Publishing in 2020 and Beyond
Why Now Is Better Time To Be In Publishing Than Ever
Do you want to find out what will Publishing look like in 2015 — 2020? Do you think it will be dead or is it prospering forward?! Let me paint for you a picture of publishing future…
(if you miss definition of publishing — check “What is Publishing Anyway”)
Let’s see channels one by one:
News publishing is disrupted by real-time social and twitter feeds, streaming video and amateur reporting. As streaming video becomes more advanced it is over taking news coupled with automatic (maybe — twitter based) captions. What do news publishers do in such a world? They are jumping the ship and re-focusing or specialise. Majority of news is reviewed and sorted by machine learning technologies which then deliver relevant news to us based on our location, interests, historical reading habits and friends feeds. All in digital format. I don’t see any paper based newspapers in the future. News are and will be even more about interactivity, video and visuals. There might be specific areas of news industry — like financial news; which will survive in next 10 years by focusing on special knowledge based commentaries over dry opinion-less news content.
Book publishing has passed the first stage of turning into a self-help business. Basically it is DYI for authors. Publishers as brands are disappearing. Authors are becoming brands themselves. In parallel comes trend where we don’t expect books to be only text any more. We want books to have audio version so we can “read/listen” in our cars or in the gym and continue traditional reading relaxed next to a fire-place where I left off with audio (think Amazon’s Whispersync). I also expect my book to have interactive visuals, maybe short video demos or talks and “movie like trailers” to get me deep into the story and prepare the field for future movies, gaming and other interactive experiences. Measuring time spent by readers on these extras will help authors to recognise trends and prepare possible successful follow-ups.
Also there is no reason for books to have only static/historical content dating from their publishing date? If something important and relevant happened between then and now why not add chapter at the end or change a effected paragraph. The author most probably wrote or talked about it anyway on his blog or on some newspaper or magazine site. Shouldn’t updates naturally be included in a modern book? After all it’s one reason why we might go “digital” faster without discounting prices.
There are still books being printed, now only on-demand and only those which represent beautiful collectible objects of high quality visuals (e.g. photography or design books). It is prohibited to print ordinary books (think text only) because it’s not “green”.
Magazine publishing is on the fore front of technology possibilities, with wide readership and consumption testing options. Magazines are and were in the best position to transform into new medium. There is no direct replacement for long form journalism which we find in good magazines. Be it cultural, economical, entertaining, or just interest based. Many magazines made wrong assumptions that they just have to migrate their readers online or to digital editions. This was never the goal. At least not if you want to come out on top as Publisher in the years to come.
Magazine publishing is not about monthly content anymore — this was logistical history which was not supported by our reading habits. Now you can receive your magazine in any frequency you choose. It is not about text and pictures any more (just as books’ content above). Magazine publishing is about one thing only — it is about interactive experience with/in your community. It is about content being delivered via different means of text/audio/video/pictures and ideally personalised just for you. Some magazines personalise whole experience, others only a sequence of how the content is presented to reader. All magazines have large communities built around them and they are working on engaging readers from the moment they wake-up till the moment they go to sleep and turn-off their devices.
It’s no accident the majority of interesting publishing start-ups are in magazine publishing field. Those focused on only onto flipping a print magazine into flat digital format (PDF like transformation) with some links did injustice to digital magazine idea and are dead. The toughest part for new magazines was to explain to readers that all the content mentioned above is great but it’s not cheaper or easier to make than paper magazine. It’s more complex, more engaging and more social, therefore must more expensive in digital than in print and therefore magazines are more expensive than they used to be and even more expensive than books.
Music and movies all in serious turmoil because of change in consumption habits and delivery channels overlaps. Given what we saw above, it’s clear that everyone in publishing had to master video/audio delivery. Movie & music business got much closer to books and magazines publishing. Books & Magazines are testing waters of interest at the early stages of each story and topic for movie studios. If all signals from Books&Magazines look good, only then movie makers take promising ideas into high tech, high budget, special effects 4-6D movie production machinery.
Music business as it seems is heading in the same direction as books, towards a kind of DYI for musicians coupled with several favourited music discovery platforms.
Online publishing options are limitless. Successful individuals and companies understood early that if they want to succeed they need to naturally move themselves towards occupying majority of eye & ear share of their readers and fans. Therefore they are using all possible formats to reach their readers — from podcasts, blogs, magazines to branded YouTube or Instagram channels. They’ve stolen many readers and fans from old-school publishers who were too slow and with help of reading apps like Flipboard created their own channels which acquired prominent place in peoples reading / content consumption habits. Many people still mistake online publishing for digital magazines or even digital books.
I certainly hope the above does not apply to 2020 but rather 2015. Be sure that all trends mentioned above are already here. Maybe not visibly, not as mainstream, you may not feel them in your own company yet, but technology allows for much more than what was mentioned and only we (as content consumers) are slowing it down.
We are all (in publishing) in the same situation now. Like surfers riding early stage wave, we can’t say what exactly the wave will look like in a minute or two but we can estimate where it’s going and we can ride it well and be ready for the most likely outcome(s). That’s what everyone involved in publishing should do. Ride the wave!
The New York Times Snow Fall project is great example of how stories should be told these days be it online or in digital magazine package.
Do you see the future above coming into your business?
Thank you for all your comments and recommendations.
(tweet me @pp2tech)
If you want more on publishing, check out What is Publishing Anyway?
