Indie publishing gurus gaze into their crystal balls.
Happy new year, everyone! As the proud indie author of two self-published books, I thought it’d be fun to see what people closely involved in supporting and promoting indie publishing predict for book publishing industry in 2016.
Here’s what they had to say!
Emmanual Nataf, co-founder of Reedsy
“Most forms of publishing have dramatically changed in the past few years: it’s become incredibly easy to publish photos (Instagram), song tracks (Soundcloud), videos (YouTube), blog posts (WordPress), etc. In 2016, it’s book publishing that will become more mainstream than ever. Through books, more people will express who they are and communicate their vision of the world with others. With 2016 set to break all records with hundreds of thousands of titles pushed to the market, authors need to have a clear idea of what they can expect from publishing a book. In most cases, it will be a gratifying and enriching experience; but only those willing to work hard will find it lucrative.”
Jeffrey Bruner, founder of The Fussy Librarian
“I predict that Barnes & Noble’s eBook division will either be sold or auctioned off through bankruptcy proceedings and acquired by a tech startup that will reinvigorate B&N’s website and database and create a little more competition for Amazon.”
Miral Sattar, CEO of Bibliocrunch
“Now that there are more and more quality books being published a day, largely due to self-publishing, you’ll see a rise of companies that provide marketing tools or services to help the best ones reach the top and get discovered.”
Meanwhile, Smashwords founder Mark Coker wrote an excellent post on his own 2016 predictions. I’ve quoted a few of his predictions below, but definitely read the full article!
Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords
- “Indie eBook authors will gain market share at expense of large publishers”
- “The overall market for ebooks will shrink in dollar terms, but unit volume will increase”
- “Kindle Unlimited will gut single-copy sales and drive greater eBook commoditization”
- “Print will remain steady, though those sales are the sole domain for authors of traditional publishers”
- “Wattpad will be acquired“
What are your predictions for 2016? Sound off in the comments below!
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