The Sky is Falling

As it happened, Scott Adams wrote a post about content and authors on the same day I wrote my last piece. He predicted the end of the traditional author.

I’m a big proponent of e-books, the open model, and other affordances provided by a digital world. However it’s easy to predect dire consequences or happy worlds that quite frankly will never come to pass.

Remember the paperless office idea? Sure e-mail has changed the way we do things, but we still have paper. What about newspapers? Remember a few years ago when people were lamenting that our kids’ kids would never hold a newspaper? Well, that isn’t coming to pass either. Newspapers are adapting and transforming, but they aren’t going away. Well, the ones that aren’t adapting are going away, but you know what I’m mean.

What about books? Will our kids’ kids never hold a book in their chubby little hands? Will there be no such profession as an author in the future?

No. That’s just plain silly.

Look at the newspaper industry. Blogs came along in the early to mid 2000s. Suddenly everybody and their goldfish had a way to talk with other people–their own newspaper, if you will. It can be argued that most of these blogs were and are of ‘poor quality’. If you hold up a random blogspot blog and compare it to the NY Times it is clear which is better reading.

But the important thing to remember is the new model is a meritocracy. For every ten thousand blogs that are of ‘poor quality’ there is one that is downright amazing. And because blogs choose to focus in on a very niche market, they find a loyal group of followers.  Throw Google AdWords into the mix and suddenly you have a working model. People blog about something they enjoy, they make a bit of money, and everybody is happy.

Well, not everybody. In the old model you had a few businesses that got all the pie–all of the advertising dollars. One or two newspapers in each market dominated and the cost of entry was too high for most people to participate. But blogs brought that cost down, and readers and producers of content benefited.

The same thing is happening with books. In the past you’ve had your superstar authors, those that make ungodly amounts of money. Then you have a second tier that can eek out a living doing what they love. Then you have the third tier that can’t make a living, but enjoy doing it in their free time. The old model is geared toward those superstar authors. Marketing and promotion dollars go to them. The second and third tier are left to fend for themselves.

E-books level the playing field somewhat. Everybody has a chance now, even those who couldn’t find a publisher in the old model. Will the e-book revolution produce a lot of garbage? Yes. Will it produce a lot of very cool, niche books by authors who weren’t ‘marketable’ in the old model? Absolutely. And both readers and authors will benefit.

Google helped spread the wealth with adwords–more people got a piece of the pie. Amazon, Apple, and others are now doing the same for authors.

More choices for readers, more avenues for authors, all at a lower cost. Unless you’re part of the old model, that has to look pretty good.