As I mentioned in our last post, the way books are read, marketed and bought has changed. There’s no going back to paper alone, despite what some traditionalists wish.
To meet the demands of the new marketplace, both writers (including entrepreneurs who wish to become bestselling authors), and publishers, need to
- Accept reality. Books have expanded beyond print. Print is great but it’s no longer the sole delivery system for content. The industry was behind the curve in meeting the demands of readers – and so it allowed Amazon to take the lead in developing and marketing e-readers that people use and in making it easy for authors to upload content. Publishers need to work with their authors to see how to deliver the authors’ works more quickly to the reading public.
- Innovate to reach today’s and tomorrow’s book-buying consumer. With more than a million new books published each year – including traditionally published and self-published books – the competition is greater than ever to reach readers. People are finding that they can fill their cravings in genre fiction by turning to self-published authors. But what about other fields? How can publishers and entrepreneurs and thought leaders meet – and perhaps even create – a demand for their services and systems? They need to think beyond the standard way of doing things.
- Adopt an entrepreneurial attitude. Content is king and it makes sense for publishers to invest their resources in the people who are creating the content they’re delivering. They can discover their entrepreneurial spirit by aligning with emerging thought leaders, becoming their authors’ venture capitalists, in a way. Innovative minds, talented writers and industry leaders are out there beginning for attention. Publishers should help these writers and leaders find ways to connect to their target audiences, ways that don’t necessarily involve traditional publishing.
- Focus on helping authors build marketing platforms instead of selling books. That information is contained in this series of posts, but it should be advice given to every author by every publisher.
We’ll explore more of what publishers and authors can do in the new marketplace, in our next post.