This past
year has continued to bring new technologies that are designed to help indie
authors or small business creatives to compete well against big business. These
new technologies provide more support for user-friendly options in book
formatting, book and audiobook distribution to a global market, the ability to
engage with thousands of fans without spending all day doing it, and options
for advertising and driving traffic to books in a way that doesn’t require
thousands of dollars to compete. More analytic tools are now available to track
what works and what doesn’t. The availability of these tools has now put the
small business person (indie authors) on par with big businesses in terms of
access.
I have
only one prediction for 2018. That is that things will continue to change more
quickly. Therefore, it is the agile business that can embrace change that will
win the day. My longer term prediction is that, by the end of this decade, the
ability of independent creatives to go direct to their fans and cut out the
costs of middlemen (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, etc.) distributors will be a
viable income generating option by 2020 through decentralized distribution of
content through blockchain technology. The means to do this is already tested
and working in the marketplace with other businesses. The only thing holding it
back from working in indie publishing is a lack of context and enough early
adopters to prove its viability. This is the next big paradigm shift that can truly
change the publishing landscape to be tilted to the economic benefit of
independent creatives instead of large centralized enterprises.
Here are
the top five trends to watch and capitalize on during 2018.
1.
Phones Continue
to Be the #1 Technology for Communication, Reading, and Computing. Statistics tell us that globally
more than 2 billion people have smartphones and use them as their primary means
of shopping and communication. (
Statista, 2017) The top users are NOT in the
U.S. They are in China and India. Some of this is because they have larger
populations than the U.S. However, it is more than that. It is in the rural
areas of these countries, where traditional communications infrastructure
(electricity, underground or above ground cables) are non-existent, where
smartphones have become the primary way to communicate with the world.
This translates directly to readers as well. In areas of the world where
libraries don’t exist or local bookstores are hard to maintain in smaller
villages, people who love to read do so on their phone. For example, did you know
that Pakistan, the 3
rd largest English Speaking market, now has 141
million mobile phone users? (46 million are 3G/4G subscribers). Yet no one
seems to be distributing to them except Amazon which, evidently is crazy
difficult for them to use on their phones. (Pakistan info from
Mark Williams, The New Publishing Standard blog)
The author who ignores the importance of the phone, for both reading and engagement
with their readers, will be left behind. Any apps that allow us to communicate
directly through phones are bound to be the new growth and discoverability
engine.
2.
Individualized
and Personal Communication Venues Nurture and Retain Readers. Most of us have noticed the rise
of images and video in online communication and sales. It is no longer
acceptable to simply use words. There are many ways to take advantage of this
without having to be a live video star. Invest in ways to create image libraries
that are reflective of you as a writer and a person. Free ones like
Pixabay are a good start, as well as
monthly or bulk purchase options in stockphoto companies like
Depositphotos and others. Both Google and Facebook are ranking videos higher in
terms of reach. These don’t need to be long—thirty to forty-five seconds is
great. It can be you reading an excerpt from your book, sharing a moment in
your life, or talking directly to your fans. Don’t like showing your face? Not
a problem, use those images and narrate over it. Fans want to know you are real
and that you share some of the same challenges and foibles they have. The
perception of a personal moment with you goes a long way toward building
loyalty.
Individualized communication used to be email. It is now moving toward text
messaging, and Facebook messenger use in particular. Twitter has benefited from
a variety of individualized automation tools, and now Facebook has options too.
Watch for technologies like chatbots (e.g.,
Manychat and
Chatfuel) to provide individualized
assistance for common questions, without you having to be at the ready 24/7.
Use these as a supplement to your personal communications with your fans and as
an alternative to email lists for growing engagement and sales.
3.
Audiobooks
continue to be trending up. We are nowhere near the peak of audiobook demand yet. Particularly
globally where audiobook sales are rising at a faster pace than ebooks. There
are now several large companies competing with Amazon’s Audible platform:
Kobo/Rakutan;
Findaway Voices; and
Playster represent three different dimensions of audiobook
production and distribution, from narration and production management to retail
and packaging. Each of them have global market reach and they provide terms of
service and payment options that are more beneficial to authors/creators than
the Audible contract. These are not the only players, but they represent a
larger group of opportunities for indies to distribute widely and not be tied
to exclusivity to compete with pricing and distribution.
4.
Author Direct
Sales Can Become an Income Generator. Three years ago I predicted this was going to be a game
changer, when digital delivery and secure sales came on the scene with Gumroad
and Square, among others. However, I failed to recognize the need for strong
customer support across multiple e-reading platforms. In November 2017, BookFunnel
announced integration with direct sales options for authors. This means you can
sell ebooks direct (making more money for you on a per book basis) and have
BookFunnel deliver and support your users on the download process. BookFunnel
has an excellent reputation in customer support and has become known and used
around the world by millions of readers for the deliver of free books.
BookFunnel has now integrated with major systems like Payhip, Selz and PayPal
through WooCommerce (a WordPress based ecommerce system). They will continue to
find new integrations as their customer feedback suggests. I’m sure that other
companies will also enter this market when they see more bestselling indie
authors embracing it. This solves one major problem in the direct sales market
and that makes it a viable option once more.
5.
BlockChain is
the major content distribution disruptor on the horizon. There is a lot of buzz about
this but it is hard for most people to get their head around. How it works in
the backend is very complex. In a nutshell it allows creators (authors,
musicians, film and video creators) the ability to distribute and sell or
license their intellectual property in a decentralized way that keeps costs
down and transactions transparent. Let’s parse that explanation a little bit.
Currently all vendors, from Amazon to Google and social media platforms like
YouTube, Facebook, Medium are all centralized platforms. This means that a single corporate entity
controls all the data, all the transactions, the display and/or purchase of
content. In short, they make all the rules and charge the creators whatever
amount they believe the market will bear to provide these platforms (e.g.,
30-60% of sales). Both the consumer and the creator (authors) have no choice
but to follow those rules in order to be a part of a wider market. More important,
centralized systems can, and do, make arbitrary and unilateral decisions. We’ve
seen this happen on all these platforms: Amazon suddenly removes all reviews or
shuts down an author account without letting you know in advance. YouTube
suddenly decides no one can advertise on the platform unless they have at least
10K followers. Kobo removes all romance titles in fear of the influx of
pornography to their partner stores. Sometimes
the unilateral negative impact is eventually corrected. Often times it is not.
In all cases there is no warning and even when corrected has had a lasting
negative impact on sales and reputation.
In contrast, a blockchain content distribution system is decentralized. That
means it is not controlled by one companies server AND it is not owned by any
one entity. Instead it is spread across multiple individual servers and users
(think peer-to-peer but in a controlled and accountable way). The blockchain
distribution platform preserves an unchangeable
record of all actions.
That record creates an environment of total transparency for both content
creators (authors) and media/digital consumers (readers, listeners). It also
ensures that all views, comments and ratings reflect the REAL interactions with
the content. With nothing deleted, or the inability of people to inflate
ratings without everyone knowing they did so by using a click farm, it leaves
no room for trolls or bad players to thrive because their past bad behavior is
in the open and can’t be erased.
With blockchain-based content distribution, authors can be paid within seconds
of a consumer paying for a download. Consumers would also know their purchase
was directly supporting the content creators they enjoy. Authors who consistently
deliver good quality content, that people are willing to pay for, win big in
this scenario. Consumers (readers) equally deserve the ability to directly
support the authors they enjoy. Yes, there are a still a lot of questions about
exactly how this works, and the details of security are still being tested.
However, my prediction is that this will be the major disruption to the status
quo of centralized control of content for decades to come.
How to keep up? Pay attention to the new kids. Those who first stepped into
the digital indie book movement in 2010-2011 tended to be people over the age
of 40—people brought up in the traditional publishing paradigms. But the
“rules” of indie publishing are closely tied to digital technology foundations,
and those change every 6-9 months. This Internet and app savvy generation sees
the world differently. They have unleashed new automations that are
simultaneously personalized and able to manage thousands of fans. They have
moved the focus from solely being about words to also being about images and
videos. This new app-based, multimedia communication paradigm IS increasing
engagement—not only within their young demographic, but also up the line to
their parents and grandparents.
Maggie
Lynch is the
author of 20+ published books, as well as numerous short stories and
non-fiction articles. Her fiction tells stories of men and women
making heroic choices one messy moment at a time. Maggie is also the founder of
Windtree Press, an independent publishing cooperative with over 200 titles
among 20 authors.
Maggie
and her musician husband live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and are the
slaves of two demanding cats. In 2013, after careers in counseling, the
software industry, academia, and worldwide educational consulting, Maggie chose
to devote her time to her career as a full time author. Her fiction spans
romance, suspense, fantasy and science fiction titles. Her non-fiction focuses
on guiding authors to success in planning, distributing, and marketing their
completed work.
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