Earlier this year, in a piece for the Guardian about self-publishing, I wrote the following,

the next Hilary Mantel or Ian McEwan will not self-publish, because the hardcore of fans necessary to make this approach work doesn’t exist for literary fiction (it’s too baggy a term to attract fans in that sense).

It’s a statement I still stand by, for now, but it’s one that will eventually be proven wrong thanks to a series of new strategies, spearheaded by Amazon, that are set to transform the way we see self-publishing.

One of the biggest challenges for any publishing house is how it recruits the best authors. In part, they can do this with large advances and great marketing plan and agents have certainly taken advantage of this over the years. But traditional house can also rely on the deep reserves of cultural capital that they hold and, sometimes it can make all the difference. This is, in part, a due to the way we fetishize books but it’s also simply the way that new authors think. They don’t just dream of success, they dream about their physical book, about its cover and its blurb and about how it will feel in their hands. Sometimes, part of this involves the logo of a distinguished publisher attached to it and they look at their literary heroes for inspiration and guidance. Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding went to auction in New York and he is reported to have turned down the largest advance in favour of less money but the opportunity to work with David Foster Wallace’s former editor (Wallace being one of Chad Harbach’s literary idols). In other words the cultural capital of that editor and that publishing house proved as valuable and as influential as the cash capital he was being offered and it altered the decision he made.

Lack of cultural capital is something that every independent publisher has to deal with. They can struggle to attract the most prestigious authors when they are just starting out and, instead, tend to focus on new talent so that they can grow their reserves of cultural capital over a long time. It is a hard thing to come by but, once won, it’s also difficult to lose. Look at a publisher like Canongate which, though small, punches above its weight when it comes to first rate literary authors. Its cultural capital is hard won but now exists to such an extent that they can fight for books and win against much larger, more cash rich, publishing houses.

Right now self-publishing platforms like Kindle Direct lack significant reserves of cultural capital. What currently draw authors in then is ease of use and the opportunity to make money quickly (even though a few outliers have masked how low returns are for the majority). They are certainly not drawn to self-publish because their literary heroes have done so and, if anything, this lack of cultural capital is prohibiting authors who write in certain genres and authors who have significant talent choosing to self publish.

But, much as Apple’s app store created a new market for programmers, the self-publishing industry is creating a marketplace for author services. Though some of these services have a reputation for disreputable behaviour, many others do not. It will not be long before the services provided by publishers will be available on a freelance basis, in fact many editors and publicists already operate like this now. An established author has the option to pay to acquire the services they need to publish a book. Will it be long before some writers offer a royalty in exchange for services, inverting the current model and creating, in effect, a micro-publishing operation that distributes digitally, where publishing talent clusters around a book briefly before dispersing? But, for this to work, established authors will have need to feel that there is no stigma attached to self-publishing and that they can sit alongside the authors that they admire and respect.

This is where recent strategies from Amazon and others come into play. If showing that self-publishing could be viable and profitable was stage one of the direct publishing business model, then stage two involves growing the cultural capital. You can see that the focus is starting to shift with programmes like White Glove and Kindle Worlds.

If you’re not in the industry, you might not have heard of White Glove but it is making waves already. It is aimed at established authors, ones with agents and a back list, who may have success in one major territory but not in others. So, if you are published in the UK but have not found a deal in the US, you can use White Glove to publish digitally, making work available to American readers. Importantly this is done through KDP but is open to the same promotional opportunities as traditionally published books. Curtis Brown have signed up, publishing as Curtis Brown Creative, so that books by authors like Emily Barr are now available in America. What this does is to drawn in wealth of authors that are rich in cultural capital and place them squarely into the Kindle Direct Publishing environment. And as more agencies sign up to this programme, more authors are available through KDP and the platform acquires more cultural capital.

A second strand to this strategy involves the launch of Kindle Worlds, a fan fiction platform that generates legitimate revenues for both the authors and the copyright owners. As Eoin Purcell points out on his blog, this is more than just a way to draw in users, it’s a way to legitimately develop revenue for all parties too. In addition it is also a great way to bring establish writers into the kindle direct publishing environment. In some cases, these authors will be both providers of the original source content but, in others, they will be contributing fan fiction too. In the past the chance to play with superheroes and tv characters that are under copyright has been the preserve of screenwriters and games writers but the legitimisation of the process, albeit for a select few worlds at the moment, is sure to bring in writers of all stripes. I imagine that soon, if not already, Amazon will be courting established authors and trying to get them to contribute to Kindle Worlds.

Both these KDP environments are in their infancy but they illustrate neatly this new strategy, one that brings in established authors and sits them alongside new writers. The presence of established writers on these platforms will do three things. It will bring legitimate cultural capital and, at the same time, it will inspire other writers, both new and established, to set aside their misgivings and self-publish. But more importantly still, the presence of familiar writers will draw in readers, ones who may also have to refigure their view of self-publishing and set aside their prejudice. In other words, it is the key to future growth. Developing cultural capital drives content development and quality (more, better writers are attracted to the platform), which drives reader acquisition (the better the writers the more readers) which then drives even more content development (from writers attracted to the increased legitimacy and the increased readership). Its a very clever, long term strategy. And where Amazon leads, Apple, Kobo and others will follow.

For smaller players like Kobo the opportunities are really big. Kobo is generally viewed in a more positive light than Amazon, largely because they aren’t Amazon, and so their self-publishing programme, Kobo Writing Life, could attract quality writers who are reluctant to be associated with Amazon. Especially if they provide services that Amazon do not like data sharing.

It should be admitted that some of this is quite speculative but, to me at least, the strategy is evident and, though it is just beginning, it seems likely that it will continue to evolve and develop. Amazon, Kobo and Apple have all shown that they are in the book publishing business for the long term and that is important given that cultural capital will take time to build and acquire. But, time scale aside, if self-publishing platforms do grow in the way I have outlined, successfully drawing in new writers and new readers, then the revolution that KDP and its imitators initiated is clearly just beginning. We have to ask ourselves then if it is so hard to image that one day a prestigious prize like the Booker will be won by a self-published author?