other books that need artists(text books of history, biology...) and other support people too.
When I say there is no need for publishers I mean the hard logistics and financial experts that today are needed. Other people will be needed, like web store experts, but you don't need to have a minimum of 20000 readers to print like today.
Today, like yesterday CD labels, publishers hold the rights because they have access to the physical market and you can't sell without then, they then get all the money and no cost in ebooks. This is going to change when writers don't need physical market because people buy digital.