by John Tyler

Created on: February 07, 2011

The New World of Book Publishing

Right up front – I believe that the way of the book publishers, literary agents, editors and brick and mortar book stores are heading the way of the dinosaur. Here’s why:  First, there is a high dollar risk factor involved with paying an author to publish a book.  So, publishers choose authors who are already published.  Does this make sense?  If an author of a best-seller is unknown, how can his or her best-seller ever see the light of day?  If that “best-seller” does make it into the premier placement at the front of the brick and mortar book store, it may have a shelf life of only two or three weeks before it is tossed into the back of the store, and ultimately it ends up on the discount table at Joes’ Buck-a Book Emporium.

It may take three years before a book title and subsequent content – beyond that of the 40-page Submission Package, is reaches the brick and mortar.

I need only to remind you that Borders – the number two book store chain, is contemplating filing bankruptcy.  The aforementioned reasons are partly to blame for the demise of many bookstores to date – including the thousands of “mom ‘n pop’ stands that used to dot America or any other city of town across this planet. Therefore, my conclusion is that the future of book sales will be in the online e-book format.

How it might work is that authors (rookies or published) will create their book.  They will initiate and control the title of the book, design the covers, edit, format the book (usually in safe-mode, locked .pdf format), and they will upload the book(s) into an online book store.  The book store could be their own.  Their books can also be uploaded to Google Books, or Amazon, or to any number of online book stores that will be coming to the Internet – especially now that the number two chain has sent the signal that brick and mortars are on the way to extinction.

With the advent of the Internet, and “Kindle” or “nook”, or the I-pod - or any laptop computer, any book can now be read….without ever being printed.

The publishers of tomorrow will make out much better because authors will prove have to themselves by the number of books they sell online. If a book takes off into the stratosphere due to any number of things that can propel it, the new publisher of tomorrow can be there to

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