Newsy Notes: 10 Publishing Predictions: #3 Large Publishers will Restructure Themselves

Confused by rapid-fire changes in the publishing landscape? Here's a link to an article covering one of ten publishing predictions I'll cover on consecutive Sundays on this blog. I give an analysis of the post and my own take on the prediction.

So, unless one CEO arises who, I'm appalled to see myself write, lays off about 50% of the workforce and utterly reconstitutes the company (as IBM did 1990-1995) all the aforementioned leads to one significant prediction — that all the giant publishers will be pygmies in ten years, publishing perhaps 100 books a year, all blockbusters or would-be blockbusters, and continually under threat of going out of business.~ Richard Eoin Nash in Publishing Perspectives; 2020 Vision: Publishing Predictions for the Next Decade

Of interest to writers:

Despite the popular notion that smaller independent publishers are unversed in marketing tactics, we fail to realize that larger publishers also lack finesse in this area.
Publishing corporations will downsize and structure themselves more like their smaller, more independent counterparts and produce about 100 books a year, on average.
A lack of entrepreneurial capitalism rather than profit-seeking has been destroying publishing for decades.
Brick and Mortar Bookstore Chains will vanish.
Writers will find ways to be paid despite the passing of big advances.
New technology will displace the e-book. Wise writers will take advantage of new multimodal forms.

My take: I don't entirely agree that all large publishers will downsize to this point, although restructuring to create divisions similar to a smaller publishing model would probably help large publishers survive. I also believe the large bookstore chains will vanish as brick-and-mortar establishments. I suspect they will go online and compete with Amazon, although that may turn out badly for them. Brick and mortar bookstores will still exist but will give way to a different kind of independent bookstore that will offer new technologies as well as traditional books.

Writers, as creative people, will move into new technologies and find new ways to turn a dime.

© 2010 Janalyn Voigt

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