Welcome to my annual publishing predictions, and hello 2020!
Also be sure to check out my annual companion post, Smashwords 2019 Year in Review and 2020 Preview.
2020 makes me think of 20/20 vision. Can you see what’s coming in your publishing future?
Each
year at this time I polish off my imaginary crystal ball, read the
proverbial tea leaves, and generally attempt to divine a future that is
anything but divinable.
The value in speculating about
the future is that it gives us all an opportunity to imagine our place
in that future. We can identify opportunities and threats, and a take
steps now to alter the course of future history.
I recall
watching an interview earlier this year with Margaret Atwood discussing
the prophetic insights of The Handmaid’s Tale, first published 35 years
ago. She said (and I’m paraphrasing) that although some would label her
writing as speculative fiction, she really writes about things that are
already happening. I get that. She calls attention to stuff hiding in
plain sight that others should see too.
My predictions
are based on what I’m seeing. I’m the first to admit I’m not without my
blind spots. Your vantage point might be different. I welcome your
perspective in the comments. Working together, we can paint a truer
picture.
I try to spot emerging and entrenched trends,
analyze the economic and psychological drivers of those trends, and
speculate how those trends will play out over time.
I’ll start by sharing my thoughts on the state of the indie nation and then I’ll jump into the predictions.
Also
be sure to check out my other annual companion post for today,
Smashwords Year in Review and 2020 Preview. Odds are, if you read
anything upsetting below, and you will, Smashwords has already built
tools to help you overcome it.
The State of the Indie Nation
If
you’ve followed my publishing predictions over the last decade, you may
have observed that in the early years my predictions were rife with
gushy optimism about the increasingly important role that indie authors
and indie ebooks would play in the future of publishing. Those posts
proved prescient, because indies did indeed become a force of nature in
this industry.
Indies pioneered the best practices of
ebook publishing and ebook marketing; proved that self-published authors
can achieve awe-inspiring commercial success; and captured significant
ebook market share from traditional publishers. Indies introduced
readers to an amazing diversity of new voices that would have been lost
to humanity were it not for the amazing opportunities presented by ebook
self-publishing and democratized retail distribution.
In
recent years my publishing predictions have taken on an increasingly
ominous tone. Although I’m a naturally optimistic person and more
inclined to see cups as half full than half empty, I’m a realist as
well.
I care about truth. Truth is my anchor, and I’m
always searching for it to keep me moored in the choppy seas of an
ever-changing reality. In business as in life, I try to keep my
opinions flexible and open to modification when facts change.
It’s
time to recognize that if the indie publishing movement were a house,
the house is on fire and not enough people have noticed yet.
I celebrated the virtues of the indie author movement back in 2014 when I published the
Indie Author Manifesto. I celebrate the movement and its world-changing potential to this day.
Yet
it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the indie author movement
and everything it represents is in jeopardy. Authors liberated
themselves from one gatekeeper only to find themselves in the clutches
of another.
Can authors honestly call themselves indie authors when they’re getting 80-100% of their sales from a single retailer?
What
is independence anyway? If I wrap myself in chains and submit myself
to the mercy of a single sales outlet, am I still an indie author if
such bondage is by choice?
If each of Amazon’s ebook retailing competitors left the ebook market tomorrow, would it make a difference to your future?
Indies
appear to have made their choice. Get a group of indies together for
any period of time, whether it’s in an online forum or in person at a
writers conference, and the conversation invariably devolves into
questions of how to please Amazon and its algorithms. Shouldn’t the
conversation be about how to please readers?
The indie
community is beginning to grapple with these difficult but important
questions of what it means to be indie. Although I remain optimistic
about the potential of the indie author movement, I’m losing confidence
that the community at large has the necessary situational awareness to
dig itself out of the hole it now finds itself in.
I’m communicating with authors every day. I love to hear what authors are seeing, thinking and experiencing.
To my eyes and ears, indies are experiencing increased pain, anxiety, desperation and depression.
Many
bestselling authors from four or five years ago have seen their sales
plummet. Some have cut back production or quit writing altogether to
take on a “real” job that pays. Jobs that don’t involve writing. This
saddens me, because when you strip a person of their ability to pursue
their creative passion, a part of them dies, and humanity as a whole
suffers.
None of these talented writers suddenly became
crappy writers. These writers have readers who want them to write more
books but the authors are refusing to write them. When you depend on
your author income to pay the bills and feed your family, you can’t
write for charity.
The same factors hurting bestsellers are hurting every other author who’s trying to reach readers with their books.
When
I meet an author who’s suffering, they’re often quick to blame
themselves for any misfortune. This year I heard each of the following
repeatedly:
I need to learn how to do better on Amazon ads.
I need to learn how to do better on Facebook ads.
I need to find more paid marketing opportunities.
The above answers are like a moth saying, “I need to fly faster toward the flame.”
You can’t fix a problem if you’re unable to identify the cause. In my
2019 publishing predictions post
last year, I identified the primary cause, and expressed my
bewilderment that so many authors and even large traditional publishers
were continuing to make decisions that ran against their best long term
interest. As I wrote in that post, when I posed this conundrum to
literary agent Michael Larson, co-founder of the San Francisco Writers
Conference, he responded, “Pain seeks simple solutions.”
Myriad
factors contribute to the declining fortunes of the indies who are
feeling the pain. Even if you think you're doing well, know that you'd
be doing much better were it not for these factors that are dragging you
down. But to recognize and fully grok these factors, one must delve
into the complexity. The solutions are not simple or easy, and they’re
not quick fixes.
Some industry watchers have attempted to
divide the indie universe into two camps: The serious professionals and
the amateur hobbyists. As this thinking goes, the professionals are
serious and implement best practices, and the amateurs are amateurs and
therefore flail and fail. I find this view unsatisfying and even
dangerous.
Yes, there are lazy amateurs out there who
still think their illegible homemade ebook cover is wonderful because if
you click to expand the cover image and squint, you can read all the
important words in the image (!!!!). Darwin will sort out the
delusional, pig-headed and willfully ignorant.
Yet there
are talented professional authors who implement best practices, write
super-awesome reader-pleasing books, invest in expensive professional
editors and cover designers and marketing teams, and they too flail and
fail. Something else is going on here.
Over the last eleven years, in
my books, workshops,
Smart Author podcast
and here on the blog, I attempted to help authors navigate the
confusing darkness to realize a brighter, more prosperous future.
Sometimes it felt like I was herding cats. I helped some people find
their way, but I couldn’t reach everyone.
It pains me when
I see an author fail. I believe every writer is blessed with untapped
potential. It doesn’t matter if that author works with Smashwords or
not. If you truly love books, you can’t help but care for the magicians
who write them.
Mass Confusion for Newbies
Publishing is not an easy business
to learn. It takes time, an inquisitive mind, and a lot of hard work.
A newbie author might have a master’s degree in biochemistry,
neuroscience, or sociology, but that doesn’t mean they’re equipped to
make intelligent publishing decisions.
Thousands of new
indie authors enter the market each year. The path forward for them is
more confusing than it was a mere 10 years ago. New authors are
confronted by a cacophony of advice and unlimited options from so-called
experts.
Often the advice from experts is conflicting
or just plain wrong which causes further confusion. Confusion leads
authors to make poor choices.
Often the simplest solution to the pain is the wrong solution.
Confusion makes aspiring authors more likely to fall prey to predators,
and more likely to make decisions that undermine the long term
opportunities for all writers.
It's not just the newbie authors who are making poor choices.
The Wisdom and Stupidity of the Masses
I
had a revelatory epiphany earlier this year that helped me view the
challenges faced by indie authors in a new light. The epiphany was
triggered after stumbling across a brilliant essay from the 1980s
titled,
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
by Italian economist, Carlo M. Cipolla. Check it out. It’s a fun,
thought-provoking read that will cause you to view humanity in a
completely new light.
His essay attempts to explain how
the behavior of each individual affects a society at large. He posits
that people occupy one of four quadrants, defined as follows:
 |
Intelligent people contribute value to society.
Stupid people cause losses to themselves
and others. Image by Vincedevries |
Intelligent
– Cipolla argues that Intelligent people make decisions that reap
mutual benefit for both the individual and society. These people
naturally gravitate toward win-win decisions and relationships. Their
actions elevate a society for everyone's benefit.
Bandits
– Bandits act selfishly with callous disregard for society. Think of
thieves, cheaters, scammers, and others who are only out for
themselves. Although no one likes thieves, Cipolla posits they’re a net
neutral to society because they're just transfering value from one
pocket to another.
Stupid – Cipolla definines stupid people as those who make
self-destructive
decisions that also harm society. Stupid people are a net negative to
society. Their actions sap society of its wealth and potential.
Helpless
– Helpless people are adept at making decisions that never benefit
themselves, but always benefit someone else. Similar to bandits,
helpless people are a net neutral to society because their loss is
someone else’s gain. Although bandits and the helpless don't drag a
society down per se, they also don't contribute to the society's
prosperity.
The essay makes clear that intelligence,
banditry, stupidity and helplessness have nothing to do with education
level, race, religion, political orientation or socioeconomic class.
Instead, these labels are more a reflection of one’s personal
priorities, world view, curiosity or willful ignorance, and the desire
and capability – or lack thereof – to not act stupid.
Every
society, country or large family will have a mix of each of the four
types of people, as well as those who straddle the gray areas of each
quadrant’s border. The same holds true for any business entity,
retailers included. The really interesting stuff happens in the gray
areas, because that’s where an otherwise stable or vibrant society can
slip into stagnation or decline when things tilt out of balance.
The
lessons in Cipolla’s essay are rich in their applicability to any
situation, especially if rather than viewing it as an explanation for
why a society might rise or fall, you view it through the lens of how a
movement might rise or fall. The outcome for any movement – whether it’s the indie author movement or a political movement – is determined by the interplay between the four groups.
Put
another way, a society or movement performs best when the majority of
participants are making decisions that produce enough positive benefits
to society to counter the decisions by those that sap a society of its
strength. The more participants who occupy the Intelligent group, the
more prosperous the society. While it would be wonderful if all members
of society landed in the Intelligent group, such a utopian dream is
unattainable.
The essay’s wisdom provides some degree of insight into the generally troubled fortunes of authors, publishers and retailers.
Back in 2011, Amazon introduced a
predatory scheme with KDP Select which later spawned
Kindle Unlimited
(2014). These interconnected publishing options devalued indie ebooks,
stripped indies of their independence, and starved Amazon's ebook
retailing competitors of books and customers. Traditional publishers
acted like KDPS/KU was only a problem for self-published authors who
were already selling their cheap books too cheaply anyway. But when
indie ebooks are artificially devalued to the point that readers are
reluctant to purchase single-copy ebooks, all books are devalued.
In other words, the entire industry had a hand to play in the banditry, stupidity and helplessness that authors observe today.
If
you question why an individual author, publisher or retailer should
care about the success or failure of the indie author movement, the
answer is that we’re all in this together.
If we allow a
single retailer to grind all the profit out of publishing, we can look
forward to a dim future Amazon's competitors exit the market, royalty
rates drop further, and where the only books that get published are from
deep-pocketed hobbyists who are willing to pay more to be read than
they earn in income.
It's not too late for indie
authors to chart a more prosperous course for their careers. It starts
with fiercely defending the independence upon which the indie author
movement was born. Your independence is your power. Don't let others
take it away.
Now to the predictions.
Mark Coker’s 2020 Publishing Predictions
Sanctions coming against Amazon and Facebook
– In my predictions for the last two years, I predicted that the
pressure would grow for the political establishment to bring some of
these too-powerful platforms to heel. When a company tangles its
tentacles too far, too wide and too deep, it suffocates innovation.
Here’s a cooking metaphor for those of us who’ve mastered the art of
boiling water. If 2018 was pre-boil, then 2019 became a full-on simmer,
with politicians on both sides of the aisle agreeing that something
needs to be done. In 2020, the calls to break up these companies will
reach a full boil.
Backlash coming against Amazon Ads for stealing author platform
– Last year I predicted that Amazon would become recognized as
pay-to-play in 2019, and certainly that view became more accepted in
2019. Amazon's transition into pay-to-play marks a sad realization of
the satirical April Fools post I wrote in back in 2017 titled,
Kindle Power Bucks,
which solved the age-old book marketing problem by allowing authors to
pay to be read. In 2020, we’ll see the author backlash. It’s not that
the idea of advertising is a bad one. What’s bad is how Amazon
implements advertising. Amazon replaced their
also bought
shelves with sponsored ad shelves. This means they removed the organic
book recommendation wisdom of fellow readers and replaced it with paid
advertisements. It's a disservice to readers because now a book's
visibility is measured by the author's ability to pay for that
visibility. As I wrote in Publishers Weekly last month in my column
titled,
Platform Theft, Amazon Ads enable Amazon to sell your author platform to the highest bidder.
Try this exercise learn how this affects you:
Click to the Amazon home page, select Books, and enter your pen name.
It’s not uncommon for the first three search rows to be occupied by
sponsored ads for four books by other authors. It's also common to find
that up to one third of all your results on that search results page
are promoting other authors that Amazon knows are not you. Each is a
detour designed to take your reader away from your books. It also means
that Amazon is forcing indies to trample upon the platforms of fellow
authors simply to remain visible in the store, in the same way that
KDP-Select causes authors to trample upon the visibility of their fellow
authors who refuse to go exclusive. You work hard to build your
readership and your author brand. Now Amazon’s working hard to take it
away, cloaked in the vapid veneer of a paid marketing opportunity.
Audiobooks disappoint
– For indie authors, peak audio may already have come and gone. The
audiobook market will grow in 2020, but the average participating author
will see slower growth or even declines. The first indie authors to do
audiobooks reaped the most benefits. Now the market’s getting
crowded. Amazon’s Audible division continues to maintain a stranglehold
on audio, and similar to Amazon’s strategy to commoditize and devalue
everything they sell, they’re successfully devaluing audiobooks (by
restricting the author's ability to set their own prices, and demanding
long term exclusivity for the best visibility) which means your profit
opportunity will continue to decline in audiobooks for the same reasons
it has declined in ebooks. This leads to my next audiobook prediction.
Most indies to forgo audiobook opportunity
– I love audiobooks, and want them to be successful (Smashwords has
been partnered with audiobook distributor Findaway since 2018), but
professional production costs are beyond the reach of most indie
authors. As audiobook growth slows and devaluation pressures persist,
and as more immortal audiobooks forever occupy the virtual shelves of
online retailers, more indies will be shut out of the audiobook
opportunity. It’s extremely difficult to lower production costs without
sacrificing quality. Your choice of narrator can make or break your
audiobook. The best narrators are reluctant to work on spec. Although
there are interesting efforts afoot to leverage machine-learning and
artificial intelligence to bring production costs lower, I remain
skeptical that these efforts will produce anything but subpar
audiobooks. It’s extremely difficult for a machine to match the
intricate and dynamic cadence, emotion and tonality of a professional
voice actor. It’s equally difficult to replace a talented audio editor
for post-production.
Single-copy ebook sales face continued pressure from Kindle Unlimited
– I’ve made similar predictions in prior years, and we’ll see this
trend continue into 2020. When readers have unlimited access to over
one million ebooks with their Kindle Unlimited subscription they can
read for free, and when the subscription service decouples author
compensation from the author-set single-copy price of the book, it’s a
recipe for significant devaluation, and it gives readers over a million
reasons to never purchase another single copy ebook again. Even 99-cent
ebooks start to look too expensive to readers when they read other
books for what feels like free.
Platform ownership to become a top indie imperative
– Most authors already know the importance of building their marketing
platform. Your platform is your ability to reach your prior and
prospective readers. To date, most authors have focused the majority of
their platform-building on growing their social media following, and
building readership at the various retailers. But when your
relationship with your readers is mediated by a third party, it means
that third party is the gatekeeper to your readers. That third party
can erect tolls or implement other policy changes that make it
difficult, expensive or impossible to reach the readers who want to
purchase your book. In the examples of Facebook and Amazon we see
blatant toll-taking. In 2020, more authors will wake up to the danger
and realize the imperative of building an author-controlled marketing
platform. This doesn’t mean authors will need to open their own ebook
stores (most who try gain a new appreciation for the valuable services
offered by a retailer). Not all retailers are the problem. I can’t
think of a single instance in the 10-year indie ebook retailing history
of Apple Books or Barnes & Noble, for example, where either
implemented a single policy change designed to tax authors, reduce
royalty rates, or strip them of their publishing freedom. Despite Apple
and Barnes & Noble being the second and third largest sellers of
English language ebooks, both are small potatoes compared to the worst
offender Amazon that has implemented new policies each year for the last
10 years that strip authors and publishers of their profit margin and
independence. This brings me to my next prediction.
Indies will redouble efforts to build their mailing lists
– When a reader subscribes to your author newsletter, you own that
relationship. You can reach that reader on your terms whenever you
choose. You can direct the reader to retailers whose missions are
aligned with your own, and who are not trying to sell your reader
someone else’s book when they're looking for your book. It means no
third party can control your access to your reader. If you don’t yet
operate your own opt-in newsletter, or you’re looking for tips on how to
grow your subscriber list, check out another of my Publishers Weekly
columns from this year, titled,
Taking Control, for help. Also of help is my next prediction related to presales.
Ebook presales join the author’s best practices toolbox - This prediction is blatantly self-serving on the heels of our
Smashwords Presales announcement on December 3, but I also know it to be true. When we first introduced
preorder distribution at Smashwords back in 2013, I
predicted
preorders would become an essential best practice for all professional
indie authors and that's what happened. The same will happen for
presales. In the long run (beyond 2020!), readers will find presales
much more exciting than preorders because presales allow the customer to
read the book earlier than everyone else. Smashwords Presales is an
author-friendly, author-controlled alternative to the more draconian KDP
Select. And for authors plan to enroll their new releases in
KDP-Select, Smashwords Presales is compatible with publishing strategy
that too! Just run the presale BEFORE enrolling in KDP Select. With
Smashwords Presales, the time period of early release is entirely
controlled by the author. The period can be minutes, hours or months in
advance of the book's general release. The author also sets the price
and decides who can gain access to the presale. This gives the author a
greater ability to harness the value of the presale. At Smashwords,
ebook presales are designed to allow the author to trade something of
value to the reader (early release and reading) with something of value
to the author (using the promise of presale access to grow a private
mailing list; earning higher royalties; capturing additional newsletter
signups at point of purchase, diversifying their sales channels). The
early adopters have already started adopting this in the last few
weeks. 2020 will be the year thousands more early adopter authors adopt
ebook presales. These early adopters will derive the most long term
benefit, and they’ll set the example for the next authors and
publishers.
Romance Writers of America faces make or break year in 2020
– I've long been a fan of Romance Writers of America, one of the largest and best organized professional writing organizations here in the US. The organization has been operating continuously since 1980 when editor Vivian Stephens joined with other romance writers to form a national organization to advocate for the interests of romance writers. In the years since, RWA has helped tens of thousands of romance writers. This past July, it was my great honor when the RWA board of directors awarded me their 2019
Vivian Stephens Industry Award for my contribution to the genre. Following the acceptance of my award in New York, I enjoyed meeting several RWA board members during the conference's after-party. Therefore, as you might imagine, I was shocked and saddened to learn that most of the RWA board abrupty resigned over the Christmas holiday in protest to what they viewed as secret backroom dealings related to how they handled allegations of racial insensitivity. The story even caught the attention of the
New York Times who covered it yesterday. Many members now feel angry, hurt and disappointed. This turmoil is a critical test for RWA's leadership. How they deal with it will have lasting implications for RWA's future and possibly even its survival. I hope they rise to meet the challenge and emerge from this crisis stronger, better, and more inclusive than ever. Diversity is strength!
Ebook sales will rise if major book-buying countries enter recession
– This was a big miss for me last year, so I’m going out on a limb and
making the same prediction again. Last year I predicted the US economy
would enter recession in 2019, and this would cause consumers to become
more frugal and therefore shift more of their book-buying budgets to
ebooks. But somehow, the US economy hasn’t fallen off the rails yet.
With every passing month, however, a recession becomes more inevitable,
and the longer its arrival is postponed, the deeper the next recession
is likely to become. Just as a forest fire plays a natural and
essential role in maintaining healthy forests, so too are recessions a
difficult but necessary event to maintain the long term health of
growing economies.
Thanks for taking the time to consider
my predictions. Please tell me what you think, and feel free to make
your own predictions in the comments below.
Summary of Prior Publishing Prediction Posts by Mark Coker
2019 Publishing Predictions (Published December 31, 2018)
2018 Publishing Predictions (Published December 31, 2017)
2017 Publishing Predictions (Published December 31, 2016)
2016 Publishing Predictions (Published December 31, 2015)
2015 Publishing Predictions (Published December 31, 2014)
2014 Publishing Predictions (Published December 30, 2013) and
Huffington Post (Published January 7, 2014)
2013 Publishing Predictions (Published Dec 21, 2012)
2011 Predictions at GalleyCat (published Dec 28, 2010)
10-Year Predictions at GalleyCat (published Jan 4, 2010)
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