This post, by Anthony Puttee, originally appeared on Book Cover Cafe on 2/9/13.
There’s something that I’ve been noticing recently, and I wanted to get my thoughts out here today.
Amidst all the news and “noise” on the interwebs about how publishing has changed and what the future holds in store, I find it interesting that there are still some writers and authors that believe that someone is going to cut them a break and drop a nice publishing offer in their lap.
They still have a mindset towards publishing that’s ten or fifteen years old.
Is this because they’d rather turn a blind eye to change?
Perhaps they like their own idea of publishing, rather than what’s really happening in the world today.
One thing is clear to me, and that’s these people are going to be left behind. They’re going to find themselves on the wrong side of “change”.
Unfortunately for them that change is already here.
Our consumer economy is changing. People are buying online more than ever. We’re communicating online to each other more than ever. Making consumer and social transactions online is now commonplace and accepted.
I have news for these writers and authors. These changes aren’t going away and publishing is right in the middle of it.
The day of submitting to publishers is yesterday’s mentality. The trade publisher business models are changing. They’re joining forces to survive, like the Penguin and Random House merger. Their bottom lines are in flux and it’s not just to do with e-books like some would assume.
It’s to do with the overall global economy changing and how our social and consumer transactions are taking place online. A small part of that is e-books because of how these are purchased, discovered and how they’re read.
Gary Vaynerchuk said it well in his book the Thank you Economy:
Read the rest of the post on Book Cover Cafe.