Yep; I definitely see print-on-demand as taking over traditional print runs.

I tend to agree. But I think there is great potential in a Red Box Version of the bookstore using Espresso Machine Technology (situated in a Target next to the mini-Starbucks). Use a touch-screen to print a standardized size book, pay there, get a coffee and pick up your freshly-printed book in 5-10 minutes. With the current advances in technology, I see this as the future. Retail space is costly to maintain, there are employees to manage and pay (and now provide health care) and with a machine like this? Theft and loss can me almost wiped out. I think the dark future of the bookstore is a harbinger of the death of big publishers and print (as we currently know it).

Rachel

Sadly, it’s not really going to be up to us readers to keep traditionally printed books alive just because we ‘prefer them’ or ‘wont give them up.’

The real issue is whether there will be enough book stores to sell them. Probably not, because eBooks are cutting a huge chunk out of the market, causing a fall in sales at book stores, and below a certain volume, traditional books do not generate enough income for them to pay rent, staff etc. and stay afloat. This is already causing the increasing closure of small bookstores everywhere. But it goes further: The collapse of small book stores flows on to traditional print publishers, because without book stores to keep them afloat they will disappear too.

I expect ‘collectible’ style, traditionally printed books will survive, there’s always a market for those with direct selling.

But I can’t see genre fiction doing this – other than for sample copies for publicity that the author pays to have printed.

I don’t believe printed books are going away any time soon. Every single person I know “in real life” prefers a printed book over an ebook. The physical act of interacting with the book is also healthier than staring at and tapping on a screen. (In fact, I suspect that a couple of decades from now, we’ll be looking at certain health issues and wishing we hadn’t made such an overarching cultural change.) BUT ebooks DO have their own benefits (the immediacy of a download, smaller storage space, etc.), and it’s clear that THEY are not going away, either.

In my opinion, the wisest authors will recognize that one cannot simply be abandoned for the other, and that we may even have different audiences in each medium.

Kristen.

Socioeconomic advantage? Unearned success?

I admire your remarkably measured response to such a blinkered, uneducated comment.

I am living proof that you’re correct. I’m an author living in a tiny country in the South Pacific, far away from the advantages of the giant US economy. In fact we barely maintain ‘la petite bourgeoisie’ by comparison. So no chance of an NY contract.

But then along came the INTERNET which gave me my first break, not some ‘socioeconomic advantage’. It allowed me (like your confused commentator is doing right here) to interact at extremely low cost with the huge US market. The walls camed tumbling down. The tyranny of distance was swept away. The barrier of cost removed forever.

And now thanks to Amazon… it has improved all over again, allowing a true meritocracy to rule. Here’s how:

For my next children’s project I’m writing a large number of titles, and plan to give away the first one for free, which will hook in readers, who’ll then buy all the other titles. Even better, the price is so low thanks to Amazon and Apple that 10 times as many will be able to afford them, so the market is made 10 times larger at a stroke, meaning I can make a living, and far more children can afford to read them.

Will my work sell? Yes I know it will, not because of some socioeconomic advantage but because people love it, and want more of it, and certainly not because I can ‘afford’ to write.

This was never possible under the old traditional publishing paradigm. Amazon has created the very meritocracy from which authors were previously excluded

But there’s even more: The cost of reading devices will soon drop through the floor, meaning that even greater numbers will be able to read. The big six and New York’s ‘socioeconomic advantage’ won’t even get a look in.

Keep the great posts coming.

~ Jonathan
Alive and well and living in Middle Earth

Interesting response. I am unsure if you are aware of the current math. In the traditional paradigm, an author earns $1.08 off a $10.00 book, and this is before the agent’s 15% and taxes. So an author earns around .70 per book. Those are slave wages, when you consider the hours and sacrifice that goes into writing a novel.

Most new writers get a print run of about 10,000 books and are limited to a book a year. This means an author is paid about $7000 a year and is expected to do all the same social media as an indie author (who is paid far better and who can write to demand).

In the traditional paradigm, we would be better off working at McDonalds.

Fascinating assessment, but thank you for your comment :). Blogs thrive off healthy debate.