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Post by writeway on Sept 24, 2018 2:33:40 GMT
What do you think will be the next big change or changes for the future of indie publishing? I have a few of my own. 1. Amazon's Power Will DwindleI am feeling a shift now with Amazon. I see more indies going wide and some don't care how much they might make in KU, they are sick and tired of Amazon's nonsense and leaving. I think the scammer thing really hurt Amazon. Of course, most of us already knew it was going on but when it became big news and reached readers and everyone else, it really did harm between Amazon and indies especially. Amazon's reputation was damaged with their lack of handling things. Many indies were burned and they just had had enough. Also, I just "feel" like there is a shift happening. Maybe it's women's intuition, I don't know but it definitely seems like Amazon has been knocked down a peg or two. As they say, nothing stays on top forever. 2. Direct Sales for Authors (Authors taking back some power)
A few years ago I never would've believed direct sales could catch on but I think it is the future of indie publishing. Authors are tired of retailers and many are already setting up their own stores. I have my own Payhip store and I haven't sold anything yet but I wanted another avenue to sell my books. Being wide, I try to put my books in as many places as possible. More and more authors are selling from their websites and running their own stores. The challenge is getting readers to follow you but some are doing well. They might not sell as much as they would in a store but it's another avenue making them money. I'm not saying retailers won't be needed but I think more and more authors will want to have their own stores as well. Also, I've seen polls on FB asking readers how they felt about buying direct from an author and I was surprised that many said they had no issue with it and would be glad to support an author they enjoyed. Readers were also taken aback by how decent authors were treated by Amazon due to the scammers. 3. Death of Mailing ListsWe were talking about this in a FB group today. There have been many discussions lately questioning the importance of mailing lists. Many authors are finding subscribers not even opening the emails and feel like it's not worth the trouble. Readers complain about too many mailing lists and end up ignoring or unsubscribing. I think it's a new day. Before social networking, mailing lists were essential to keeping up with an author but these days you can connect with an author online and keep up with them that way. I don't see readers as interested in mailing lists anymore. With swaps and everything, it's gotten to be too much. Having a mailing list is good to have your supporters where you can always reach them but as far as being "essential" to success, I don't think that's true. There are many authors who do well who never had a list. Reaching your core supporters is what's important no matter how you do it. 4. 2019 Will be the Year of the Wide Author  Or I damn sure hope. I believe there will be more options for wide authors in 2019 and beyond. We got Walmart/Kobo and even though their start seems rocky, they claim they are determined to compete with Amazon. So Walmart is now another option for books. Microsoft now carries ebooks but indies have to go through Ingram I believe to be distributed there. This might change and Microsoft could become another outlet for books. More wide authors will start selling direct as I stated before and I won't be surprised if more ebook stores or outlets bring options for authors as well. 5. Bookbub Will Start Publishing BooksHmm. I would NOT be surprised if we see Bookbub Publishing coming soon. Well, these are some of my observations. What are your predictions?  |
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Sept 24, 2018 3:00:51 GMT
Ooh great thread starter! I agree that wide is going to become more lucrative and that amazon will start losing it's greedy grip on us indies. I think it's awesome that you have a payhip store. I really want to have a TUOK store on my author site where I can have more control over what I charge, and have special promotions, and mix and match as much as I please. As a shopper I used to get all my books from amazon out of convenience, but I've started looking around now to find better places. I don't agree that mailing lists are going away/losing power. Marketing peeps have been announcing the death of email every time some new marketing fad pops up. Yes, there is a shit ton of email out there. Everyone is fighting to get you on their list, and most of the emails we get are annoying and we don't want them. But when you find your audience. Your obsessive, buys every book on release day, spends hours writing fanfiction with your characters, and writing thousand word forum posts about how much they love your books, but this one thing they really really hate! Those peeps want your email. They really, really want it. And when you find them it doesn't matter who else is in their inbox or what anyone else is doing marketing wise. When you find your audience they just want to hear from you, and they don't care how that happens. Which is why email isn't the only way to be successful at all. But it does allow you to have your own list of buyers and doesn't make you as dependent on other platforms and their audiences, like social media does. Although, I think you could use a notification system on your blog, plus your own personal readers forum, hosted on your author website just as strategically as an email list. To me the most important thing is to try and own as much of the process as possible. And that will never go out of style. The medium is the least important part. Book Bub publishing books would be interesting. And you never know. It could happen.  |
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Post by gaylordfancypants on Sept 24, 2018 3:15:29 GMT
I do think Amazon will lose marketshare to indies, but I would also predict that indies will consolidate a bit. Smashwords maybe will buy some of the smaller ancillary retailers. Nook will either go big or flame out and die a humiliating death.
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Post by Jeff Tanyard on Sept 25, 2018 5:09:31 GMT
As the Amazon bookstore becomes more unusable for casual browsers, it will lose market share. Miscategorization and ads are already damaging the store's brand. I've read posts by people on non-writing forums who say they don't shop for books anymore simply by browsing Amazon. It's just not worth the hassle of sifting through all that sand to find the few diamonds. Instead, they rely on recommendations from their internet friends.
And the also-boughts have been stuttering, and that's a huge driver for Amazon's sales, so keep an eye on that, too.
On the other hand, purchasing Goodreads was a great move, and if Amazon can figure out how to leverage that, then it'll breathe new life into the Kindle store. Big "if," though.
This post is a long-winded way of saying, "I have no idea what the future holds for this biz."  |
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jimmycourier
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Post by jimmycourier on Sept 25, 2018 17:13:19 GMT
New guy here. *waves* Call me crazy but I think things are gonna get better, a lot better, for us writers because ultimately we create the content. Everything's going content-driven now: TV channels are making original content b/c they want the eyeballs, eyeballs mean money, etc. Same thing with websites: they are creating original content because ultimately that's how you leverage people to come to you, and once they are coming to you, they build habits of going to you, and so on. So, since we are the creators, as long as we are not dumb enough to sign away our rights, we're in a pretty powerful position in this new world so to speak. But this creates other problems. There's only so much one human can do in a day; and with increased money and fame etc comes more stress. That preface done, I see possible future things: Singleminded, narrow, very focused author brandsPeople get overwhelmed with choices. If a reader wants a mystery, they don't want an author who also writes westerns and/or romance. The reader just asks: "Who is a good mystery writer?" And then they go to that author. It's like, AC/DC's music catalog is very shallow from one point of view, but part of the reason that they are such behemoths today is because even though they keep manufacturing the same kind of song over and over, they do it better than anybody else. AC/DC is a very distinct brand with a very distinct voice; when one of their songs comes on the radio, even if you've never heard it before, you can tell usually within the first five or ten seconds that it's an AC/DC song. And that works the other way, too. A listener thinks, "I want to feel some adrenaline as I'm cruising down the highway, here; I think I'll tell Siri [or whoever] to play some AC/DC." It works that way with books. "I feel like feeling scared; I think I'll read or listen to some Stephen King." People are busy. They don't want to mess around with a bunch of genres offering what they don't want. A focused author brand eliminates that hassle. If you choose a Stephen King book you ain't going to be reading about a romance in Amish country, you know? So, I think the more shrewd authors will focus upon delivering good stories in a brand that delivers the same kind of feeling in the same genre in the same vein in the same way, every time. The author's challenge will thus be to try within their brand to keep things fresh, but the same. It can be done. Scale-UpAuthors becoming "brands" a la Stephen King will be the rule in the future, not the exception. But this all means more work. With more income will come the ability to hire staff and possibly MBAs, lawyers, all that, to make your brand bigger and better. Scaling up will become more of a norm than it has been. Because in the future if you don't scale up, you get lost in the churn, you know? So it will be kind of a binary dynamic: ultimately you'll be forced to decide living-wise if you want to be a 1 or a 0. If you choose 1, you will be compensated accordingly (cash! lots of cash!), but nothing comes for free. AppsPart of the scale-up will involve having a person or team responsible for apps, as in phone apps. You, the writer, will provide content direct to people's phones. For free. Your income will come from ads and other stuff, and also possibly selling user info, possibly not. But you'll be delivering content directly, very directly, to people this way. I think apps will be where the big money month after month for writers will be, in the future. Virtual realityVR is the future. But the problem the VR programmers and startups face, once again, is content. They're all ready to build a world; but what world? These guys are engineers, not creatives. They know that. It makes business sense for them to try to license and then build a world that people have at least some familiarity with and fondness for. Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones may be unavailable, but there's plenty of other worlds they can license, many of those world in successful books. In this sense I think the tail will begin to wag the dog; writers will start building worlds with very specific and targeted demographics, to correspond with what the VR companies are or will be looking for. "Dragons? Robots? Medieval stuff? On it." The writers who can secure good deals with VR licensing will see appreciable benefit; the bigger and more successful the VR game or online world based on their books, the better the writer's books will sell. Yeah? So to sum up, good news: the future is ours. Bad news: with inheriting the earth comes even more stress and distractions. At least we can put the boozy after-hours parties on our own tax-writeoff corporate cards. And hold them in the Four Seasons private bar, when we like. Victory has its compensations. |
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Sept 25, 2018 17:52:14 GMT
I think they're already doing the app thing in China. There was an article on Kboards about it a while ago, so I think that prediction is pretty legit. I feel like Disney and the other huge corporates will definitely license their stuff for virtual reality. They will probably just add VR into their wheelhouses, but I'm sure there will be plenty of smaller outfits who can't afford them, and that's where we indies would come in.
I'm not super happy with your idea that it's going to require huge amounts of money to be hugely successful, but I think that's mostly true even now. You have to advertise so much and have ultra professional covers, etc. And with all the suing going on, having your own lawyers makes sense. But if you're okay with not being famoose, I think you can still get away with going slowly and poorly and building your smaller, but lovely audience, more slowly. At least I hope!
I agree with the branding advice, too. (nods)
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jimmycourier
New Member
Like Jimmy Olsen but with a better font.
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Post by jimmycourier on Sept 25, 2018 21:11:55 GMT
Thanks! I was a little hesitant about being so forthright while also being the new kid in town. *nods back* |
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Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Sept 25, 2018 21:20:44 GMT
You have a voice here. Can't guarantee everyone will always agree with ya, but you have a voice and are free to use it however you desire. (Unless you're a proven scammer or promoting shit that's illegal.) You seem much too cool for either of those activities so you should be good. |
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Post by corabuhlert on Sept 25, 2018 23:35:54 GMT
Stephen King probably isn't the best example here, for though he is a brand-name author and most famous for horror, he actually writes plenty of other genres. Stephen King has written crime fiction, thrillers, epic fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction, dystopian fiction, even literary fiction of sorts. But he has a strong voice, so his non-horror books are still very obviously Stephen King books. Ditto for other big brandname authors: George R.R. Martin may be best known for A Song of Ice and Fire these days, but he has written many other things that are not massive epic fantasy tomes. J.K. Rowling is best known for Harry Potter, but she also writes some (very good) mysteries, albeit under the name Robert Galbraith. Nora Roberts usually stays under the big romance umbrella, but she writes contemporary romance, romantic suspense, paranormal romance, fantasy romance, a post-apocalyptic novel and futuristic mysteries with strong romance elements as J.D. Robb. Once again, you can inevitably tell it's her, whether she writes as Robb or Roberts.
So a distinctive voice/style can also serve as a brand for those of us who get bored sticking just to one genre.
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Post by davidvandyke on Sept 25, 2018 23:47:19 GMT
What I see is authors who master the art of legit online advertising and have scaled up their own content as much as they can, will shift toward publishing and promotion rather than authorship. That might be by getting more ghostwriters, co-writers, or simply publishing others' books and using their ability to do it and take a cut.
Imagine if someone like Dawson was taking on clients who can afford to ramp up their ad spend to generate a positive ROI.
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Post by thatwritergal on Sept 27, 2018 5:17:03 GMT
TBH, I'm surprised mailing lists have lasted this long. Earlier this year, I figured the burnout was around the corner with so many swaps, the number of authors using them, and the frequency of releases taxing the readers. It'd be cool to integrate that feature with website sales kind of like the way Amazon does it's author follow so authors won't feel like they have to keep entertaining their list members to keep them around.
I have a feeling another site may rise to take Amazon's place. D2D already has lots of upgrades in the works that they are releasing little by little. I'm curious to see where they are headed for the future. And Kobo/Walmart is trying to make waves. In the past, we were focused on making sales statewide but I wonder if it will be more imperative to our bottom lines to extend ourselves to sales around the world via translations and in different mediums. Kind of like what Joanna Penn says about turning one book into different products for re-distribution.
I have to say, all of this is rather fascinating. I started going indie around the mid-00s and I remember when selling from one's site was all the rage before Fictionwise started making waves before it B&N took it over. Seeing so many distributors rising and falling and now with selling direct coming around again, I find it an interesting shakeup. One of the main hurdles of this change is trying to get the eyes on our sites like someone mentioned up thread. I imagine this will open up some opportunities for book PR specialists and genre aggregators to gather readers into one place. Kind of like the book tours and bloggers of olde.
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Post by Jeff Tanyard on Sept 27, 2018 5:58:17 GMT
And Kobo/Walmart is trying to make waves.
I really hope they do. They've got some challenges to overcome. Walmart's search engine still needs serious work. |
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qirky
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Post by qirky on Sept 27, 2018 19:51:55 GMT
As the Amazon bookstore becomes more unusable for casual browsers, it will lose market share. Miscategorization and ads are already damaging the store's brand. I've read posts by people on non-writing forums who say they don't shop for books anymore simply by browsing Amazon. It's just not worth the hassle of sifting through all that sand to find the few diamonds. Instead, they rely on recommendations from their internet friends.
And the also-boughts have been stuttering, and that's a huge driver for Amazon's sales, so keep an eye on that, too. I agree with these points. Amazon is not as useful to readers, and that's going to impact things. Amazon recently sent me one of their "how are we doing" questionnaires, and I was pretty honest that I thought they were shooting themselves in the foot with certain changes to the store. I don't know if anybody with any say reads those things, but if so, they will be in no doubt about what I think they're doing wrong. |
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qirky
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Post by qirky on Sept 27, 2018 19:52:53 GMT
Also, I think direct sales and Patreons are becoming more widely known and accepted among indies. The extent they affect people's bottom lines will depend largely on how many readers adopt them.
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Post by writeway on Sept 27, 2018 20:55:02 GMT
I agree about readers turning away from Amazon. I haven't browsed on Amazon (for books) in probably a year because the site is a mess. I can't find what I want to read so I get recommendations from FB either from groups or the authors themselves. I am hearing more and more readers saying the same. The truth is the store is skewed and many books are hidden. If someone isn't in KU, with Amazon Publishing, or spending tons on AMS ads they don't get the same visibility. Many of the authors I like are wide so I have to keep up with them on social networks to know when they release something because their books are hard to find on Amazon unless you type their names in.
Readers have said Amazon is focused too much on advertising now and not on what customers really want. What made Amazon so powerful for years was how they matched up customers with their interests. They don't do that anymore. The Also Boughts are useless now. Sponsored Product books often don't show up on pages with books of the same genre so readers will see any book being advertised on any page and it has nothing to do with what the customer wants. Many readers with Apple products buy from itunes and others say they love Kobo's interface because it's clean and the pages aren't cluttered. Amazon's book pages are cluttered with so much junk. That's the issue.
To be honest, until recently I hadn't shopped on Amazon in months. I'd been shopping at Walmart because the prices are cheaper now and I found Amazon caters to Prime members to the point where others can barely find deals. I find everything much cheaper on Walmart.
As for Walmart and Kobo, I am one who is very disappointed in this merger. I had high hopes. I know it's early and I hope they make something substantial out of this but right now I haven't been impressed. Walmart doesn't even allow permafrees which is a huge tool for many indies and they don't do pre-orders. Also, it's been weeks since this merger and half of my books are still not on the site. Others are saying the same thing. I blame Kobo mostly for not being as transparent as they should with authors.
But, make no mistake, if Walmart/Kobo does show to make an effort for authors I will support them. I think it's important we support all retailers so Amazon won't have so much hold over the book industry.
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Post by Jeff Tanyard on Sept 27, 2018 21:20:13 GMT
Walmart doesn't even allow permafrees which is a huge tool for many indies and they don't do pre-orders.
I've got one permafree, but I took it back to paid at Kobo in the hopes of getting it to appear on Walmart. It worked; my whole catalogue is now on Walmart.
The interesting thing to see will be if Walmart price-matches the "free" price at the other retailers. I think that would be sort of hilarious if they did. |
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Post by writeway on Sept 28, 2018 17:10:40 GMT
I changed my permafrees to 99 cents about three weeks ago and only one appeared so I just changed them back to free because they didn't show up anyway. I have a back list of 50 something books and only about 20 are there. I asked Kobo what the deal is and they say it takes time. A month almost to get the catalog up there? Please. I think Walmart is picking and choosing. My latest is a thriller but it isn't up there. I have a feeling it's because of the subject matter but whatever. As I said, not too impressed so far. And the fact that Walmart doesn't list pre-orders, what is THAT about?
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Post by Jeff Tanyard on Sept 28, 2018 19:46:13 GMT
I asked Kobo what the deal is and they say it takes time. A month almost to get the catalog up there? Please. I think Walmart is picking and choosing.
A few days ago, I thought the same thing, because I still had books that hadn't shown up on Walmart's site yet. My whole catalogue has only just recently appeared there. So yeah, I think Kobo's right; just be patient, and the books will eventually appear. The Walmart spider is just really slow at crawling Kobo's database.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2018 18:29:55 GMT
Amazon has been making a lot of missteps and is prime for disruption. Five years from now, I doubt that they'll be the behemoth they are today.
With Trump in office, it's very possible that Amazon will be broken up by an anti-trust investigation. Trump and Bezos hate each other, and when billionaires do battle with each other, things get… interesting. That said, I don't think that's likely until after 2020.
I think audiobooks are going to overtake ebooks, if they haven't already, and become the primary way that people consume written content in most genres. That's the sector to watch.
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Or I damn sure hope.
