How Amazon’s Disruption of Book Publishing Is Changing the Books We Read

ePublishing is increasing the diversity and timeliness of the books we read.

For decades, authors self-published books when they couldn’t convince a “real publisher” to do it. Like so many other areas disrupted by technology, today self-publishing is not only changing how we buy and sell our books, it’s changing the diversity and timeliness of the books we read.

Three factors are at work here. First, the internet has trained us to expect content that’s timely, diverse and immediately accessible. Books are no exception. Amazon’s initial business model was based on selling books online. Today, they dominate that market, and a lot more. But selling books is only one step in the process. Those books have to be published before they can be sold. For decades, the route to publishing through a traditional publisher has been anything but quick and easy—especially for new authors. The typical route includes finding an agent and convincing her to take you on as a client. Then the agent works to find a publisher who will consider your book. Assuming that works, you then enter the publisher’s multi-level editorial process which eventually results in printing and release of your work some months later. Many larger publishers only release books on established release schedules across the year, which further stretches out your time to market. How long does all that take once you have your manuscript? If you’re starting without an agent, easily a year or more. Even with an agent, the answer could be the same. Exceptions do exist, primarily for highly topical nonfiction books by the best authors, but it’s hard to beat six months of editorial and production time alone.

Second, traditional publishing companies are getting hammered by the internet. They can’t afford to market like they used to do. They also can’t afford to spend time and money (including advances on royalties) with authors who are anything other than guaranteed to sell books at the volume levels these publishers need to be profitable. As a result, the larger publishers are increasingly focusing on big name authors, politicians and celebrities, preferably with books that are sequels or part of a series. They’re doing this to reduce marketing costs and risk, both of which have become even more important in a world that expects content to be free or at least a bargain. These economic realities have reduced the diversity of published voices available in the marketplace. They’ve also made it even more impractical for the big publishers to produce timely, topical books that have a short shelf life.

Third, advances in book publishing have made it possible for authors to use disruptive online “ePublishing” tools to create, publish and distribute their books quickly and (relatively) easily. Many of these tools enable an author to take a book from manuscript to online distribution of both eBooks and printed books in a matter of weeks. With or without help from third party service providers, authors can use these tools to format a manuscript and book cover into production ready pages, set prices, approve distribution and sale and deploy digital ads for the finished product. These tools disrupt economics as well as production and disruption. There are no royalty advances. Authors do most of the promotion. Some tools offer only eBooks. Others offer paperback books as well, or even hardcovers. Print books can be published and shipped on demand, even one order at a time for online orders, without an option for retailers to return unsold copies. Yet, they’re still price competitive.

Because of Amazon’s power in online book sales and the success of its Kindle eBook readers and apps, its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service is one of the best known ePublishing tools. But other tools are also out there (check out Lulu.com, AuthorHouse and Xlibris among others), some even offered by established publishers. Authors can use one distribution partner (such as KDP) for eBooks and another (such as IngramSpark) for primary or secondary distribution of print books.

How does all this affect the books we read? A lot depends on where we get the book.

The heavily promoted books we see at large bookstores and major retailers are increasingly coming from a narrow range of well-known authors, politicians, sports figures and media celebrities who are published by major publishers. Author name recognition and salability are overtaking quality and diversity of content. Just as we’re seeing in our major motion pictures, sequels and series are becoming the game to play. (Just check the number of prominent fiction authors who keep reprising the same hero or heroine or make each new book part of some series.) The question is when we’ll tire of too much of the same thing from the same people. Much as I enjoy some of these authors, I’m already tired of it.

At the same time, ePublishing is enabling a far more diverse set of voices to publish and sell their books online. Faster times to market are also enabling more contemporary content and timely books that can be profitable with shorter life cycles and lower long-term production runs. Current topics that used to be relegated to articles can now be built into full-blown novels that carry much higher interest and impact. Fiction and nonfiction books about politics and technology are among the beneficiaries here. The question is whether these interesting and important books can find their way into our remaining book shops and retail stores.

When the time came to publish Intentional Consequences, the choice was clear. Only ePublishing could get this provocative contemporary novel about political cyber conspiracy out in time for the 2020 election. The book is set in the early days of the 2020 presidential election cycle, in a world of fake news, geopolitical hacking, privacy issues, social media manipulation and a loss of trust in our traditional socio-political institutions. Beyond politics, the book involves real-world technologies like artificial intelligence, facial recognition, drones, deepfakes and other altered images and cyber security. The time frame for the plot begins on March 9, 2019 and runs through most of June 2019. Produced via KDP, the book was released for eBook and paperback sales on Amazon this month (August 2019). ePublishing allowed it to happen.