Bob, I’ve attended ThrillerFest. Last year, to be specific. Everything you say in this article is true, even more so than last year. ThrillerFest is the thermometer for traditional publishing (Trad Pubs).

As an (Amazon) bestselling author of technothriller espionage novels (DS Kane’s Spies Lie series: Bloodridge, DeathByte, Swiftshadow, GrayNet, Baksheesh (Bribes), and ProxyWar, so far, with more coming), I believe that every author must run their career as a business, and that the most important battle is always the one in front of you. The “curve” is always a tech curve, and tech governs the speed of all change except demographic change, which is the echo following the tech curve. The Trad Pubs aren’t even following the demographic curve. As a result, as Barry Eisler has told us, authors must think like technologists. I spent over thirty years as a tech developer and implementor.

Learning to think ahead, and anticipate the changes coming over the next five years is not only good business practice, but in my case, forms the plot and theme of every novel I write.