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How Indie e-books will Transform the Future of Book Publishing

On July 9 in New York I gave a presentation to a group of students participating in NYU's Summer Publishing Institute.
The topic was how indie ebooks will transform the future of publishing.

I started the presentation by quoting lyrics from Rosetta Stoned, possibly one of the best Tool songs ever written. The song is about an ordinary guy who's abducted by space aliens. The aliens tell him:

"You are the Chosen One,
the One who will deliver the message.
A message of hope for those who choose to hear it
and a warning for those who do not."

The lyric basically summed up my presentation to these hundred or so students, all recent grads from around the country who hope to land careers in publishing.

I told them I believe the opportunities for authors and publishers to reach readers are greater today than they've ever been in history. The challenge these future captains of the publishing industry face, I said, is to help publishers take advantage of the change, rather than become victimized by it.

As I explained, some publishers are taking a bunker mentality to this change. They're handing their business decisions over to risk-averse bean counters, and adopting policies and practices detrimental to their authors (fewer acquisitions, fewer risks on unknown or unproven authors, less marketing support) and readers (DRM, artificial ebook scarcity, high prices). Some of these practices that are causing them to act less like publishers, which then causes authors to ask the simple question, "why do I need a publisher?"

I talked about how publishers for the last century or so controlled the means of book production and book distribution. They determined what readers read. In the new world order, now starting to unfold with ebooks, their oligapolistic grip is waning.

The future belongs to the indie author, who can now gain access to the same digital shelves as their traditionally published brethren. With ebooks (and with a little help from Smashwords), access to the digital shelves of major ebook retailers is now becoming fully democratized.

Publishers have a bright future too, if they play their cards right. To survive and thrive in this new world order, they need to serve their authors better than their authors can serve themselves.

Mark Coker, Smashwords, July 2010