In 2020, I see the book publishing industry becoming much more fragmented and niche driven market economies then what we currently have now. While Random House, Pearson, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette may continue to dominate the Best Seller Trade lists with block buster best selling authors, more and more emerging niche authors will have a presence in the online marketplace. Just as television went from the big three networks until 20 years ago to over 400 niche channels on cable and satellite TV today, the book industry will continue to explore its place within technologies of the future for the reading audience. From traditional ink and paper to audio books, to e-book readers, like Kindle and the iPad, to online PDF books, CD books, and cell phone books in Japan, the nature of the book as a physical object or simply as a service will evolve. Economies of scale will continue to favor the smaller publishers and self-publishers who effectively know how to use effective marketing principles to make a name for themselves and sell their books. Unless net neutrality becomes a pay per download function on the web with AT&T and Qwest creating a toll and only the big publishers can pay to play their websites, I don’t think the large media/publishing conglomerates will continue to merge and acquire smaller houses who seek to create diversity for democracy. One great success story of a constitutional law attorney who used blogging on the internet to become a best seller is Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com.
Glenn initially started a blog titled Unclaimed Territory in 2005, was able to attract a huge audience to his blog while posting criticisms about the Patriot Act to other blogs such as Salon. Over the course of six months, he developed a large fan base and was able to write the book How Would a Patriot Act? The book made it to Amazon’s #1 spot and the New York Times Best Seller list six weeks before it went to print and without any exposure to review publications like Publisher Weekly or Kirkus. Glenn Greenwald’s success was purely from grassroots blogging and connecting with readers daily online.
In ten years, I see that the big houses of today will continue to have blockbuster best sellers like John Grisham, Stephen King, Christopher Moore, J.K. Rowling, etc., but the landscape of media distribution will be so different technologically that the market share for the large block busters will be a lot less. We can only hope that the democratization of the internet continues to stay free and the smaller publishers as well as authors like Greg Palast The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Plume Press), Chris Hedges’ War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Anchor Press), and David Sirota’s Hostile Takeover (Three Rivers Press) will continue to thrive. If government resources do not adequately fund our infrastructure, especially our public school system and encourage literacy, we may wind up like characters in Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here.
