What's To Come in 2013

Having looked a bit at what transpired in 2012, it's time to turn our eyes to what's ahead for the coming year. As always, predicting the future is a dicey affair, based as much on hopes and guesses as much as facts. So this year, rather than offer yet another banal shopping list of what I expect to see, I thought I'd simply give some links to others who very likely have much better insight than I, and add a few comments of my own to their predictions. There are plenty to choose from, but here are a few I think are worth a look:



Digital Book World - Ten Bold Predictions for Ebooks and Digital Publishing in 2013.

- #2 (year of the enhanced ebook) - I'm hoping to see #2 come true, but it's been pending for awhile, and I'm not expecting to see an overnight explosion anytime soon. iBooks Author proved that this is still a hit and miss affair for most, but one that's just not cost effective, given current device limitations. In fact, I'm willing to bet that until the full line of Kindle devices support audio and video, enhanced ebooks will remain a very small niche market. After that, look out.

- #4 The $0 Kindle. This will never happen. There's just no good reason to give away what people are more than willing to pay for, and Jeff Bezos is no idiot. So while the price of Kindles (and other e-reading devices) will continue to fall quite rapidly, they'll level off at somewhere around the $25-30 mark ($29.99 is my best guess for rock bottom), a price which almost anyone would happily cough up. And lest you answer that Kindles will be packaged in as part of the Prime program, I would once again remind consumers that $79 per year is not free. Free shipping does not cost $79/year, so quit calling it free shipping already! It's not a free book each month if you're paying an annual fee for it. Amazon is not stupid enough to pay authors to give their books away for free - best official Prime membership estimates are somewhere between 5-10 million, which is a lot of money when each one is paying nearly eighty bucks a year for "free" services - and this is why Amazon can happily put up half to three-quarters of a million bucks each month for ebook lending royalties, since there's still plenty to spare.

- #7 (major privacy breach at a library) - This is a fairly bold prediction, and it's one I hope does not occur, ever. Especially for libraries, who are already struggling against a rising tide to eek out some niche in the growing ebook market. Publishers are already hesitant enough to come on board with library lending (one of my predictions from 2012 that didn't really pan out, unfortunately), and this would put a kibosh on that for a good long while to come. In addition, libraries are already pretty good at handling large amounts of customer transaction data, so I see no real reason why it should be a library and not someone else. More likely it will be one of the major publishers who are trying to move into retail operations for the first time who will botch the whole affair. But then, even Facebook can't seem to get a handle on privacy and site security, so who knows.

- #10 (Barnes & Noble stock will fall below $10) - Although BN is struggling, I wouldn't count them out just yet. They've had a less than stellar year for sure, particularly given that Microsoft invested $300 million into Nook operations with no discernible result at all. And last week Pearson bought a 5% share in the company, propping up the retail giant even more. But BN's end of year outlook was far below expectations, as they announced themselves in a press release last week. Apparently the new toy departments are not quite pulling in their share, and the addition of more video content has not drawn in as many Nook buyers as they'd hoped. Honestly, I didn't even bother to go look at the new HD Nook line, which may say something about the general lack of enthusiasm being shown. For me, while I like my original Nook tablet just fine, it's limited by Barnes & Nobles overall higher prices and thinner content, as well as the somewhat less consistent reading experience - even with its microSD slot, transferring files is a hassle, and purchased content is hidden in a locked folder somewhere that I've never been able to access. In addition, BN's refusal to open up their fixed layout spec to independent authors has put me right off them as a serious contender in the self-publishing market. As it is I sell a hundred times more books at Amazon than I do at Barnes & Noble, which tells me everything I need to know. Still, BN is a major player in the retail space for books, and I think they've got something up their sleeves that Microsoft and Pearson want a part of. And they've finally begun to move into International territory, which will either help or destroy them. So we'll just have to wait and see.

- The rest are pretty obvious, so no comment is really necessary.
Jeremy Greenfield (of DBW) provided three predictions of his own over at Forbes, each of which deserve some thought.

- #1 Goodreads becomes a Bookseller. According to Goodreads, this is a "no" (or at least a "not yet"). This goes hand in hand with the Infographic posted yesterday, which shows how much Goodreads' clout has grown this year. Having social networking sites devoted to book lovers has been a tremendous boon for authors and readers alike, and with their dedicated user base it only makes sense to move into retailing. But this comes with a lot of baggage as well, since the site would no longer be wholly user-driven, with its income derived from affiliate referral fees (and some advertising), but led by economic market forces such as major ad budgets that would eliminate the visibility of many independent authors and books for smaller niche markets, turning them into something more like Amazon than Facebook for Book Geeks. In a way I'd actually hate to see this, although it could have some benefits as well. A one-stop-shop for books - and only books - would be nice, a place where direct reader input provides the market force that propels (or derails) the sales trajectory of what's being published. It's a natural marketing machine for authors, so it will probably happen eventually.

- #2 Ebook marketplace gets dynamic and goes beyond discounting. This is already happening, so it's not really a prediction. In fact, it's almost become customary for independent authors to give away the first book in a series as a loss leader promotion to entice readers, and free giveaways are standard fare on blogs and social reading sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing. As mentioned in the post, Barnes & Noble even used the tactic of giving away a free ebook with every book purchased (from a pre-determined list) in the last few days leading up to Christmas. So I'm not really sure this is a prediction so much as a general trend that will continue. Of course, it depends on how creative e-retailers get.

- #3 Major publishers will form back-list marketing divisions. Duh. Since ebooks technically never sell out (or "go out of print") without a title actively being killed off, it only makes sense that publishers will have a lot more content that needs looking after. This is about as much a prediction as the 2nd of January will follow the 1st. What's more interesting to me is what will happen to the current glut of start-up conversion houses when all those back-list titles have been converted into digital and there's not enough work to be had by all.
Laura Owen over at Gigaom offered up three of her own predictions, of which the first - the remaining publishers settling in the DOJ suit - is a foregone conclusion (what Apple will do is less certain). She also chimes in on Barnes & Noble's downturn, saying they will cut their Nook line, which is also obvious, since the new HD devices inherently made the earlier models obsolete. The real question is whether they will go through with their plans to split off the Nook line into a separate business enterprise, and what will come of that if they do. But she offers no thoughts on that. Finally, there is this:

- A well-known author will turn down a seven-figure deal to self-publish. Didn't this already happen? Okay, looking back it was only a six-figure deal that Barry Eisler turned down to self-publish his work instead, so I guess that doesn't count.
Mark Coker at Smashwords chimes in with his list of what's up and coming for 2013. Some of the more interesting are:
- #2 Unit volume of ebooks exceeds print. This is the first time I've seen the unit statistic given as the vital figure. I've talked about this a lot in previous posts, since it's always the total revenue that everyone compares, which is not a fair comparison given the discrepancy in cost of production and distribution between print and digital (and consequently the profit margin), but also because the units sold are ultimately what matter, as in, how many books are actually getting out there in front of readers' eyes? Unfortunately, these numbers have been nigh-on impossible to find, since only dollars are reported in the AAP charts. I'm with Mark on this one (he also puts ebook sales at 45% of the trade book market by next year, so we'll have to see what extent the recent plateau trend continues - it's currently hovering somewhere around the 22-25% range).
- #6 Overall ebook prices will decline. This is already happening as a result of the recent settlements and end of Agency pricing by most of the big six. With the remaining two more than likely due to settle, retailers will start an ebook pricing war, which Amazon, of course, will win. In the end this is only good news for consumers, who have had to pay some utterly ridiculous prices in the past few years (which they're stupid to pay, since it only aggravates the situation by encouraging publishers to increase their prices).
- #8 Tablets will become the new paper as E-Ink becomes niche product. Only until color E-Ink arrives. Then it's all over for LCD. And this is just a matter of time. Given the extreme long battery life of E-Ink devices, when color reflective technology reaches the point where it's cost effective, high quality with full-saturation color, and has rapid refresh rates that allow for video and gaming, then the backlit screen will disappear. When this will happen is another question altogether, since like most advancements it's just waiting for a big development in the technology, and one can never predict when that will come. But it will come eventually. It's inevitable. And in ten years' time we'll all look back and laugh at the primitive black and white era when color had to be projected with embedded lights! Computer monitors, too, by the way, will all be color e-Ink in the future, and paper thin. Now there's a prediction for you.
- #'s 9-12 all deal with the global market in one way or another, but again it's a fairly mute point: the global market has been growing steadily for the past two years as various retailers expand their reach, and it will continue to do so. It's called evolution. Get used to it. With Apple expanding the iBookstore from 19 to 50 countries in 2012, it's no big calculation to predict their market share will grow (and some competitors will subsequently decline). But to say that the iBookstore will be the breakout story of 2013 ebook retailing is a little bold. In order to consider the iBookstore a "breakout" Apple will have to more than double its current share of roughly 15% in order to be a serious contender against Amazon's current 55% share (see chart here). Of course, these are only U.S. sales stats numbers, so once the International market is factored in the story will be vastly different. Kobo, for example, isn't even figured in the mix here, whereas they're one of the major ebook retailers outside the U.S. But again, those statistics are not as easy to come by (yet). Maybe the breakout story of 2013 will be that International sales figures will start appearing in the BISG charts.
- #13 B&N will rise again like a Phoenix. Well, at least someone's on their side.
- #14 In self-pub...more money will be made in author services than book sales. Not a prediction. Already happening.
- #16 The Big 6 will become the Big 4. It's already looking like the Big 5 (pending merger approval for Random Penguin House), so what's one more? I predicted bankruptcy for one last year, and that happened, so unless they pull their heads out and restructure for the digital age it may be the Big 2 before all is said and done (and that will be Amazon and Apple, by the way, not Penguin House and Macmillon-Simon-Hachette).
- #17 Stigma of Big 6...(or whatever)...will increase as self-pub stigma evaporates. Is there still a self-pub stigma? Where? More self-pubbed authors are making millions every day, with entries into the bestselling charts increasing all the time. If there was still a stigma against self-publishing at the beginning of 2012 it's all but disappeared with the rise of E.L. James, et.al. More readers are buying independent works and more authors are jumping in to try their hand. How is that a stigma? On the other hand, I don't there ever has been, or ever will be, a stigma against traditional published works from a reader's point of view. That's only something authors must contend with, and for very different reasons than anything to do with public perception. And while some of us can see how wanting to be traditionally published is more a vanity pursuit for the sake of validation these days, it's hardly the main reason one would choose to accept a publication offer. If you're making a good income self-publishing then you've already been accepted by the common populace, and if you're not selling anything through self-pub pursuits, then there's nothing to stop you from taking up an offer. This is just a dumb prediction all in all which misses the entire point of what's going on.
- #18 EPUB will disappoint. Already has. See my post here.
- #19 Ebook subscription offerings will face uphill slog. I would say "face impossible climb." The whole subscription model for ebooks is just idiotic. While it makes perfect sense for a niche target market like O'Reilly's tech references, two huge factors stand in the way of there ever being a "Netflix" of ebooks. The first is that people can only read so many books, and if you look at the charts given in my recent post on Pew's latest stats, you'll see that the average person reads 15 books a year, with the mean being only 6. This is hardly enough to justify paying a monthly fee for access. Amazon's Prime members are no doubt pleased to have the added benefit of one free ebook a month for no extra charge, but I highly doubt they'd be willing to pay $79 a year for just that. Secondly, the publishing world is far more fragmented than the video industry, with literally millions of self-pubbed authors out there, and thousands of independents, rendering any comprehensive subscription system impossible. If the miserable state of video streaming subscriptions is any indication, ebooks don't stand a chance. Oh, and by the way, there's already a "subscription" model out there that's been pretty popular for awhile: it's called the library.
The Guardian - Our e-publishing predictions for 2013. This is not a very well thought out list, and I'm only including it because of:
- #4 re: digital publishing startups. The important point here is the last part which predicts that we'll see more self-published authors form co-ops like Awesome Indies, which is a great idea and one I'd like to see pursued. A number of self-published authors who have gone the route of establishing themselves as actual publishers (as I have done), have begun to accept and promote outside submissions (which I have not as yet), using their collective skills and manpower to present a united front in their marketing and at conventions, where they share booths and help promote each others' work. In this way they remain independent and yet united behind a common cause.- #5 Traditional publishing will become more experimental. Unlikely. Traditional publishing's answer to the self-publishing digital revolution was to buy existing vanity presses and charge exorbitant fees for services authors can either do themselves or find elsewhere at a fraction of the price. Their adoption of digital has been sluggish to put it mildly. The traditional model is too slow, too archaic, too behemoth to be innovative. And if "storygames" like Black Crown Project are any indication, what little effort they do make will fail miserably. What the heck is the Black Crown Project anyway? I defy you to discover it without having to submit your personal information for scrutiny and increased spam influx.
- #7 Publisher-led online communities... If putting social networking links on your marketing page makes it a "community," that makes every website out there an online community. Crime Vault is nothing more than a storefront for Hachette's books, with a Twitter link. At least SF Gateway has a forum, such as it is. It takes more than a comment box to build a community (see yesterday's post on Goodreads).
- #10 Amazon will be forced to file for insolvency...with the pseudo-comic postscript "All right, that last one might be a tad optimistic," which is a blind potshot with little or no thought behind it. Honestly, if people hate Amazon so much then why do they keep shopping there? Or is it just that the minority have the loudest mouths? Two things continue to annoy me about this ongoing Amazon-bashing (aside from mindlessly reactionary blathering itself), the first being the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing a successful business venture in a world where human endeavors are supposed to be applauded, and the second is that no retailer has done more to assist and support the independent spirit than Amazon with its Kindle publishing program. Apparently starting an ambitious endeavor on a shoestring against overwhelming odds is admirable...until you actually succeed at it. Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage with money that came primarily from his parents, with a business plan that showed no profit for at least five years (which is exactly what happened). He's smarter than me, and chances are he's far smarter than the idiot who wrote this critical "prediction."


My prediction for 2013 is simple: the future will arrive...and it will soon become the past. All we can do is try to keep up.