Originally published at The Huffington Post
One of the more challenging aspects of being a literary agent is dealing with the incredible deluge of submissions that pour in every single day, twenty four hours a day, from all corners of the globe and for every type of project imaginable. I don’t keep precise stats on the number I receive (it’s hard enough just to answer them all), but in any given year I receive somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 query letters from aspiring authors. Out of those tens of thousands I reject all but a tiny handful of them and take on perhaps three to five clients a year.
Contrary to the myth that an agent is sitting at a desk cackling as they read the submissions from the supposedly untalented masses, I loathe sending rejection letters. Loathe loathe loathe. Not because it’s tedious, but because honestly: who am I to be telling someone they’re not worthy of publication?
Well… who am I? I’m a literary agent, and my job hinges on having a good batting average at the sorting process and pulling gems from the virtual pile. I have to use my knowledge of the industry and hopefully some skill to find what will ultimately sell to a publisher.
But as I search for the diamonds, every day I have to pass on the life’s work of cancer survivors and abuse victims and war heroes and many more people who spent hours upon hours of their life writing a novel in the faint hope that it would someday find publication. I don’t enjoy sending these rejection letters, and I never forget that on the other end of the letter there’s a person out there whose day I’m probably ruining and whose dreams I’m chipping away at. What makes these books unworthy, other than the fact that it simply wouldn’t be profitable to publish them in print?
The lack of commercial viability of 99% of the books written every year necessitates all this rejection. I can only take on the books I think I can sell to publishers, and aspiring authors receive this judgment in the form of a rejection letter. But the very nature of commercial viability in the publishing world is changing quickly with the transition to e-books, and I think it’s ultimately a change for the better.
The Print Funnel
In the print era, there was a good reason to create a funneling process rife with rejection: making a book and getting it to readers is a costly process. It requires extensive and expensive infrastructure (production, printing, warehousing, shipping, retail) and realistically there were only a finite number of books a publisher could publish and still have a chance at making a profit.
All the other books that, rightly or wrongly, were viewed unworthy: they disappeared into drawers, never to see the light of day. While many of the vanished manuscripts were likely passed on for good reasons, who knows what masterpieces and gems were lost to bad guesses?
Luckily, the e-book era is changing all of that. Anyone can upload their work to the Kindle or iBooks or insert e-book store here and make their work available, and thousands of authors are currently doing just that.
Contrary to another publishing myth, I’m not an agent that’s opposed to self-publishing, nor do I see it as anything close to a mortal threat to the world of literature and publishing. People fret as a swarm of books hit the market, many of poor quality, but I don’t see any reason to fear the deluge at all.
Let’s face it, folks: the deluge is already here.
The Digital Deluge
Walk into any large suburban bookstore and you’ll find tens of thousands of books to choose from, more than you could possibly read in an entire lifetime. Head on over to your friendly neighborhood online superstore and you’ll find hundreds of thousands more. We’re already faced with (literally) millions of options when it comes to choosing a book. And guess what: faced with all that choice we are still able to find the ones we want to read.
No one sits around thinking, “You know what the problem with the Internet is? Too many web pages.” Would you even notice if suddenly there were a million more sites on the Internet? How would you even know? We all benefit from the seemingly infinite scope of the Internet and we’ve devised a means of navigating the greatest concentration of information and knowledge the world has ever seen.
So what’s the big deal if a few hundred thousand more books hit the digital stores every year? We will find a way to find the books we want to read, just as surely as we’re able to find the restaurants we eat at and the movies we want to see and the shoes we want to buy out of the many, many available options.
Infinite Choice Instantaneously
I grew up in a tiny farming town, and for me a fun afternoon consisted of standing in a rice field and shooting things with a BB gun. I didn’t have a friendly neighborhood bookstore to peruse, and as this was pre-Internet I certainly didn’t have a lot of choice in what I was able to read. My choices were basically limited to what was stocked at our small-but-awesome library and whatever I was able to wrangle from the small-and-not-awesome mall bookstore over 30 miles away.
Not only did my experience growing up give me the skill to shoot dirt clods with the best of them, it also gave me a tremendous appreciation for the importance of choice (because let’s face it, nothing gives you an appreciation for choice like not having any). I probably would have bankrupted my parents if I had regular access to a Barnes & Noble growing up, but I would have loved it!!
And now we have even more choice than a big bookstore. Instantaneous access to every book you could ever want to read: how could this possibly be construed as a bad thing?
The Sound of Silence
Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, notes that we’re moving from an era where we filtered and then published to one where we’ll publish and then filter. And no one would be happier than me to hand the filtering reins over to the reading public, who will surely be better at judging which books should rise to the top than the best guesses of a handful of publishing professionals.
I don’t see this transition as the demise of traditional publishing or agenting. Roles will change, but there are still some fundamental elements that will remain. There’s more that goes into a book than just writing it, and publishers will still be the best-equipped to maintain the editorial quality, production value, and marketing heft that will still be necessary for the biggest books. Authors will still need experienced advocates to navigate this landscape, place subsidiary rights (i.e. translation, film, audio, etc.), and negotiate on their behalf.
What’s changing is that the funnel is in the process of inverting – from a top down publishing process to one that’s bottom up.
Yes, many (if not most) of the books that will see publication in the new era will only be read by a handful of people. Rather than a rejection letter from an agent, authors will be met with the silence of a handful of sales. And that’s okay!! Even if a book is only purchased by a few friends and family members — what’s the harm?
Meanwhile, the public will have the ultimate ability to find the books they want to read, will be unconstrained by the tastes of the publishing industry, and whether you want to read experimental literary fiction or a potboiler mystery: you’ll be able to find it. Out of the vastness of books published the best books will emerge, driven to popularity by passionate readers.
Sure beats shooting dirt clods.
Photo by Isabelle + Stephane Gallay via Creative Commons
Bane of Anubis says
shouldn't readers be the ones who decide what they should get to read, and not have their choices constrained in advance? Anyone who wants the quality control of a publisher will still have that option: only buy books published by publishers! But people who don't care about that will have the option of reading books outside of what has been published in the past. I just don't see how more choice is a bad thing for books.
Hells yeah. So what happens to agents? Do they have to put on the Talent Scout hat more frequently and go fish the expanding ocean?
Anonymous says
The big misconception expressed by the commentors here is that the publishing industry is looking for "quality" writing. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The want books that sell. Period. If they also happen to be of high quality, then great! But that's secondary to the main goal.
Also, many newbs see the physical bookstores as some sort of holy grail, an irrefutable stamp of quality. In reality, the brick & mortar stores are themselves nothing more than a physical slushpile, with new books given a few weeks to succeed, before being returned to the publisher for a refund, to replaced by some other book that will get their few weeks to prove they can sell. Doesn't matter how "good" they are.
So self-publshing, small press publishing, big 6 publishing–it's all the same–will it sell? that's literally all that matters. WILL IT SELL? Doesn't matter what the source of it is, or it's quality. WILL IT SELL? If the answer is no, then they fade into obscurity. If they do sell, then they garner increasing attention and corresondingly more favorable deals (whether they be small press, trad press, e-book only or whatever).
The whole "getting published" brass ring is just newb talk that shows a lack of understanding about what really matters: SELLING!
You can get published all you want, but unless onoe of them sells, it means nothing. Your work will be met with the same silence if it doesn't sell whether coming from big 6 or Lulu.com.
Think about how to sell, not about where you'd like to be "published."
Josin L. McQuein says
Anon –
You may be met with the same silence if you fail with a Big6 book or Lulu, but you'll fail with money in the bank from a commercial publisher's advance over nothing to show for your work.
Commercial publishers pay for quality, what they consider quality may not fit your definition, but that doesn't matter. They put their name and their reputation behind something they expect to sell. Vanity publishers don't do that, if anything they detract from your sales because their reputation has the opposite effect.
Self-publishing doesn't have the vanity stigma, but you're flying without a ground crew.
Give an average reader a choice between the same genre and approximate size book from a commercial publisher, a vanity press, and a self-publisher, and most will take the cheaper&trusted commercial book.
Kelly Wittmann says
Oh, Nathan, this was so refreshing to read after all the doom and gloom lately. Thank you very much!
D. G. Hudson says
Funny, but this post actually cheered me up.
And — shooting dirt clods is a lot better than shooting a lot of other things. Perhaps your small town upbringing accounts for your generosity and patience with all your readers of this blog.
Better to think you can ride that wave than to fear its height. I believe in being flexible in most things — the world is constantly changing.
Although I still don't think I'll like the "sounds of silence".
mark mitchell says
This is a great post and thread of comments. Thank you for sharing your professional insight!
Mark
AndrewDugas says
Let's not muddle things, Nathan!
You said:
"Not because it's tedious, but because honestly: who am I to be telling someone they're not worthy of publication?"
But really, you're telling them that they're not worthy of ***your representation***.
You're a salesman and you know what YOU can sell best. In real estate, some agents are better at condos, others Craftsman homes.
Nathan Bransford says
Andrew-
Yeah, I'm really just giving my opinion. But how I phrased it in the post is often how it's perceived.
AndrewDugas says
@Nathan
Of course. The best rejections I've received from agents are those where the agent simply says that don't feel strongly enough about the work to successfully advocate for it; maybe someone else will.
Lovin' the blog. Also great insights to be found.
Josin L. McQuein says
That's still 5,10,15,whatever-thousand more than you'll likely see – period – from a self-published book. Plus, with the commercial deal, you get a real editor, and a real artist to design the cover. You're not responsible for typos made at the editing stage. You get placement in catalogs and a chance at advance reviews before the book hits shelves. The big publishers get their books on shelves. Self or vanity published books don't without some serious begging on the author's part, and any promotion/marketing is done after the fact. You're MONTHS behind the curve.
There's A LOT to commercial publishing that has nothing to do with the author or book specifically, but is about services designed to make the book appeal to the consumer audience.
The readers know and expect these services, which is why they can be relatively certain that money spent on a commercial book won't be a total waste, even if the book isnt' their taste.
Typos and errors are HUGE problem with vanity or self published titles, as is grammar and the fact that most of those books aren't something anyone would want to read. Having someone vet the titles before hand alleviates much of that risk on the consumer's end.
D.J. Morel says
Loved this post! Wish I had written it, as it so nicely sumps up my thinking on the rise of ebooks. In the not too distant future, we'll publish the whole dang slush pile. The cream will rise to the top. Paper is precious. It'll be saved for books that have already proven themselves to be worthy of it. Paper books will get a lot nicer too–meaning they can be pricier–a lot of collector's and full-color editions.
I'm going to give a few more years to trying to find a traditional publisher before seriously thinking about self publishing. But in the meantime, knowing that this backdoor option is out there helps me keep writing. There is no longer the fear that all this effort and lost sleep will amount to nothing more than boxes of paper. (Assuming my heirs aren't like Emily Dickinson's and willing to keep sending my work out after I kick it.) If it comes to it, I can take my work direct to readers and see what they think of it. If they greet me with a great big yawn, I can throw out the boxes of paper and save my heirs the trouble… but I'll probably still keep writing.
tnt-tek says
"But people who don't care about that will have the option of reading books outside of what has been published in the past. I just don't see how more choice is a bad thing for books."
The choice, according to your piece, is going to be settling for self-publishing. There's an old meme the says only 200 people in the world make a living writing fiction. I can see that actually coming to pass as the traditional publisher ratchet down on the few writers in their stables who can turn a profit, adding only incrementally to keep the coffers full.
Everyone else will be force to duke it out in that universe of mediocrity without the benefit of knowing whether or not they stink! The number of choices are irrelevant. This will bring about a drastic slimming of the number of writers who will be able to write for a living. The profession will be dominated by amateurs because the have the same access! There will be no dividing line between the "probably well written" and "steaming pile of horse crap".
I understand your point, I really do. I think we just disagree on whether or not it will be a good thing. I personally wear my rejections as a badge of honor. They are the trophies of my growth as a writer. I'm not writing Faulkner but this is my art and I like that the rules for success require you to pay your dues. As an agent, I know you see this every day. The purple, passive voice, adverb laden manuscripts that are raining down from the sky as vanity and self-publishing operations grow. A name on the spine tells me, this is an investment. Someone put in the effort to make this the best product possible (note; doesn't mean it will be good).
Art Rosch says
This is an interesting post, Nathan.I wrote a blog entry titled "The Writer's Stampede". I think it expresses what a lot of writers experience. To quote myself: I feel like I've just walked into Disneyland on a day when a big publisher has announced that it will chose one writer in the park at random for a three book contract with a half million dollar advance. The crowd is stifling! I 'm overwhelmed. At least I got my ticket validated when I parked my dragon.
You go. I read you every day and at least once a week you touch a nerve.
Best
Art Rosch
pensees says
Beautiful post, Nathan. I was touched, particularly by your compassion for the cancer survivors or war heros who have the courage and strength to write about their experiences. I admire your ability to change perspective, and to put yourself in their shoes. Nicely done.
Other Lisa says
You know, it's very interesting, because now that I'm having this whole "published" experience, my perspective is changing somewhat.
I've really been struck by the synergistic relationship between the indie bookstores I've visited, writers and readers. That seems like a really obvious thing to say, but experiencing it first-hand has just been different. I am going to go out on a limb and say that bookstores that are able to engender and build community, both in their actual physical communities and in virtual ones, will survive — the bookstores that host authors, where readers come to meet writers, where books are given special handling, signed, sent out to loyal customers who want that special treatment — sure this is a smaller, specialized audience, but when selling over 5000 copies of a hardback is considered a success, it is really meaningful. I wonder if smart indie stores are the ones who will survive better than the Borders and mega-chains — supermarkets and big box stores suck up all the blockbusters anyway.
Second, and I say this as a total non-suck-up — my publisher is awesome. Bookstore owners and managers love Soho. They love "the brand." They have readers who come in looking for Soho stuff because they've managed to create a coherent brand identity and a reliable marker of quality.
So I actually think a small, nimble publisher with real vision that is still big enough to put some real support behind its books and authors can and will succeed in this new world.
And now I'm off to a mystery book club and the day after tomorrow, to another wonderful independent bookstore.
Magdalena Munro says
What a wonderful post,especially since I received a rejection yesterday. It's much worse having your proposal/MS rejected than a query letter and I cried like a baby. Thanks for this uplifting post.
Being a recruiter for so many years with desirable organizations, I too have to "reject" hundreds of candidates daily and also hate that part of my job and can relate.
Haste yee back ;-) says
tnt-tek writes… "When everyone is shouting, no one gets heard." PLEASE, oh PLEASE, tell that to the Ladies of THE VIEW!
Josin L McQuein… writes, "You're flying without a ground crew." Josin, you're assuming all ground crews are equal, vis-a-vis the publishing biz… ain't so, never been so, and will forever remain so!
I am amazed at the number of writers here who *need/desire/obsess over/* someone granting an Imprimatur to their work, as if that 'someone' is the custodian of quality or, God forbid, high culture!
The future??? I see a hybrid of agent/entertainment lawyer/editor hired on a consulting or permanent basis by authors. The more hits – SALES – this hybrid shepards, the better their reputation and desirability, thus drawing more authors and collaterally serving as a *vetting* authority for the reading public.
The big 6 will eat each other until they're down to a few, then they'll cherry pick what emerges from the upside down funnel and make a *real* book of it until all the newborns of today, who grew up reading nothing but ebooks, say, "Why do I want that?" (15-20 yrs). And then, Puff the magic print publisher will be no more.
I believe we're moving from an era of words to an era of pictures, videos, film, photography or any electronic gizmo that instantly captures dramatic moments and puts them out for worldwide consumption. After all… a picture is worth a thousand words!
I'm not a seer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn… once!
And remember… cream ALWAYS rises to the top, whether it's sitting at a conglomerate dairy, or under someone's three sided tired old barn!
Haste yee back 😉
T. Anne says
I'm enjoying the comments almost as much as I enjoyed the post. That being said, I don't want my novels, 'my paper children', slipping into oblivion down the Amazon trail. I want what I write to matter. I would like my novels to own prime real estate at B&N, Borders, Amazon, and big box stores. Am I delusional? Probably. But I think it's safe to assume most writers are to a degree. You'd have to be when faced with the odds. Silent or not, rejection isn't what I'm after.
Anonymous says
"hen they'll cherry pick what emerges from the upside down funnel and make a *real* book of it"
That's already happening. "Sh*t my Dad says" was cherry picked from the internet (chosen by the readers first, then a publisher jumped on it), as are a growing number of books from Amazon (Boyd Morrison is a good example).
The upside-down funnel will work for the publishing industry . . . they'll simply use Kindle as their slush pile vetting device, take the bestsellers, and make contract offers to those authors. That's what AmazonEncore is doing.
When do you think we'll start seeing books in B&N with the banner "Kindle Bestseller!" blazoned across the cover?
Oh wait. That's Boyd Morrison's book . . .
Josin L. McQuein says
Cream only rises to the top until someone stirs it in with the rest of the coffee.
;-P
Susan Kaye Quinn says
Nathan – I've been trolling through your first pages critiques and they are a real service to aspiring writers. So thank you for that.
Also: you are brilliant, as usual, with this post, and your keen analysis of the state of the industry and where it's heading. I think there will be (already is) a bridge between the "unwashed masses" of self-publication (which I think become more respectable every day – I love the analogy with Indie movies!), and the big publishing houses (which is what agents are interested in selling to). The small presses, a version of a professional "Indie" publishing company, will become more important, providing independent channels for quality books in our direct-to-consumer age. What these Indie Presses will look like will keep evolving as well.
My 2 cents. 🙂
Nathan Bransford says
I agree with Other Lisa that the types of bookstores and publishers she mentioned are poised to survive into the new era – they've made themselves vital.
Anonymous says
"I would like my novels to own prime real estate at B&N, Borders, Amazon, and big box stores."
Really?! Borders very nearly went under just last year, after all! That's where you want your children's destiny?! Not me. I want mine to be wherever is the place people go to buy books at that moment–I will constantly work to make sure they're there rather than holding on to decades old stereotypes about where and how people buy books. I have no loyalty to any particular selling platform, only to the book itself. That goes for e-platforms too. What's hot now might not be 2 years from now.
LTM says
As painful as the query process is for me, I can only imagine how it is for you agent-types with hearts. I empathize completely with the whole "How do you know? How do you choose?"
And the very idea of 300 unread emails in my inbox gives me the itch… I don't know how you guys don't burn out faster than you do.
Still I hope something of the old process remains. I like the idea of quality control, and I would def. want someone kowledgeable at my back.
we live in interesting times~
Mystery Robin says
I think it's really interesting that when the printing press was invented many people thought it would destroy civilization because it suddenly became so cheap and easy to have a book published. 😉
"The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure of limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name; others for the sake of mere gain."
-Martin Luther, 1569 (Leader of the Protestant Reformation a little more than a hundred years following the invention of moveable type by Johannes Gutenberg.)
"The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information by throwing in the reader's way piles of lumber in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful lumber."
-Edgar Allan Poe, 1845
Karen McQuestion says
Great post, Nathan!
kim says
Thank you for writing beautifully what many have been intuiting.
Dan says
This is probably true. I'm not sure it's such a good thing for authors, though. A winnowing of submitted manuscripts by agents and other gatekeepers makes the quality of the work the barrier to entry into the marketplace.
When readers do the winnowing you have to persuade people to read the manuscript for them to find out if it's good or not. This is going to lead to several developments that aren't necessarily favorable to authors.
1. The price of a book is going to come way down. Authors can tolerate a lot of this, as self-published e-books pay much higher royalties than conventional books. But a reduction in the perceived value of content is bad for the market. And with so many potential authors fighting for attention, the price could ultimately reach zero, as authors give away work in hopes of gaining attention they can parley into paying opportunities.
2. Meanwhile where attention is scarce and at a premium, people will start charging others to generate it. Amazon and other companies which e-publish lots of authors who generate few sales, will probably start looking to exploit the authors as a profit center.
Authors might end up paying for some online version of co-op, where you appear higher in people's searches or are featured more prominently on the web page.
If self-publishing replaces a sizable chunk of what is currently published conventionally, authors may have to go out-of-pocket for editorial. Freelance publicists will definitely be pitching services to authors.
The current rule that authors do not pay for publication and that money flows to the author will change to an entrepreneurial model where authors are expected to invest money to try to reach an audience.
3. Whatever the mechanism is for generating reader attention, it will be corrupted. This has happened on every author "display site," where "popular" books get that way through back-channel vote-trading and glad-handing. I've heard that there's similar fishiness among the Amazon "top reviewer" ranks.
The fact that nobody has figured out a way to use "crowd-sourcing" to sift slush yet indicates that it's problematic.
And the fact that so many nominees for big awards are not bestsellers indicates that popularity isn't the best measure of quality.
Claudie says
This is a great post, Nathan, and so uplifting!
My main concern with the deluge is not the infinite number of low-quality that may suddenly hit the online bookstores' shelves, but the "public should decide what is good". My apologies to the masses, but I often find your choices to be far below my preferences.
But then I realised… I already know this. Despite all the hype about it, I know better than to pick and read certain of the latest trends (note that I will not name the books here), because I find the writing to be supbar. So if I can tell this now, why wouldn't I be able to do it later?
I will continue to believe that serious writers, who seek to improve their craft and bring their stories into the best for they can manage, will continue to edit over and over before they publish, whether via self-publication or by seeking representation. They will go to workshops, they will ask for critiques, and they will work hard on their novels.
I want to hope that despite the risk, opening the floodgates will not lead to a dumbing-down of the available products, and that the gems will still come through.
Henry Baum says
Really like this sentiment: No one sits around thinking, "You know what the problem with the Internet is? Too many web pages."
There's a major difference though: the internet is free. If you come upon a god-awful blog, you can just move on. If you buy a god-awful book, that's money you've lost. There's only so much money people can spend.
So that's what gets people annoyed – the loss of a possible sale. No way around this really. People will just have to get used to it, and readers will have to get more savvy about knowing what something is before they shell out $.
LTM says
P.S.
As a book lover, what I WILL miss: Holding a copy of my *printed* novel. Hope not to miss that~
Amanda Sablan says
The rejection letter of the future definitely sounds better!
Here's a little advice for us unpublished writers: Who's to say that just because one agent passed over your work that another agent will do the same? Some of the time a writer is rejected because their project "wasn't right" for a particular agent, not necessarily because they completely stink at crafting a well-written story. So do not despair! I did at first a bit; but then I got a response from someone who requested a partial. All it takes is perseverance and a willingness to swallow your pride.
Nathan Bransford says
dan-
That's a very nice summary of the flipside of this new era. I agree that everything you said is a potential challenge.
henry-
True about the comparison between e-books and the Internet, and I think we'll see more and more demand for previewing books before buying. Luckily e-books make this pretty easy, or should anyway.
tnt-tek says
There's quite a few little problems that pop up when the ebook is pushed as the future of the medium.
1. Data attrition – There are a huge number of old to ancient texts that survive in book form. When the book is reduced to data on a playback device, how does that text propagate through the centuries? Obviously the formats will become obsolete at some point. With no physical presense, how does the work survive the author?
2. Casual readers – Why would someone who reads only occasionally purchase an expensive playback device to do so? This automatically excludes them from the mountain of choice that's being developed and cuts lesser known authors off from that audience.
3. Author interaction – A majority ebook economy kills promotional events like book signings. It limits the ability for special editions and different form factors that allow the author to gain additional income.
Stephen Prosapio says
Finally read through the comments and Other Lisa's stands out. I was thinking the exact thing last week. No offense to B&N and Borders, but 20 years from now do you think people will be going to places like that for books? I doubt they'll be around. Replaced by ebooks and Amazon cheap books.
Sure people will still enjoy "The Bookstore" experience, but they'll want to go to a place that KNOWS books. I was in Borders a couple of weeks ago…Gods love em, I do shop there on occasion, but this story tells all.
I overhear a woman asking a worker there if they carry "Any Stephen King books about writing."
Of course my ears perk up since that's one of the top 5 books mentioned as THE book on writing (on this blog and elsewhere). The Borders worker trudges over to the computer to find out. HUH??? You work in a bookstore and you don't know the answer to that question? He's THE writer of this generation. You gotta know if he's written a book on writing.
I told the customer that "On Writing" is the only book King's written about writing and it's the only one she needed to buy.
My agent suggested I start reading debut suspense novels. How do I find those? People working in Indy bookstores will know…
Nathan Bransford says
tnt-tek-
Data attrition is a problem that has existed for centuries – what survived from the Library of Alexandria? We've always dealt with that – it's not like paper is permanent. I'm sure we'll be able to save what we want to save out of the data pile.
Casual readers: just look at the iPad. Multi-functional devices are the future way to reach casual devices.
Author interaction: look around! (well, figuratively not literally). The Internet is allowing for author/reader interaction on an unprecedented scale.
Josin L. McQuein says
I don't think Borders or B&N will disappear, but simply change. Rather than having rows and stacks for most genres, there will be kiosks for browsing. (Not kids books, though. I think those will outlast any of the others because they're cheap gifts and easily replaced / doodled on.)
Things like the espresso machine might pop up with more frequency in stores, where you see a book you want, and you can print it on the spot. It would cut down on shelf space and inventory, and be especially helpful for things like school required reading.
T. Anne says
Anon @5:00. Nevertheless I find no solace in sinking.
B&N and Borders will most likely still be here on the net. The last place I held an actual book was at Costco. That being said, I buy 99.9% of my books online from Amazon and over 80% are for my e-reader. Have you visited their websites? You can get might nice real estate there as well.
Anonymous says
Borders is on their lasts legs (ie loan) right now. They almost went under last year. This is it for them if they din't succeed in the next couple years.
February Grace says
I find myself thinking now about how iTunes revolutionized the way that people buy whole albums of music. No more do we have to take the disc home, no clue what any song but the single played on the top 40 station sounds like and then discover we could've paid 1.00for one song and been happy rather than 13.00 and been unhappy because most of the content was not what we wanted.
Chapter samples? Absolutely. Maybe the first few pages of each, even, I could imagine that helping people decide whether or not an author's style was something they really wanted to download and pay for.
Maybe it's a good thing, as anyone who bought a one-hit wonder cd and is now using it as a frisbee on the weekends knows.
Bands can now tell which of their songs are most popular by downloads right away- and when bands release a long awaited album that disappoints, boy do they know it. People won't even buy whole cds by bands they've loved for years anymore without samples first. Why should books be any different?
The question is, are we ready as writers to stand back and really let the public decide our fate entirely?
Somehow, that idea scares me a lot less than the thought of potentially drowning at the bottom of the slush pile- and I've barely put a toe into that water yet.
Maybe someone whose never put their work up on the web before and gotten instant (positive) reader feedback would be terrified of this and yes the public can be fickle. But they can also be really, incredibly loyal if they love you…
tnt-tek says
There are any number of scenarios that will probably all come true. It just makes me sad and angry to come up in such a time. Whether or not it is the future, the author becomes minimized in this scenario.
I cannot come to grips with a future that includes authors twittering and blogging as their sole interactions with readers. A future where the only way to come across new work is to carry around an iPad. And no paper isn't indestructible but it's at least a viable medium over time. How many people would be able to playback a betamax tape if they came across one? How about an 8-track? How much luck do you think they would've had with the Dead Sea Scrolls if they had been wrapped in Adobe Digital Editions DRM.
It make absolutely no sense to me. The book is a perfect vehicle. It's compact, it is its own playback device, they can be shared. Hell, everyone in your house can have one simultaneously for less than $1000!
I don't mean to sound bitter about it but the death of the book has been prophesied since the dawn of the computer age and I don't see it coming any time soon. I will take a generation or more for any large scale movement away from the physical book printed by traditional publishers.
Thanks for putting up with me in your comments, it was nice to vent.
John N says
A keeper post.
"…from an era where we filtered and then published to one where we'll publish and then filter."
In journalism, this concerns me, but in fiction it fascinates me as much as the visual arts on the Internet. What new middlewomen/men will emerge and which will vanish?
February Grace says
As long as there are people who can afford to have their favorite stories bound into books, people will have books.
I don't think that 'death of the paper' book is in any way imminent. After all, Captain Picard has them on Star Trek three hundred years into the future if you believe Roddenberry's view of things to come and Star Trek actually led to the invention of the cell phone and if you think of it, the Kindle. It looks just like a PADD. Books are here to stay. They may become harder to obtain in printed format but they won't go away as long as readers want them.
I think that there are some of us as afraid of others having success in a public arena as there are those of us who are afraid we'll never make it beyond the slush to get our work really, actually read by someone who might like it if they had time to consider it.
I really appreciated the quotes Mystery Robin posted about what was said centuries ago about the possibility of too many books. Thank you for putting those into this discussion, they made me smile.
It might just be the INFJ in me but I'm reading a lot of fear in the comments here. Fear of losing that 'stamp' from a 'real publisher' that says your work is 'good enough'.
Fear of never seeing your work reach your potential readers at all because of the limited amounts of books that publishers/agents/the industry at large supports because it's what they believe will sell.
I just have to think that more options in this case must be better than less. That's because I've gone through the bookstores and so many of the big sellers leave me cold but there are books I've read by other struggling authors that I've loved and not been able to forget.
I'd love to have the chance to decide for myself what I want to read- even if others decide that what I write isn't their cup of tea.
I feel a lot better, hours after reading the initial post than I did before. Thanks again Mr. Bransford for all the work you put into it and to everyone who has commented. Fascinating.
Tabitha Maine says
The discussion within the comments was as informative as the original post-sweet!
Davy DeGreeff says
My problem with this theory: the majority of people on this planet are morons. Granted, a good majority of that majority don't exactly make leisure time reading books, but a few of them slip into the reading demographic, and those are the ones that would ruin this situation. They would make books like the TWILIGHT series huge every year, and we would never be able to rediscover books that went unappreciated in their time, like THE GREAT GATSBY. There would be no retrospect, there would only be a concentration on what was happening now.
Art Rosch says
Eleven Things An Unpublished Novelist Feels
Art Rosch
Copyright 2010
1.I am a genius unique in the annals of mankind. Most of the reading audience is not advanced enough to perceive the layered depth of my work
2.If my books are published they will change lives.
3. I’m a committed artist. My work transcends genre. Agents and editors are too conventional to see the boundary-shattering nature of my work.
4.My life experience has been so unusual and difficult that I have special credibility in writing about the human condition.
5.I’m getting older and all these rejection slips are coming from agents who are my kids’ age.
6.Who do they think they ARE!?
7.While I may not be published in my lifetime, my works will reach the world posthumously. This is a good thing for the world but doesn’t do shit for me.
8.I often succumb to self-pity and apathy but I bounce back with increased defiance.
9.I know the odds against writing a best seller are astronomical. A series of apparent coincidences will bring my writing before the world.
10.The seven hundred agents who rejected me without reading a single page will write and ask to represent future projects.
11. Ninety nine percent of the people in the world believe that they belong to the one percent that’s superior to the other ninety nine percent. I am in the REAL one percent.
Art Rosch
Terry Stonecrop says
I'm almost speechless, which for me, is almost never! Your heart was in this one.
I grew up in a city. But my darling father taught me to shoot boxes off wooden horses in the basement, and even in the backyard, with BB guns, so I relate.
I suspect you may well be right. The cream rises to the top, or something like that. Let's hope we all have the cream that rises.
Josin L. McQuein says
Those aren't the words of the unpublished, they're the words of someone with Golden Word Syndrome.
A writer, unpublished or not, will do whatever it takes to make their writing up to par, not expect the bar to change to suit their level.
tnt-tek says
I'm feeling inspired by this discussion to write a story about a dystopian future where book stores have become kiosks. Where libraries have gone extinct. Where erotic Harry Potter rip-offs and vampire slash novels outnumber significant releases by 100 to 1. I envision a protagonist, an old writer, who sits alone with huge cache of paper books, some of the last on earth. A man who remembers when people used to compete to land on a bookshelf and now can only hope to take up a slot on someone's kindle.
Aimee says
I'm one of those who isn't liking this electronic publishing future. I like my paper books. I like the query system. I think it all works the best this way. With the electronic stuff, I feel like there will be a lot of people who wrote less-than-mediocre books getting their novels published.
I liked this post. It was very honest. But I just don't like the sound of what's to come…