# Predictions + Strategies for 2013



## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Let's share our wild ideas!

*HOT for 2013:*

Spaghetti publishing! Toss up the first book in a potential series. See if there's traction before you write the second book.

Short form! Novellas and Novelettes and even Short Stories. The Select program favors a prolific author with a high volume of units.

Sex. In everything.

So-called "reluctant readers" suddenly reading; top 100 books with revolting grammar and editing because they just don't care, so long as the story's appealing. (Don't underestimate the enormity  enormousness of this trend. These are new readers of all ages who were not reading books until now--now that they've discovered material, much of it self-pubbed, that appeals to them.)

*NOT for 2013:*

I think Serials are on the way out. They'll be seen as legitimate in 2013, and people will know what they are, and they'll have an audience, but they won't be taking over publishing.

Out: keeping your head down and plugging away. Indie authors should be careful about how they spend their hours, and put an emphasis on craft and production, but working away in the dark isn't good for this business. And it is a business. You can't expect to run a successful retail store or restaurant by keeping your head down and ignoring what the competition is doing.

Out: distributors who aren't Smashwords*. *IF SW picks up their game and stops complaining about mean Amazon and gets their house in order.

(Add your own!)


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

So I'm sitting here, pondering if Dalya is being sarcastic...


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Quiss said:


> So I'm sitting here, pondering if Dalya is being sarcastic...


I thought she was serious until I got to the last one. 

Smashwords?


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## Lia Sebastian (Nov 24, 2012)

I'm hoping you're right about novellas, as that is what I usually write.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Agreeing with the novella and/or short story as loss leader. 

Also agree that we'll see more shorter novels thrown out as feelers before authors commit to writing the series. Question is what criteria will they use to evaluate their commitment?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Brian Spangler said:


> Also agree that we'll see more shorter novels thrown out as feelers before authors commit to writing the series. Question is what criteria will they use to evaluate their commitment?


Well, that happened with mine. I put out Only Human as a stand alone space opera. Almost all of the positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads have asked for a sequel. That's a pretty good indication that there is some interest.
I ended up creating a shorter prequel (Catalyst) to keep things going until the sequel is done.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> I thought she was serious until I got to the last one.
> 
> Smashwords?


To be fair, the odds of SW getting their act together are about on par with that of my winning the lottery, so...

I predict an increase in utterly unoriginal, just-like-everybody-else covers and painfully formulaic book blurbs on both new and backlist titles as writers struggle to identify why their books aren't selling and refuse to accept that there's no easy answer.

I predict approximately one new thread a week here about why DWS is god, why DWS is completely out of touch with and irrelevant to the masses, why DWS is the most exciting self-publishing visionary since that one guy who sold a million books by paying for bogus reviews, and why DWS is a bald-faced hypocrite.

I predict that within a few months, serials really are going to be "so 2012".

I predict that Smashwords drops at least two of their current distribution platforms, and announces at least one new one distribution agreement that never actually comes to fruition.

I predict that there will be no new 50SOG-level epic bestsellers during 2013 that _aren't_ connected to a movie or TV show, _a la_ Hunger Games.

I predict approximately one new thread a week here asking if Amazon's rankings and/or sales reporting are broken.

I predict approximately one new thread a week using some random person's hysterical, probably several-months-old blog as evidence that the sky is falling and/or Amazon are ruthless monsters out to crush indie writers.

I predict the return of David Dalgrish and Debora Geary as regular KBWC posters.


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## CarlG (Sep 16, 2012)

Agree with Spaghetti Publishing. Get stuff up on the wall. We've got to use our noodle, though, and be sure it's not half-cooked, as that's not as likely to stick.

Disagree on the competition thing. I don't see other authors as competition. Nor do I see writing as foremost a business. I see it as an author's lovefest with his readers. Whatever promotes a lovefest is what's going to pay in the long run.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

I disagree about novellas.

I agree serials are going out of vogue.

The new adult erotic titles will continue to increase in popularity in the first six months of the year, and get more taboo. Watch out for the sexy, rich stepfather breakout hit from another former writer of YA PNR, or Abbi Glines, or someone like that. Ménage will also be really big in 2013. I'm also seeing increasingly dark, non-sexual subject matter being addressed in these books, especially suicide; we'll probably see one oriented around something like a school shooting soon.

There will also be a backlash response to the increasingly naughty NA fiction. Probably an upsurge in religious/inspirational/sweet romances.

I think paranormal will become less and less popular.

Not sure where trends will go after that, but this NA contemp thing is going to "mature" in 2013, and something new will rise.

Amazon's imprints will focus on acquiring formerly tradpubbed authors and fewer indies.

Apple will make it easier for authors to distribute directly next holiday season, and that will be the nail in Smashwords' coffin.


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## Danielle Kazemi (Apr 2, 2011)

I see multiple free site for current WIP for authors to put up their books (does that even make sense? Bah, throw some examples out - they'll understand.) For example: using Wattpad, Goodreads, even fanfiction sites to put up free books from authors to help "test" the waters. I predict at least three or four "big" deals coming from those. Perhaps one has to do with zombie love. Maybe.

Myspace will becoming the IT place for attracting readers. No idea why. My crystal ball is even shrugging with me.

At least five KBers will get some sort of fantastic, awesome, off the wall contract.

Pre-teens are going to become a hot market. Once again, my crystal ball is shrugging, not sure why that's going to happen.

Doing a KB ad will become even better than doing a POI, ENT, and KND all rolled into one.

Egyptians are going to make a come back. Or Norse. Choose. Either is a good bet.

Crap will ease up on the book market because people are getting lazy as something else becomes the new get-rich-quick thing. Real authors rejoice. Partying in Times Square except of course we won't be there because we're all hermits.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

I don't know if it _will_ happen, but there's a real demand for useful advertising in stores beyond Amazon. People should get on that already.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Oh, I was totes serious about everything. I think the only thing causing SW to get on the ball with epubs is the competitors champing at their heels. Look how many threads we've had recently. And I like the new guys (one of them posts on here, hi!!) and I'm happy to see them take the wheel if SW doesn't, but if SW gets their head out of their chowderbucket, everyone else is toast.



Quiss said:


> ... Almost all of the positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads have asked for a sequel. That's a pretty good indication that there is some interest....


Most positive reviews will hint at desire for a sequel. Nobody ever says, "That was great! Don't write more!" I've had sequel requests for my least popular books. Doesn't mean it's a good business plan to write them. 



George Berger said:


> ...I predict an increase in utterly unoriginal, just-like-everybody-else covers and painfully formulaic book blurbs on both new and backlist titles as writers struggle to identify why their books aren't selling and refuse to accept that there's no easy answer. ...


Yeah, but that's nothing new, just a continuation of the existing situation.



CarlG said:


> Agree with Spaghetti Publishing. Get stuff up on the wall. We've got to use our noodle, though, and be sure it's not half-cooked, as that's not as likely to stick.
> 
> Disagree on the competition thing. I don't see other authors as competition. Nor do I see writing as foremost a business. I see it as an author's lovefest with his readers. Whatever promotes a lovefest is what's going to pay in the long run.


I've never said you can't LOVE your business and be passionate and enthusiastic about everything you do. Passion and business are not mutually exclusive.



smreine said:


> ...The new adult erotic titles will continue to increase in popularity in the first six months of the year, and get more taboo. Watch out for the sexy, rich stepfather breakout hit from another former writer of YA PNR, or Abbi Glines, or someone like that. Ménage will also be really big in 2013. I'm also seeing increasingly dark, non-sexual subject matter being addressed in these books, especially suicide; we'll probably see one oriented around something like a school shooting soon. ...


That stepfather thing is a terrible, nasty, horrible idea that won't make any money at all. Everybody back away from my new series idea. MINE. (eta: JOKE! EW! JOKE!)



Danielle Kazemi said:


> ...At least five KBers will get some sort of fantastic, awesome, off the wall contract.
> ...
> Pre-teens are going to become a hot market. Once again, my crystal ball is shrugging, not sure why that's going to happen.
> ....


Yes, of course! Plucked from our slushpile of awesome!

Pre-teens - yes. Only they'll also be the ones writing it, and we'll be the "olds" scratching our heads.

The biggest change of self-publishing is we are bypassing the gatekeepers and their taste. No more (of that particular demographic with their didactic motivations and high-minded world-view) filtering what the world reads.

GIRD YOUR LOINS, AUTHORS.

















The trends of television have foretold the trends of publishing. We have high-brow, we have low-brow, we have little in between.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Most positive reviews will hint at desire for a sequel. Nobody ever says, "That was great! Don't write more!" I've had sequel requests for my least popular books. Doesn't mean it's a good business plan to write them.


Oh, thanks. Take the wind out of my sail...


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

I'll jump in to disagree about serials. Yes, they'll fade as a fad, but I think that episodic writing (as opposed to "novels in a series") is going to find a good-sized niche in the ebook universe.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I don't know if it _will_ happen, but there's a real demand for useful advertising in stores beyond Amazon. People should get on that already.


I think the reason there isn't a mega book blog for Nook already is because the affiliate link money is so much easier to get from Amazon. The B&N audience is also very heavy in mostly the romance and erotica categories, and a lot less in every other category.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

I predict that in 2013 I'll be just as confused and deer-in-the-headlights as I was in 2012, but probably worse since I think I know what to do. "If I stand completely still the car will avoid me! There was a thread about it last week!"

I reckon 2013 will be a good year for YA/Midgrade.

I think this is also the year Smashwords either makes its move or begins to die. Apple is a HUGE, largely untapped market and if they decided to really, really put their weight behind their books (such as releasing an iBook client for Windows/Android/etc, making it easy to upload things with a KDP like interface, and maybe even Apple's equivalent or Select) Amazon might find themselves very quickly in a lot of hot water come 2014.

Smut will sell, smut will always sell, but I wish I could write it worth a damn. 

I had a very successful December (by my meagre standards) due entirely to Select, but I expect Select will begin to be less relevant this year, especially for smaller genres like Sci-Fi, unless Amazon seriously raises their game.

I expect to write a lot more in terms of volume and a lot better in terms of quality, and I expect to do a lot better financially in this year. I expect I'll have to change a lot of what I do by the end of the year, but I'm happy to do that.

Despite the above, writing quality across the board will continue to drop, and the rest of us will look on with despair as poorly written stories with grimace inducing plots and style, and just overall badness, continue to do well. Like I said, I expect to do well this year.

I expect to make more money from Rakshasa than Lacuna in 2013. I expect near the end of the year I'll probably start another series that will hopefully be better.

I reckon we're going to have a lot more KB'ers to cheer onwards this year though, and I think we're an awesome group of people who will all find some measure of success in 2013.


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## Danielle Kazemi (Apr 2, 2011)

Dalya said:


> GIRD YOUR LOINS, AUTHORS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Dibs on the low brow. I totally think the world is ready for Honey Boo Boo versus the undead. She'll be bigger than Dresden! Instead of a fedora, she'll roam the cities with her princess crown, tossing it like Xena's chakram. This is the multi-billion dollar idea!


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

jnfr said:


> I'll jump in to disagree about serials. Yes, they'll fade as a fad, but I think that episodic writing (as opposed to "novels in a series") is going to find a good-sized niche in the ebook universe.


What resonates with readers: a complete story, of any size. It need not end on a cliffhanger for them to demand more. I base this on my observation that people demand to get more after my stand-alones than they do after the things I plan as series. They want to be satisfied and later re-experience more of the same joy, as opposed to reading part of a story ... except for those people who enjoy the sweet torture of part of a story. (Serialization is not a trend, but a niche.)



Danielle Kazemi said:


> Dibs on the low brow. I totally think the world is ready for Honey Boo Boo versus the undead. She'll be bigger than Dresden! Instead of a fedora, she'll roam the cities with her princess crown, tossing it like Xena's chakram. This is the multi-billion dollar idea!


But! But! It cannot be mocking them and their tastes. That's wrong and they'll sniff out the cynicism. It must be earnest. (I recognize you're being tongue-in-cheek, but I wanted to make that point regardless.)


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## Danielle Kazemi (Apr 2, 2011)

Dalya said:


> But! But! It cannot be mocking them and their tastes. That's wrong and they'll sniff out the cynicism. It must be earnest. (I recognize you're being tongue-in-cheek, but I wanted to make that point regardless.)


I'll make it earnest. I'm all about that. Think of it as some Miss Congeniality tossed in there too. She wins pageants during the day but at night, she fights against the forces of evil.

You know, I probably need to watch the show before I start getting carried away. All I've ever seen is her and her family playing in the mud. Or was she slaying a mud man? Dun dunnn dunnnnn!


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

David Adams said:


> ...writing quality across the board will continue to drop, and the rest of us will look on with despair as poorly written stories with grimace inducing plots and style, and just overall badness, continue to do well. Like I said, I expect to do well this year.


Likewise.  Everyone else is all "damn, I missed out on the golden age of self-publishing, boo hoo", but, bah, those of us poised to take advantage of the golden age of grimace-inducing crap have the world right where we want it, bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...


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## Danielle Kazemi (Apr 2, 2011)

jljarvis said:


> I predict that the new Common Core Learning Standards in U.S. education, with their push for nonfiction reading, will produce a generation unaware that reading or imagining can be enjoyable. As school libraries stock fewer and fewer fiction books, children and youths will sneak off to read books on their phones and ereaders. And this will be good.
> 
> Either that, or creativity as we know it will die.


Ooo, contraband imagination. I like this idea. Very nice.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

amishromanceauthor said:


> I think the reason there isn't a mega book blog for Nook already is because the affiliate link money is so much easier to get from Amazon. The B&N audience is also very heavy in mostly the romance and erotica categories, and a lot less in every other category.


The affiliate stuff, definitely. The other stuff I'm less sure about. I think there are a lot of BN readers in all categories. If indies do particularly well there in romance and erotica, I bet that's because romance and erotica readers are especially devoted to seeking out new titles. I think the readership is there, but there are very few ways to reach them. Far fewer than we have for Amazon.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

David Adams said:


> Despite the above, writing quality across the board will continue to drop, and the rest of us will look on with despair as poorly written stories with grimace inducing plots and style, and just overall badness, continue to do well. Like I said, I expect to do well this year.


I disagree. Books that succeed do well for a reason, and bad writing is subjective.



Dalya said:


> That stepfather thing is a terrible, nasty, horrible idea that won't make any money at all. Everybody back away from my new series idea. MINE.


It's all yours. I'm not touching sexy rich stepdaddy sexily saves wet rag stepdaughter from school shooting via BDSM with a ten foot pole. I prefer not to make tons of money, too intimidating.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Everyone will be sick of naughty books and will start buying fantasy and science fiction, which will make me a multi-millionaire.

Everything else, leave it to Kobo.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> The affiliate stuff, definitely. The other stuff I'm less sure about. I think there are a lot of BN readers in all categories. If indies do particularly well there in romance and erotica, I bet that's because romance and erotica readers are especially devoted to seeking out new titles. I think the readership is there, but there are very few ways to reach them. Far fewer than we have for Amazon.


Edward, I'm a Barnes & Noble affiliate and the associate I talked with said that I'll not receive any commissions from e-books. However, I still link them because there's a high possibility that a user might still wander on and buy an additional something that's NOT an e-book. 

Ditto on your point that the readership is there, but it's hard to reach them. Why? Because there WAS a point that you could reach them, but ever since the misbehaviour of a few others, steps have been taken to restrain authors from readers. Go on any reader-centric forum, what is the common denominator? 'NO BOOK PROMOTIONS HERE! AUTHORS, WE HAVE ASSIGNED X SPOT FOR YOU, GO THERE AND STAY THERE!' It's sad that they had to resort to this, really.

How to reach readers? Communicate. Be there. Be social. AND READ AND REVIEW, TOO. I belong to a reading community, and we write as well. How do we get folks to read our pieces? We've got to read other folks' pieces too. I also think that people should do away with this 'don't respond to reviews' mentality. That's old and annoying. If I read your book and took the time to review it (and glowingly to boot), what's so hard in saying thanks? It shows that you are present and approachable and a pretty cool person. Bad (and/or unnecessarily rude) reviews? Tell them thanks, too, because they still took the time to read your book.

My predictions for 2013:

I do not believe episodic books will be 'Soooo 2012.' This is a great model, especially for authors. I think that if each episode is priced cheaper and is made shorter (come on, I love my 30 minute shows, too!), authors may see a greater benefit.

There will be an even greater swell of crap books. Because of this, there will be a rise of 'gatekeepers' or folks who decide to take the onus upon their shoulders to sift through them and find the gems.

If Smashwords does not produce some significant and visual change both to its authors and readers, they may begin to fall in importance, but I hardly believe they'll tank completely.

Other publishing companies will rise, but instead of taking everyone, they'll be genre specific / maintain quality control.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> The affiliate stuff, definitely. The other stuff I'm less sure about. I think there are a lot of BN readers in all categories. If indies do particularly well there in romance and erotica, I bet that's because romance and erotica readers are especially devoted to seeking out new titles. I think the readership is there, but there are very few ways to reach them. Far fewer than we have for Amazon.


It is pretty amazing how there is no mega book blog for Nook though. The problem (affiliate links aside) is that book blogs are a full time commitment. I tried to run a simple nook blog for a while and write at the same time and failed miserably.

I know there are some other genres that succeed on B&N, but the ones I hear about most just happen to be romance and erotica.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> Everyone will be sick of naughty books and will start buying fantasy and science fiction, which will make me a multi-millionaire.


Oh, if only...


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Dalya said:


>


^ I can't believe this. I remember seeing this child on YouTube and agreeing with a commenter (that's right, agreeing with a *YOUTUBE* commenter), and thinking, 'ohmigawd, i feel like my stupidity level has plunged to depths unfathomable after 30 seconds of this.'

And now it's a show. Wow.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Tracy Leach said:


> Edward, I'm a Barnes & Noble affiliate and the associate I talked with said that I'll not receive any commissions from e-books. However, I still link them because there's a high possibility that a user might still wander on and buy an additional something that's NOT an e-book.


That explains why there's no mega Nook blog. It's hard to stay afloat as a book blog if you have to rely on only paid sponsorships/author banner ads.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

amishromanceauthor said:


> That explains why there's no mega Nook blog. It's hard to stay afloat as a book blog if you have to rely on only paid sponsorships/author banner ads.


Yep, exactly. From our side of the aisle, that seems like an incredibly stupid move by BN. Dear heavens, if we incentivize others to advertise our products for us, we'd have to pay them a small percentage of the sales they generate! We'll be ruined!

But who knows. Maybe the numbers just don't add up.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

I predict:

More mergers between the big trad pubs.

More celebrities and big name authors trying their hand at self-publishing.

More companies setting out to rip off authors (either legally or illegally.)

More restrictive publishing contracts for the average author.

Better publishing contracts for the sort of author who inspires a bidding war.

Loads more people self-publishing.  (Most of whom will give up in disgust/despair within a year or two.)

A general reduction in sales for the average author due to the reduced visibility that results from more titles entering the market.

More respect for those who do succeed at self-publishing despite the odds (being viewed better by the industry as a whole, as well as the public.)

More fake review scandals and at least one more level of crack down.

Amazon introducing EFT for non-US authors (I think this might actually happen now that they are expanding into more countries, because that will encourage more authors to start publishing from those regions.)

ACX opening to non-US authors (because there's money they could be making there.)

The Kindleboards blog and Facebook page becoming more influential.

---

Someone should bookmark this thread so that we can bring it back at the end of 2013 and see how we did with our guesses.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Yep, exactly. From our side of the aisle, that seems like an incredibly stupid move by BN. Dear heavens, if we incentivize others to advertise our products for us, we'd have to pay them a small percentage of the sales they generate! We'll be ruined!
> 
> But who knows. Maybe the numbers just don't add up.


I get the feeling all of the time and focus at B&N headquarters is spent trying to figure out how to keep the brick and mortar stores from going under, leaving very little focus on the .com arena.

From the book blogger perspective, I don't even know of a medium sized nook centric blog.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

I predict writers will be drinking more and writing less, as writers are supposed to do. A return to tradition, as it were.

I don't have predictions but I know what I am going to do in 2013. Well, at least some of it. The rest I will make up as I go along, just as I always have.

Primarily, I think there will be 100,000 free books every day by the end of 2013. And I think the largest growth is in the non-US markets by an order of magnitude. There are markets that Amazon can't reach and beat into submission with freebies. There are markets where the iPad is the most common device (not that I have much faith in Apple.) There are distributors like Xinxii that could eat Smashwords' lunch in a heartbeat if they stay on the ball. There is a company called Kobo that doesn't have to worry about ANYTHING else except selling ebooks anbd devices (they may well be the only one to have such a singular focus).

I think ad-sponsored books are going to be a real thing and that Amazon will be the biggest player--they already have a huge, huge pool, and they can sell cross-media ad packages. 

Publishers? Don't really care but the midlist is dead and the only thing they will publish are blockbusters and failed blockbusters (except for the endless backlist they own in ebook they will rake tremendous per-unit profit on. It's possible they will sign more flailing authors to ebook-only deals, but the easier money is in the Author Solutions-type "publishing assistance" where they can make thousands and be done with it instead of plucking nickels from the stream. Publishers will also open their own ebook stores but the only real value they will have is curating--they will never be able to pull their books from Amazon and make it.

I think if even half the people who ask me how to self-publish actually release books, Amazon will melt faster than the Arctic Circle.

I think... I think I'll be drinking more and writing less.


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## Kwalker (Aug 23, 2012)

Select rules will change, shifting away from a focus on giving 5 free days, but I don't know what the new benefit will be.

Amazon will make a deal with a bookstore, or perhaps store(s) that will let it print its POD books in store. Maybe they will put the machines in walmarts, right next to the key machines, the analyze your foot dr scholls machines or in the electronics department. They might operate kind of like one-hour photo. While this may not be implemented in 2013, it will be announced.

A few more traditional pubbed big names will turn indie. Probably not James Patterson, but maybe G R R Martin? Wait, nm, he writes too slow. Anyway, I think we will see some big names making a shift to a hybrid approach. 

Speaking of hybrids, indie's will start selling rights to other indie's, letting their characters appear in other author's worlds.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

I predict Dayla Moon will be the best selling author of the highly acclaimed erotic romance titled: Prawns do it Better.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> I predict Dayla Moon will be the best selling author of the highly acclaimed erotic romance titled: Prawns do it Better.


This is eerily prescient.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Dang. I was going to do a vampire "bats do it in the air" kind of thingie.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Many more authors will engage in successful, positive, and productive dialogs with reviewers. Yes, they will respond to Amazon reviews using the comments feature.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Kwalker said:


> Speaking of hybrids, indie's will start selling rights to other indie's, letting their characters appear in other author's worlds.


I think you're onto something here. Not selling rights to characters, but more collaborations. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, David Dalglish and Debora Geary wrote a fluffy epic fantasy novel together? Or if Abbi Glines and Colleen Hoover put out a collaboration? The world would end. And by "the world would end," I mean, "They would make such ridiculous sums of money that I can't even fathom the number of zeroes there would be at the end of it."


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Tracy Leach said:


> There will be an even greater swell of crap books. Because of this, there will be a rise of 'gatekeepers' or folks who decide to take the onus upon their shoulders to sift through them and find the gems.


This
Readers who previously relied on the big publishers to sort through the slush pile will either continue to do so once they've been frightened by trying to find readable stuff or they will turn to these "gatekeepers".

Some are already emerging (unfortunately, to draw the crowds, places like POI keep peddling the freebies) and hopefully there will be more to come.
Unfortunately, as these places gain traction, they will be able to charge top dollar for advertising and it'll be a beotch to get reviewed/listed there.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

smreine said:


> I think you're onto something here. Not selling rights to characters, but more collaborations. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, David Dalglish and Debora Geary wrote a fluffy epic fantasy novel together? Or if Abbi Glines and Colleen Hoover put out a collaboration? The world would end. And by "the world would end," I mean, "They would make such ridiculous sums of money that I can't even fathom the number of zeroes there would be at the end of it."


What's funny is how the technology will push and hold back big changes. For example, if I wanted to collaborate with someone on a book, it would go under one of our KDP accounts and one of us would be in charge of the buttons and sending the other person their share. That's fine if there's tons of money--we'll just hire an accountant! But what of the Small Prawns? I'm wary of sharing things. I have a giving nature and I like to help, but I'm also batsh*t crazy. (According to other parties.)


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

smreine said:


> I think you're onto something here. Not selling rights to characters, but more collaborations. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, David Dalglish and Debora Geary wrote a fluffy epic fantasy novel together? Or if Abbi Glines and Colleen Hoover put out a collaboration?


No, but I can imagine what would happen if one of Krista's porn alter egos collaborated with David Adams, and it makes me giggle.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Dalya said:


> I'm also batsh*t crazy. (According to other parties.)


Looking at your unicorn, these parties must agree with your other parties.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Looking at your unicorn, these parties must agree with your other parties.


NO COMMENT!


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

I predict nothing, and my only strategy is to continue to produce books to the best of my limited ability and hope people can forgive my sizable number of faux pas. -es. Paws. No, pause. Whatever, that's one of them, obvs. (Shortening to obvs is another.)

And am I the only one who saw Dalya's new sig and thought, "I wonder what the over/under is on # of emotional meltdowns this year?" I bet if we collaborated, we could get Phoenix and Ed to buy in and set up odds and a pool and everything. Think about it, Dalya, could be a nice supplement to the ol writing income, take some of the stress off, and all you'd have to do is give me the number ahead of time and we're in business...


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Dalya said:


> What's funny is how the technology will push and hold back big changes. For example, if I wanted to collaborate with someone on a book, it would go under one of our KDP accounts and one of us would be in charge of the buttons and sending the other person their share. That's fine if there's tons of money--we'll just hire an accountant! But what of the Small Prawns? I'm wary of sharing things. I have a giving nature and I like to help, but I'm also batsh*t crazy. (According to other parties.)


Sorry, I know that you're saying something here, but all I'm getting out of it is a long look at your hairless pussy.

YES I WENT FOR THE OBVIOUS AND THOROUGHLY UNSUBTLE JOKE, YOU CAN JUDGE ME, I'M OKAY WITH IT.



RobertJCrane said:


> And am I the only one who saw Dalya's new sig and thought, "I wonder what the over/under is on # of emotional meltdowns this year?" I bet if we collaborated, we could get Phoenix and Ed to buy in and set up odds and a pool and everything. Think about it, Dalya, could be a nice supplement to the ol writing income, take some of the stress off, and all you'd have to do is give me the number ahead of time and we're in business...


I'm in for seven and a half meltdowns on 2013. What are my odds on that one like?


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

smreine said:


> I'm in for seven and a half meltdowns on 2013. What are my odds on that one like?


I think it'll be interesting to watch the number of meltdowns:sales ratio. It's a terrible thought, but what if there were a direct correlation, i.e. every three-thousand sales results in one meltdown?

I'm in for six meltdowns, FWIW.


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## MLKatz (Sep 8, 2012)

Kwalker said:


> A few more traditional pubbed big names will turn indie. Probably not James Patterson, but maybe G R R Martin? Wait, nm, he writes too slow. Anyway, I think we will see some big names making a shift to a hybrid approach.


I predict the next Game of Thrones book will not be out, and that about ruins 2013 for me.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

smreine said:


> Sorry, I know that you're saying something here, but all I'm getting out of it is a long look at your hairless pussy.
> 
> YES I WENT FOR THE OBVIOUS AND THOROUGHLY UNSUBTLE JOKE, YOU CAN JUDGE ME, I'M OKAY WITH IT.
> 
> I'm in for seven and a half meltdowns on 2013. What are my odds on that one like?


Everybody says that about my Mookie. He's not actually hairless, though! He has lots and lots of fur. It's just very short and fine, and it's ginger, so it blends with his skin. He's 13 and so am I.










As for the meltdowns, isn't it clear that it triples every year?  That is just how the algorithms are.



George Berger said:


> I think it'll be interesting to watch the number of meltdowns:sales ratio. It's a terrible thought, but what if there were a direct correlation, i.e. every three-thousand sales results in one meltdown?
> 
> I'm in for six meltdowns, FWIW.


They only count if they're public. (Starting a sad thread on KB is pretty much the sign.) As long as I have fewer than David Adams, I think I'm doing okay.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

George Berger said:


> I think it'll be interesting to watch the number of meltdowns:sales ratio. It's a terrible thought, but what if there were a direct correlation, i.e. every three-thousand sales results in one meltdown?
> 
> I'm in for six meltdowns, FWIW.


In that case, thinking back on my meltdowns for the year...I'd say it's about one major meltdown for every 10,000 sales.

I hope I have at least ten meltdowns next year, personally.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

smreine said:


> In that case, thinking back on my meltdowns for the year...I'd say it's about one major meltdown for every 10,000 sales.
> 
> I hope I have at least ten meltdowns next year, personally.


Nice wishful thinking there, kids, but we all know the scent of tears gets pretty strong here in the WC right after algorithm shifts that downgrade indies.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Ack, that's what I'm doing wrong: no meltdowns


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)




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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

Predictions for 2013:

- The number of indie authors will actually decline. Word is getting around that it's not a lottery with reasonable odds. Most of the herd that rambled in during 2012 is becoming frustrated. Easy marketing no longer exists. It will be hard to make money and that will keep many folks away. 

- Microsoft and B&N will cook something up this year. It will be big. Amazon and Apply won't like it.

- The line between indie and traditionally published authors will blur. Hybrid deals, boutique publishers, and other manifestations will make it difficult for the reader to determine who is self-published and who is not. In the end, it won't matter as almost every author will be both.

- The Amazon review system will become irrelevant. The bigger players will set up to manipulate the system both in a positive light for their work as well as a weapon against competitors. This is already being done on a smaller scale. The sophistication, skulduggery and techniques implemented in the future will make it impossible for Amazon to police reviews. After being burned enough times, readers will begin to ignore all reviews.

- Multimedia formatted books will take their initial baby steps into the market. Technology, most likely from Apple and Microsoft, will allow authors to enhance their words with video, mood music, interactive links, multiple plot endings and a ton of other features I haven't thought of. In a way, we will all eventually published miniature web sites as books.

- Corroboration between artists will become more common place. Mid-list indie authors will work with each other, mid-list musical artists and mid-list video producers to create works that appeal to multiple markets.

- Free books will become a thing of the past. The days of the select program are numbered. Several factors will drive this change, not the least of which will be the decline in the number of indie authors.

- Joe Nobody will sell 200,000 books in 2013....


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

_The number of indie authors will actually decline. Word is getting around that it's not a lottery with reasonable odds. Most of the herd that rambled in during 2012 is becoming frustrated. Easy marketing no longer exists. It will be hard to make money and that will keep many folks away. _

This is a very true point and something I'd wondered about myself. Self-publishing as activity is about to end its honeymoon period. People who have breezed in demanding that the world owes them a living (or a million or two) will disappear and many others will give up quietly without such theatrics. It isn't easy.

I liked your other points, too.

I predict that Amazon's share of total ebooks sold will decline a lot. There will be other players who are more dedicated to electronic delivery, who will do it more efficiently for those who are really interested in buying electronic books (as opposed to the masses of people who will only download if it's free). If selling ebooks is your only business, then you'll make d*mn sure you do it right with a clean, fast site that isn't trying to sell people vacuum-cleaners while they're browsing ebooks.

People will read on tablets. I'm expecting a growth in my Apple sales.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

I predict that:


a lot of indies who started in 2011 and 2012, but never seemed to gain sales traction, will give up - their books will remain stagnant in limbo on Amazon
there will be ads in ebooks, probably starting at Amazon
itunes will help us non mac users out (They need to fix their pen name transparency flaw though before I'll submit to them.)
the bottom will fall out price-wise in book cover design and formatting, those providing those services will drop out, which will leave a lot of indie authors struggling to find book covers and formatters (which leaves an opportunity for draft2digital and similar services to succeed)
horror will make a sales comeback once every single horror writer stops writing zombie books and apocalypse fiction and gets back to more traditional scenarios like monsters and mysterious happenings in small towns (come back we miss you!)
Amazon will tighten royalties to foster exclusivity and we will have to make hard choices


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

I was grumbling with mild jealousy over a combination of Dalya's sales numbers in her signature, and S.M. Reine's inferred five-figure sales figures, above, and got curious about something and went and did some math. I kind of haphazardly keep track of my sales on a per-title basis, and I realized that, if you add them all together, well, thanks almost entirely to the goat revolution, even though my sales are fairly unimpressive, objectively, I nonetheless will have _literally_ sold one-hundred (!) times as many books in 2012 as I did in 2011.

I predict not just a, um, _much_ smaller rate of growth in 2013, but probably a marked decrease in sales, if I'm honest. Lightning rarely striking twice, and all that.

_--George, a 100x increase sounds impressive, but keep in mind, I sold well less than a hundred books last year, so..._


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

There are some awesome and hopeful and encouraging views of the future on this list.

I am going to copy them down and sacrifice a goat to them.
Two goats, just to be on the safe side.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

_•Amazon will tighten royalties to foster exclusivity and we will have to make hard choices_

The more Amazon tightens, the more incentives there are for competitors to pick off disgruntled customers (and both buyers and sellers are Amazon's customers). The more they WILL pick off disgruntled customers, and the more rapid the slide of Amazon as dominant ebook seller.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

I predict we'll all be debating the merits of sacrificing not white or black goats, but _feinting_ goats.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

George Berger said:


> I kind of haphazardly keep track of my sales on a per-title basis, and I realized that, if you add them all together, well, thanks almost entirely to the goat revolution, even though my sales are fairly unimpressive, objectively, I nonetheless will have _literally_ sold one-hundred (!) times as many books in 2012 as I did in 2011.


Woo! That's awesome!

I wouldn't count on a marked decrease for 2013, though. Keep writing good stuff and people will keep seeking you out..._whether you like it or not_.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

RobertJCrane said:


> I predict nothing, and my only strategy is to continue to produce books to the best of my limited ability and hope people can forgive my sizable number of faux pas. -es. Paws. No, pause. Whatever, that's one of them, obvs. (Shortening to obvs is another.)
> 
> And am I the only one who saw Dalya's new sig and thought, "I wonder what the over/under is on # of emotional meltdowns this year?" I bet if we collaborated, we could get Phoenix and Ed to buy in and set up odds and a pool and everything. Think about it, Dalya, could be a nice supplement to the ol writing income, take some of the stress off, and all you'd have to do is give me the number ahead of time and we're in business...


I predict that Dalya's work ethic this year will result in stronger and steadier sales next year, resulting in fewer crises of confidence. Yet the fact remains that Dalya is still Dalya. Therefore, I am setting the over/under at 5.5 meltdowns in 2013.

Now taking bets.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

I'll give you a slightly different prediction. My thought is that sometime in 2013 Free will go bye bye. Aunty Amy is a capitalist pig, let us never forget that. And the reason she's so happy to sell books for nada and take no royalties, is that she's hoping the freebies attract more buyers to the kindle. However E readers are becoming more common, so are tablets, and that market is getting squeezed. There is only so much more revenue to be gained from selling extra kindles, while the loss from not selling books on a royalty basis will keep growing. And don't forget its not just all the free books they sell and don't get commission for that hits them in the pocket. There are also the other not free books by other authors that don't get bought that hit the bottom line.

So expect them to start restricting free. Maybe limiting the number of days, or perhaps the number of books by each author, or even perhaps the number of free sales per book.

Likewise if the ebook market does tighten a little, expect the competition to get harder. There may be restrictions placed on authors, things like sign with Aunty Amy or sign with someone else, but not both.

Either way I expect it to be an interesting year.

Cheers, Greg.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> I predict that Dalya's work ethic this year will result in stronger and steadier sales next year, resulting in fewer crises of confidence. Yet the fact remains that Dalya is still Dalya. Therefore, I am setting the over/under at 5.5 meltdowns in 2013.
> 
> Now taking bets.


I predict Dalya has her own goat _revolucion_ this year and therefore, will put my name in the pool for (-.5) meltdowns, as her melt-ups will cancel all said meltdowns out, with the exception of the first one (I predict early February) which will be so huge, that a melt-up can only compensate for half. 

Way to go, Dalya! <--That's my early congratulations for your upcoming melt-ups and goat _revolucion_.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> This is a very true point and something I'd wondered about myself. Self-publishing as activity is about to end its honeymoon period. People who have breezed in demanding that the world owes them a living (or a million or two) will disappear and many others will give up quietly without such theatrics. It isn't easy.


I'll expand on this with another prediction:

Many of us will face a moral dilemma concerning the advice and help we provide to new authors. I hate to sound crass or selfish, but there are times when someone posts on this board asking for help with marketing, and I hesitate to answer. Its not that I think said writer will take away from my sales. It's more of "another new author who is going to gum up the works," type of feeling. Sometimes I want to warn people - tell them they're in over their heads and suggest they quite wasting their time. Then I think back to when I was starting out and some of the great advice I picked up from more experienced writers, and I respond. I'm not qualified to be any judge, but those responses are becoming harder and harder to do.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I said it some time ago on a post on here and I think it will be even more relevent in 2013. Many who have self-published and failed to make sales will stop self-publishing, but not stop writing, preferring to start submitting to agents again with many lessons learned.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Is it reasonable to presume people will quit if they don't sell well? Did they quit in the days of traditional publishing because they languished in the slush pile? Didn't get a contract?

I'm sure some will quit, but many will hold on. We will also see new entrants. This will be the third year I have seen predictions of mass quitting. Still waiting. Still watching thousands of new books debut. When does the number of active authors start to shrink? Wishful thinking?



> Aunty Amy is a capitalist pig, let us never forget that.


So am I. And given all the talk about prices, sales, and promotion in these threads, I suspect I'm not alone.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I'll expand on this with another prediction:
> 
> Many of us will face a moral dilemma concerning the advice and help we provide to new authors. I hate to sound crass or selfish, but there are times when someone posts on this board asking for help with marketing, and I hesitate to answer. Its not that I think said writer will take away from my sales. It's more of "another new author who is going to gum up the works," type of feeling. Sometimes I want to warn people - tell them they're in over their heads and suggest they quite wasting their time. Then I think back to when I was starting out and some of the great advice I picked up from more experienced writers, and I respond. I'm not qualified to be any judge, but those responses are becoming harder and harder to do.


When you have a free book hovering around #103 on the free charts, not quite getting onto that sweet maple syrup land of the top 100, and you see a dozen familiar faces up above you ... you do see what a small world it is.

This is something I've also struggled with. But, I've seen other people keep things to themselves, and I didn't like how that looked on them. If I'm going to make it, I'll be holding out my hand for friends the whole way.*

*Like choosing to be vegan, this kind of morality is a luxury of those who are not in desperate need.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

MLKatz said:


> I predict the next Game of Thrones book will not be out, and that about ruins 2013 for me.


Did anyone else sake their heads over their starting an UNFINISHED series wriyten by the infamously slow GRR Martin? Were they kidding?

My prediction is that any prediction I make will be wrong--exceptthat the next SoIaF novel will not be out. That is a safe bet.


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## CarlG (Sep 16, 2012)

Deanna Chase said:


> I predict we'll all be debating the merits of sacrificing not white or black goats, but _feinting_ goats.


I've feinted _with _a goat. I was milking it when a swordsman burst into the barn. I used the goat to parry with. Don't worry, no goats were harmed in the making of this joke.

For 2013 I see increasing oceans of new ebook and paperbooks hitting the market. Whereas before, the U.S. saw 50,000 new titles per year, for example, now it will be per week.

Sure many will go nowhere, and pile up like snow drifts in the hinterland of sales numbers (the back 20 million of Amazon et al).

But writers will keep writing. Now that the distribution chains are off the doors of publishing, writers will continue to seize the moment and pump their stuff out there. Anybody who ever thought of writing a book will get one out there, if only for the sheer joy of seeing it in pixel and print.

Visibility will continue to be the big factor. Creating it or getting lucky with it will be the game changer for every serious author. Being a prolific writer will continue to help a lot, but readers will reward fresh, original, and well-voiced works, so writers must strive to put out their best effort, too (despite examples of "poor writing" selling like ice cream on a summer day).

Amazon stands to fall a few notches. They've made a few mistakes. Competition is catching up. They've still got the best marketing machine, but it's unclear how much they really care about indie writers. And let's face it, indies rule!

Speaking of indies, yeah, lots more hybrid writing schema for writers. Print only deals. Partnerships with other writers, and with talking books narrators. Marketing groups.

More writers bypassing agents and going straight to publishers. IP Lawyers and Entertainment lawyers need to get on the bandwagon and start offering deals to writers for easy, reliable, affordable service.

A continued flourishing for cover artists and formatters. Formatters will either offer cut rate packages to experienced and repeat customers, or a wide variety of a la carte services to the vast armies of first time writers and non-tech dream-realizers publishing their work.

Established writers will continue to sell well, including indies. People are reading, and ultimately want to read what they like, not just what is free. They'll buy books. Newbies will have a harder time getting noticed than their forebears did just 12 short months ago.

Niche marketing will be the wave of the future. Finding readers will involve creative imagination and a close knowledge of one's work. A close study of genre, tag and key words, and an almost facebook nosiness into the habits of one's target audience will reward those going to this detail. Building mailing lists will continue to be another key. Newsletters mailed to subscribers will surpass public blogging as a marketing tool.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

I suspect the number of indies publishing will increase, mostly because the traditional midlist is vanishing.

So I suppose I should add, "A lot of literary agents and other people in the legacy publishing business will be looking for jobs, or new ways to monetize writers." Thar be sharks in these waters.


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

Joe_Nobody said:


> - Microsoft and B&N will cook something up this year. It will be big. Amazon and Apply won't like it.


I'm starting to do well at B&N, so I'd love for them to expand/improve their business, but I doubt it will be through Microsoft's help. MS is struggling to sell Surfaces and Windows 8 isn't exactly flying off the shelves.


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## MPTPGV (Jul 28, 2012)

My personal belief on the serial is that it depends on what someone is creating.  I think things like Yesterday's Gone will always find an audience. I think that whenever you're creating something that's interesting and fun for the reader--and reasonable--people will eventually find it.  I think short fiction will gain more foothold because more and more people are getting digital readers. 

I think sourcebooks, small non-fiction texts that focus on one thing, will be big, because now people are discovering they can get the same information they once paid 30 dollars for on some shady website with unverifiable testimonials to spending a 10th of the price and having actual reviews that they can decide to believe or not.  

I think erotica will continue to grow because porn always grows and people are still discovering this market. 

I think good solid fiction, published often, with a bit of marketing, can push your books up. 

This is the year in my opinion, with Kindle Fires becoming more popular, with Borders going out of business, there's a market to be filled.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

My reason for thinking that the number of people self-publishing will increase considerably next year is this - as people have often pointed out, Kindleboard authors are in the minority when it comes to self-published authors.  There are thousands and thousands of people out there who have no idea how hard it is to sell books and make enough money to make it worth while.  All they see are the big success stories in the news.  There are also thousands who would do it even if it costs them money - I know because I'm one!  If I have to, I'll branch out in the future in order to fund my self-publishing habit.          

So yes, I think we'll see a lot more titles and it will be a lot harder to gain visibility.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

I predict that almost every prediction made on this thread will be wrong.

Nothing personal, of course.  It's just the nature of the beast.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I predict that almost every prediction made on this thread will be wrong.
> 
> Nothing personal, of course. It's just the nature of the beast.


All predictions guaranteed wrong or your money back!


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Regardless of which way the ebook cookie crumbles, the fact remains that trad publishers are no longer the be all and end all. It may not provide riches for all, but it will sustain many who are serious about their writing and who treat it as a business. It has also opened up other avenues for break-out author's to be picked up by trad publishers/ film makers/foreign rights etc with or without the need for agent by slotting in attorneys to scan the various contracts for a one off payment.

It has also taught many the value of a trad-published connection, some of who will revert to submitting and exhausting every avanue before resorting to self-publishing again. The only thing I would predict is that eBook sales with continue to increase during 2013, but how much of the pot we will individually make is anyones guess.


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## MPTPGV (Jul 28, 2012)

Quality Writing, with a great deal of Quantity, will make you sales.  This has been true before the internet.  I'm going to guess it will be true after the internet.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I wonder if the Big Five (or whatever) will find a way to exert pressure onto the volume sellers like Amazon and iTunes to ditch the freebies and lowbies.
They're not happy about selling Stephen King for three bucks and they don't want to compete with the likes of us.
Another reason for Zon to give greater weight to higher-priced books.

Meanwhile, I poked around some of the indie offerings out there to see if I could actually support something I said earlier in this thread and others.

I have no delusions about my own writing but what I found is truly atrocious. Ridiculous punctuation, non-existing editing, weird use of even basic vocabulary, writing that seems more like remedial therapy than attempts at publication. 
Then I got one of those Amazon promo emails. Among three versions of Hugh Howey was a book that promised: _No Typos and Technical Glitches Found! Images can be clearly seen! _. (The fun part about that was that it's a book about selling books on the Kindle!) Now people are advertising that they have edited their work? 
Good lord, even some of the two-sentence samples people are using on NovelScribe's nifty little guessing game are peppered with typos and a bewildering abundance of random commas.

As this continues my 2013 prediction is that readers (perhaps excepting the hard-core bargain hunters) are going to tire of indies. Who wants to wade through this nonsense? I'm to the point of looking at no more than two paragraphs of a preview before moving on.

And so we're back again to books 'vetted' by established publishing houses and 'gatekeepers' that will tell people what they ought to be reading. For a price.

The sad part is that, even among the relatively small group of authors that post here on this board, there is some really remarkable, quality writing. And they don't have nearly enough visibility using any of the currently available marketing tools.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

The indie thing has only just begun. I know several writers who turned all their family members and extended family into ebook producers. And the vast, vast majority of writers out there have only recently became aware of both ebooks and self-publishing. The VAST majority. It hasn't even started.

Now, who cares about them? If they waited this long, they have almost zero chance. I think they should do it. They aren't my competition. I am gunning for Stephen King.

And if you think a trad deal is "better" than this, please go ahead. And expect to do the same level of work, promotion, etc. for a FRACTION of the money, plus you lose most of your competitive advantages and options. (you may have lower costs in production but a smart indie can make that back in days or weeks.) Also, expect to give 15 percent of your lesser income to an agent and whatever middlemen crop up.

Lastly, why in the world would anyone expect Amazon to stop freebies? Just because it sucks for us doesn't mean it's bad for business. THEY DON'T WANT TO MAKE MONEY ON BOOKS! They've lost money on books for nearly 20 years--they don't care. It's been their dominant loss leader forever. Now WE are the loss leader, and we are dirt cheap and easily replaceable, what the Chinese factory workers are to Wal-Mart, with the exception that we get to spin a roulette wheel and maybe start our own factories.

No, Select has been such a resounding success for them that they upped the pot and suckered lots of people like me back in. 43,000 different free books a few days ago! They'd be stupid to stop, especially when they can herd indies off into a segregated pool for loans based on how avidly they give their books away (and promote the Amazon ecosystem in the process.)

My reality starts with one proposition: Amazon has more ebook data than anyone in the world. If you want to know what strategically works, watch what they do with their own books. They've never made any of them free that I am aware of, and they generally price $3.99-$4.99 with limited sales. I think Amazon is brilliant. I don't expect them to do what is best for Scott Nicholson, indie writers, or "the literary landscape." They want to sell tires and ski jackets.

And I'll wrap up with my opening point-- tens of thousands of writers are just now reading these blog posts from a year ago about how all you have to do is throw up an ebook (literally, vomit it) and then make it free, and then watch the mad money roll in. Look at how many of us KNEW freebie was a sucker's game now and still did it anyway. (Guilty as charged.) No, freebies won't go away--in fact, they are proliferating to the other markets, as Kobo, BN, and Apple all have mechanisms for making a book free (although BN's was the clumsy and revealing tactic of driving to a store to get a free ebook.)

I think it's all one wild, awesome ride, and I hope I'm wrong about everything. But I'm planting my garden just in case...okay, Sunday sermon over. Good luck, everyone. May your goat sacrifices fall under the right moon and may your roulette balls slot to advantage.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

scottnicholson said:


> And if you think a trad deal is "better" than this, please go ahead. And expect to do the same level of work, promotion, etc. for a FRACTION of the money, plus you lose most of your competitive advantages and options. (you may have lower costs in production but a smart indie can make that back in days or weeks.) Also, expect to give 15 percent of your lesser income to an agent and whatever middlemen crop up.


You know, this is so true. I look at my ranking right now - which is not all that good at 19,000 something - and then I look at some of the "popular" novels that are marketing the same audience as me right now, and they're in the 100,000-200,000 range.

How many books are they realistically selling? I know it a lot less than I am, and that's not all that much. So they are basically making nothing after everyone takes their cut.

I'm not dissuaded...half of success is progress. Just simple determination to keep going. The more books you have the more sales you make - it's a fact.

Things take time - my best advice to new writers is that they should have a two year plan. Put your freaking head down into your keyboard and type. Publish when you're done, then repeat. Look up in two years and then take stock and decide what your next move is.

Just because we're not all over-night successes doesn't mean we're all failures.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi Scott,

Amazon's lost money on books for twenty years? I can't imagine that. But even if it is so and books are their loss leaders, there's loss leaders and loss leaders.

Mostly in stores when you talk about loss leaders, you're talking about only one or two items, the things that get advertised on the idiot box, designed to draw people in. The rest is what they want to sell. But the sheer number of free titles is phenomenal, even considering Aunty Amy's size.

And of course the other thing that stores do with their loss leaders, is only have a few of them out on the shelves. But freebies here we could be talking about thousands or tens of thousands of each title.

More importantly loss leaders are often heavily discounted, but nowhere else have I ever heard of them being discounted to free.

And the final thing that stores do with their loss leaders, is try not to have them competeing with their premiere brands. But free books compete directly with other books, cutting into their profits as well.

My view is that free will be at the least cut back heavily this year. Even if Aunty Amy doesn't intend to make a profit on books this year, something I still can't quite buy since they began as an online book company, there's a difference between a small loss and a great gaping hole in the bottom line.

What they will do is find some way to restrict the number of free books out there, maybe only one title per author, or so many free copies or what have you, to minimise their losses and maximise their publicity from having some books out there for free. And if you want some evidence that they're already thinking that way, consider the latest algorithm change. Free books now only have one tenth the impact on popularity rankings as paid books, and dearer books have more impact than cheap books.

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/amazon-kindle-sales/recent-amazon-algorithm-changes/

That speaks volumes about Aunty Amy's thoughts on the matter. They are already trying to direct their customers away from the free stuff and into the expensive aisles.

Cheers, Greg. (And happy new year shortly!)


----------



## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "As this continues my 2013 prediction is that readers (perhaps excepting the hard-core bargain hunters) are going to tire of indies. Who wants to wade through this nonsense? I'm to the point of looking at no more than two paragraphs of a preview before moving on. "


Nobody has to wade through the nonsense. The search and selection functions allow consumers to find what they want. The existence of bad stuff doesn't mean people have to wade through it.

Anyone go to a bookstore and wade through all the stuff that doesn't interest them?

Anyone wade through millions of pages of crap on the internet looking for stuff they like?

Consumers are much smarter than that.

I predict better search tools for 2013 so consumers can even more easily find what they want.


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## Janel Gradowski (Mar 19, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Let's share our wild ideas!
> 
> *HOT for 2013:*
> 
> ...


Oh, Dalya - I so hope you are right about this! I just "tossed" out a novella and I plan to have all different sizes of stories, from flash to novellas, in the series. I've been seeing posts everywhere about shorter books becoming big because people just don't have the time to read as much anymore. I'm crossing my fingers that those predictions are right!


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## trublue (Jul 7, 2012)

jnfr said:


> I'll jump in to disagree about serials. Yes, they'll fade as a fad, but I think that episodic writing (as opposed to "novels in a series") is going to find a good-sized niche in the ebook unive


I don't think serials will ever go out. There will be times when its more popular than others but
I find that once readers love a world, they want more if it. I think in 2013
Much like in 2012, we will find new ways to worry and panic about things we have no control over.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Nobody has to wade through the nonsense. The search and selection functions allow consumers to find what they want. The existence of bad stuff doesn't mean people have to wade through it.
> ....
> I predict better search tools for 2013 so consumers can even more easily find what they want.


I agree with the need for better search tools. Absolutely.
However, if a reader uses a search tool to look for, example, historical fiction, civil war, maritime they may get a long list of books that correspond. They can NOT now assume that these are all readable. They still have to look at the preview and determine whether or not the style of writing is something they might like. That is what I mean by wading through the nonsense.

You'd do the same if you're in a bookstore, flipping through a small selection of possible titles in the genre. Because the publisher and book store pre-picked (new word) a selection for you. 
But if there are 300 books on the subject online, how much time are they willing to spend to find the best of the lot? Especially if the first five or so don't know what a comma is for?
How much easier is it to rely on some "authority" that tells them which on one to pick?


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I'll expand on this with another prediction:
> 
> Many of us will face a moral dilemma concerning the advice and help we provide to new authors. I hate to sound crass or selfish, but there are times when someone posts on this board asking for help with marketing, and I hesitate to answer. Its not that I think said writer will take away from my sales. It's more of "another new author who is going to gum up the works," type of feeling. Sometimes I want to warn people - tell them they're in over their heads and suggest they quite wasting their time. Then I think back to when I was starting out and some of the great advice I picked up from more experienced writers, and I respond. I'm not qualified to be any judge, but those responses are becoming harder and harder to do.


YES! I am struggling with this. I am more than willing to help people, but post advice on an open forum and let just anyone see it? No. I don't want the spammers picking up my tricks. Nor do I want enable fly-by-night wannabes. I do a lot more pming now of advice. And I also research folks before I contact them.

M


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Quiss said:


> I agree with the need for better search tools. Absolutely.
> However, if a reader uses a search tool to look for, example, historical fiction, civil war, maritime they may get a long list of books that correspond. They can NOT now assume that these are all readable. They still have to look at the preview and determine whether or not the style of writing is something they might like. That is what I mean by wading through the nonsense.
> 
> You'd do the same if you're in a bookstore, flipping through a small selection of possible titles in the genre. Because the publisher and book store pre-picked (new word) a selection for you.
> ...


But does ANYONE search for them like that? You go to the categories and look at the Pop List or the Best Seller list. I can't imagine that people have a habit of going to the bottom of any of those. Or if you're a Cornwell fan (or a Tomlin fan  ), you look at their books. I have never ever just searched on "Historical Fiction" as a search term. That would be doing it by far the hard way.

Amazon makes it very easy to get to their Pop list which is why we were so hurt when staying high on that list got harder.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

scottnicholson said:


> My reality starts with one proposition: Amazon has more ebook data than anyone in the world. If you want to know what strategically works, watch what they do with their own books. They've never made any of them free that I am aware of, and they generally price $3.99-$4.99 with limited sales. I think Amazon is brilliant. I don't expect them to do what is best for Scott Nicholson, indie writers, or "the literary landscape." They want to sell tires and ski jackets.


Amazon DE sent out a promo e-mail advertising five free books on Christmas day. At least two of them were Amazon published titles, one of them by Joe Konrath.

And while Amazon may want to sell tyres, ski jackets and the like, the only non-media item I've ever bought from them were vacuum cleaner bags for an old model that were no longer available locally. Of course, that doesn't stop them from sending me e-mails for shoes and jewelery and household products.



> And I'll wrap up with my opening point-- tens of thousands of writers are just now reading these blog posts from a year ago about how all you have to do is throw up an ebook (literally, vomit it) and then make it free, and then watch the mad money roll in. Look at how many of us KNEW freebie was a sucker's game now and still did it anyway. (Guilty as charged.) No, freebies won't go away--in fact, they are proliferating to the other markets, as Kobo, BN, and Apple all have mechanisms for making a book free (although BN's was the clumsy and revealing tactic of driving to a store to get a free ebook.)


I always knew the flood of freebies was a sucker's game, too (not to mention actually against the law in my country), and I for one never offered free e-books either.

[quote author=Quiss]
I have no delusions about my own writing but what I found is truly atrocious. Ridiculous punctuation, non-existing editing, weird use of even basic vocabulary, writing that seems more like remedial therapy than attempts at publication.
Then I got one of those Amazon promo emails. Among three versions of Hugh Howey was a book that promised: No Typos and Technical Glitches Found! Images can be clearly seen! . (The fun part about that was that it's a book about selling books on the Kindle!) Now people are advertising that they have edited their work?
Good lord, even some of the two-sentence samples people are using on NovelScribe's nifty little guessing game are peppered with typos and a bewildering abundance of random commas.
[/quote]

I made the mistake of looking at the also boughts for one of my books lately and found lots of erotica, some of which was abominably bad with titles and covers that made me wonder how on Earth that stuff got approved in the first place and horrendous typos even in the blurb.

There was one book billed as an erotica romance about a virile viking tying a kidnapped princess "to the masked" and having his wild viking way with her. And I thought, "Wait a minute, what? Does he wear a mask while they do it? Does she? Is it a threesome with a random masked man?"

Then it dawned on me. The author meant "mast".


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

scottnicholson said:


> My reality starts with one proposition: Amazon has more ebook data than anyone in the world. If you want to know what strategically works, watch what they do with their own books. They've never made any of them free that I am aware of, and they generally price $3.99-$4.99 with limited sales. I think Amazon is brilliant.


I agree with most of what you say, but I've noticed something different with amazon. They tend to list their own books at $1.99, send out the daily email blast, then when the book hits the Top 10, they jack up the price to it's usual $9.99 price. Either way it's brilliant though.


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## AshMP (Dec 30, 2009)

For me:

-I will republish The Milestone Tapes with deleted content.
-I will publish my collection of short stories followed by a novel that deals in the same wheelhouse as all my novels followed *hopefully* by something else.  But my next novel is something I'm equal parts excited and struggling with.
-I won't depart from my genre.  I've decided it's all I know how to do.  

For Contemporary Fiction:
-We will continue to flounder ... we will hit highs and lows ... but we never be as cool/popular as a trad counterparts or anything YA.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

amishromanceauthor said:


> I agree with most of what you say, but I've noticed something different with amazon. They tend to list their own books at $1.99, send out the daily email blast, then when the book hits the Top 10, they jack up the price to its usual $9.99 price. Either way it's brilliant though.


I've noticed that as well. And when people see a $9.99 on the Top 100, they assume it must be an amazing book, given the price and rank. They don't know it's six years old and was a dollar yesterday.

THIS IS A GOOD TRICK, my friends. 

Oh, if only the Top 100 were _gettable_.



Janel Gradowski said:


> Oh, Dalya - I so hope you are right about this! I just "tossed" out a novella and I plan to have all different sizes of stories, from flash to novellas, in the series. I've been seeing posts everywhere about shorter books becoming big because people just don't have the time to read as much anymore. I'm crossing my fingers that those predictions are right!


This is my strategy, so I hope so as well. I'm glad you put "tossed" in quotes, because that's how I meant it. I'm passionate about everything I put out, and I am proud of every single work that's up. I think there's some great storytelling in even the naughty ones. There will always be people who will criticize what you do, accuse you of "pumping out" crap.

Ignore them.

Whenever you do something that gets you pushback from the world, take note and take pride. Plenty of people will gaily stand along the sidelines, clapping their hands and cheering you on as you ingest the placebo rather than do what they cannot.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> I predict better search tools for 2013 so consumers can even more easily find what they want.


Agreed. I put higher odds on better search tools attracting readers than on gatekeepers doing so. I'm wary of gatekeepers because I don't like to rely on other people's opinion on what I'll like in a story, and I don't trust the motivations of people who think they have the right to cull the slush pile. Perhaps readers are more trusting about these things, but I doubt it.

As others have said, I believe we'll see more books published in 2013, not fewer. The writers here at KindleBoards are way ahead of the crowd when it comes to awareness of self-publishing. A lot of people are just learning what a Kindle is and what self-publishing is. It is easier to self-publish now than ever before, and I'm sure it will just get easier as the tools improve and new services aimed at this growing market evolve. I think a lot of people are going to figure out that it isn't necessary to be a bestseller to make self-publishing worthwhile. If you want to write anyway, even earning a couple hundred dollars a year on your writing might make it worth the minimal effort it takes to publish.

I also believe we'll see more contraction in the industry due to mergers and publishing-related businesses throwing in the towel. This could be the year we see something REALLY big happen though: like a major distributor or other publishing giant file for bankruptcy. Margins are being squeezed out of book sales, so high-overhead organizations will have a difficult time maintaining their infrastructure.

I predict that keeping your sales ranking is going to be much more difficult. The last time I looked (October, I think), about 50,000 titles had been added to Amazon.com in the preceding 30 days, and 1,000 of those were in my genre: fantasy. Over the past several months, I've learned that a book needs to be in the top 30K-50K or so just to get single-digit sales per day. So my book has to sell better than every single new book added to the system every month just to _maintain_ its ranking, yet odds are good that at least a few of those books are going to do better than mine, meaning a decline in ranking is inevitable. I believe that this is why I need to keep publishing new titles. An why my next book has to be better than the previous.


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## kea (Jun 13, 2011)

Danielle Kazemi said:


> Crap will ease up on the book market because people are getting lazy as something else becomes the new get-rich-quick thing. Real authors rejoice. Partying in Times Square except of course we won't be there because we're all hermits.


Oh, I looove this one!


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> Nobody has to wade through the nonsense. The search and selection functions allow consumers to find what they want. The existence of bad stuff doesn't mean people have to wade through it.
> 
> Anyone go to a bookstore and wade through all the stuff that doesn't interest them?
> 
> ...


Me Too: I seldom encounter all the "crap" books everyone talks about. I think the way one searches has much to do with it. Usually the bad stuff is at the very bottom of the stacks and to get to the bottom takes too much time.

B&N will chop 250 stores within 6 months.

Free books will continue to flood the market averaging 20,000 available per day as more miners writers SP.

Big publishers will enhance their position in exploiting those new to SP--monetize their slush piles on the front and back-end.

Apple and Kobo will take more market share.

More younger readers will buy ebooks and read on different devices and older readers with small niche tastes will further adopt ebooks.

With more desperate authors trying to sell their books gaming the stores will become even more prevalent.

Most of the easy golden nuggets have been fished out of the Klondike River and new mining methods will need to be used to find any gold.

SW will become an ebook ghetto unless they quickly improve their service.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I always knew the flood of freebies was a sucker's game, too (not to mention actually against the law in my country), and I for one never offered free e-books either.


OK. I'm a sucker and I made a lot of money in the freebie game. Glad I did it. I consider long term success to be a chain of short term successes. Now I'm looking for the next sucker game to make money.

God Bless the sucker game!


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> Me Too: I seldom encounter all the "crap" books everyone talks about. I think the way one searches has much to do with it. Usually the bad stuff is at the very bottom of the stacks and to get to the bottom takes too much time.


There are a lot of very avid readers who look for new books to read by perusing the new releases in their favorite categories. They encounter your share of the "crap", and then some.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

scottnicholson said:


> Lastly, why in the world would anyone expect Amazon to stop freebies? Just because it sucks for us doesn't mean it's bad for business. THEY DON'T WANT TO MAKE MONEY ON BOOKS! They've lost money on books for nearly 20 years--they don't care. It's been their dominant loss leader forever. Now WE are the loss leader, and we are dirt cheap and easily replaceable, what the Chinese factory workers are to Wal-Mart, with the exception that we get to spin a roulette wheel and maybe start our own factories.
> 
> No, Select has been such a resounding success for them that they upped the pot and suckered lots of people like me back in. 43,000 different free books a few days ago! They'd be stupid to stop, especially when they can herd indies off into a segregated pool for loans based on how avidly they give their books away (and promote the Amazon ecosystem in the process.)
> 
> ...


This is all very dramatic.

I wouldn't have sold about 44,000 books in 2012 if not for judicious use of freebies and Select. It may not seem like much to you, but it allows me to support my family, and I've earned more money from writing this year than I ever did working for the government. That wouldn't have been possible for me without going free sometimes. Am I a sucker? Perhaps. But a comfortable sucker.

Freebies aren't a political statement; it's a tool for audience growth. That's all.


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## CarlG (Sep 16, 2012)

jackz4000 said:


> B&N will chop 250 stores within 6 months.


Or sell them to Starbucks, which most of them contain, and become boutique coffee-book stores. Perhaps with POD machines next to the cappuccino makers.



> Free books will continue to flood the market averaging 20,000 available per day as more miners writers SP.


Yup, the public slushpile, for readers to vet or forget.



> More younger readers will buy ebooks and read on different devices and older readers with small niche tastes will further adopt ebooks.


Hope so. I would bode well for middle grade and YA authors, like me!



> Most of the easy golden nuggets have been fished out of the Klondike River and new mining methods will need to be used to find any gold.


Klondike River. Kindledike River. I love it.

I do wonder how many authors starting to publish now will reach anything like the living-wage steady average sales that so many indies attained in 2012, and how long it will take. It seems that those who established themselves this year, and especially late in 2011, will continue to hold their own, and become like a new middle class (of mid-list) authors. And as though they've come up a rope ladder that got cut off behind them, those following will need great jumping ability and a whole lot of luck. Not saying the former did not work hard as the dickens. Just that an equal amount of work in 2013 will not yield the results of 2012 for a new author.



> SW will become an ebook ghetto unless they quickly improve their service.


This is so sad. Mark Coker had such a high ideal in mind when he started, and has bootstrapped the company up pretty good. But he seems oblivious to the state of his baby and the machinations of the marketplace. I do wish him well and hope SW continues to grow and improve.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> "Lastly, why in the world would anyone expect Amazon to stop freebies?"


One good reason is if the retailer thinks curtailing freebies will increase cash sales. That would be determined by his own data and judgement.

I'd love to see a scatter graph from Amazon with monthly fiction sales on the Y-axis and monthly freebie downloads on the X-axis. That would just be a start.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

A lot of people keep mentioning smashwords possibly fading, but I don't see that happening and this is why.  If you don't have a mac and want your books on itunes, sw is the easiest way.  If you want your books on B&N and you're from a country where pub it is not available (which is most of them), SW is the easiest way.  

Sure smashwords has a very retro, geocities era design, but I believe that's because they don't actually count on selling most of their books from the SW site.  I have a feeling the vast majority of SW's income is from distribution fees.  I've never seen SW run an add to promote their site to readers to buy books on.  All the promotion for SW seems to be to get writers to add their books.


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## David Adams (Jan 2, 2012)

Italiahaircolor said:


> For me:
> 
> -I will republish The Milestone Tapes with deleted content.


GIMME.


----------



## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

amishromanceauthor said:


> A lot of people keep mentioning smashwords possibly fading, but I don't see that happening and this is why. If you don't have a mac and want your books on itunes, sw is the easiest way. If you want your books on B&N and you're from a country where pub it is not available (which is most of them), SW is the easiest way.
> 
> Sure smashwords has a very retro, geocities era design, but I believe that's because they don't actually count on selling most of their books from the SW site. I have a feeling the vast majority of SW's income is from distribution fees. I've never seen SW run an add to promote their site to readers to buy books on. All the promotion for SW seems to be to get writers to add their books.


Agreed that they're not gonna disappear as long as there are useful markets that lots of authors can't get to themselves.

The problem is they're middlemen in a revolution that is about eliminating middlemen. If you're able to upload directly to Amazon, BN, iBookstore, and Kobo, I don't think the value of the other markets they offer access to comes even close to the flexibility you give up by distributing with them.

Fortunately for them, I don't think Apple is going to loosen up access to their walled garden any time soon.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Fortunately for them, I don't think Apple is going to loosen up access to their walled garden any time soon.


I predict apple is going to remain 100% inflexible. That's how they are with app designers and musicians, so why should they change for authors?

The real problem with apple is that they're smart enough to know the money is in mp3's, streaming video, and apps. Even though there are millions of people with ipads and iphones, there's only a miniscule population that uses those devices for reading. Both my parents have ipads and neither read on them. My husband has an iphone and doesn't read on it.

That isn't to say that you can't make decent money on itunes with your books, but apple doesn't want to push books on it's valuable itunes front page, no less indie books.


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## sarracannon (Apr 19, 2011)

I'm not sure if this thread inspires me or terrifies me.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Agreed that they're not gonna disappear as long as there are useful markets that lots of authors can't get to themselves.
> 
> The problem is they're middlemen in a revolution that is about eliminating middlemen. If you're able to upload directly to Amazon, BN, iBookstore, and Kobo, I don't think the value of the other markets they offer access to comes even close to the flexibility you give up by distributing with them.
> 
> Fortunately for them, I don't think Apple is going to loosen up access to their walled garden any time soon.


Nobody outside the USA can upload directly to B&N, sadly.

And even if you have a Mac, iPapples won't let you hide behind a pen name.

I'm surprised SW doesn't have more competition. If people had known it would be 2012 and they'd still be the premier gateway for stepsister werewolf lactation porn with an equally classy interface, yet not allowing epub uploads, I think there would have been more startups a year or two ago. A slim % of a large volume of sales is a nice revenue stream.


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## That one girl (Apr 12, 2011)

Dalya said:


> And even if you have a Mac, iPapples won't let you hide behind a pen name.


This thread was making me very uneasy until I reached iPapples. So glad I came to KB today.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

amishromanceauthor said:


> I predict apple is going to remain 100% inflexible. That's how they are with app designers and musicians, so why should they change for authors?
> 
> The real problem with apple is that they're smart enough to know the money is in mp3's, streaming video, and apps. Even though there are millions of people with ipads and iphones, there's only a miniscule population that uses those devices for reading. Both my parents have ipads and neither read on them. My husband has an iphone and doesn't read on it.


It's completely anecdotal, but my experience is exactly the opposite of this. Almost everyone I know with an iPad reads on it. And, although they have the Kindle app on it, they often get stuff from iTunes instead.

My only prediction is that Apple will be more appealing to authors in December '13 than it is now. That feels right to me.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Dalya said:


> Nobody outside the USA can upload directly to B&N, sadly.
> 
> And even if you have a Mac, iPapples won't let you hide behind a pen name.
> 
> I'm surprised SW doesn't have more competition. If people had known it would be 2012 and they'd still be the premier gateway for stepsister werewolf lactation porn with an equally classy interface, yet not allowing epub uploads, I think there would have been more startups a year or two ago. A slim % of a large volume of sales is a nice revenue stream.


Yeah, but I predict BN will open to non-US authors this year. There! A legit prediction from me. I base this on the fact Apple has philosophical reasons for their non-standard business decisions while it just seems like BN hasn't gotten around to it yet.

The lack of SW competitors is kind of surprising, though. Maybe it's harder to set up a Meatgrinder-like interface than we think. Will that stop me from complaining about it? No!


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## That one girl (Apr 12, 2011)

Dalya said:


> So-called "reluctant readers" suddenly reading; top 100 books with revolting grammar and editing because they just don't care, so long as the story's appealing.


BTW, I agree with this prediction the most. I got suckered into buying a few of these.


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## Matthew Stewart (Jan 7, 2011)

*February 2013*

- Amazon continues the crack down on reviews to the point of widespread calls for terms of service adjustment, which becomes a major issue on Kindle Boards and other places on the internet.
- Apple announces a broadening of its ereading platform, making it easier and more accessible to laymen users. They also begin to strike deals with major distributors, making their library competitive with Amazon. The royalty schedule for self-published authors is significantly worse than Amazon's, however.

*March 2013*

- A few more Kindle Board posters announce they have reached print-only agreements with traditional publishers. 
- Meanwhile, sales of low-to-mid range books continue to drop.
- As the slush pile continues to grow, an increasing number of studies suggest that readers are experiencing a kind of sensory overload with the ocean of poor books they must wade through in order to find good ones from the indies. Many readers return to traditional publishers, while a smaller pocket of readers utilize "gate keeper" blogs to pick their indie reads.

*April 2013*

- To capitalize on the swing in reader trends, the traditional publishers release various aggressive marketing ploys to push their books as much as possible. This creates a brief gold rush in the legacy industry, and many 'acclaimed' self-publishers abandon ship.

- To resolve the ongoing review controversy, Amazon institutes a long-term temporary ban on author-to-author reviews, causing a mass stirrup at KB.

*July 2013*

- Some major study by a well-respected, independent third party is published revealing that the chances of success with independent publishing have become so low they no longer present the advantages to traditional publishing. Traditional publishers are experiencing the first signs of slow down in their short-term gold rush.

- Some large scale accounting flub at Amazon causes several prominent self-published authors to be shorted lots of money. A big controversy arises and the prominent self-pubbed authors start a Amazon boycott until further notice.

- Barnes & Noble's digital sales increase, and Apple announces its first month as the number one source of e-books.

*August 2013*

- Amazon returns to the number one spot in e-book sales. It removes the temporary ban on author-to-author reviews, and sorts out an amicable piece with the authors who had errors in payment (though it ends with more of a settlement than a full reimbursement).

- Kid mysteries and pulp Westerns become the 'next big thing' in the genre circuit, and authors abandon their teenage vampire tales and erotica stories to release 17 John Wayne knock-off novellas in 28 days.

*October 2013*

- Apple announces a Select competitive program, which again propels them into a brief run as number one in the e-book industry.

- The traditional publishing boom ends after several highly touted books turn out to be flubs, either in book sales or from various "Million Little Pieces" type controversies. The industry again revisits its vetting process, and the 'gate keeper' blogs become more popular (and more of them exist) than ever.

*November 2013*

- Amazon announces significant changes to its CreateSpace POD service, including matte covers, ability to create box sets and book-themed souvenirs, and limited distribution on a wider range of CreateSpace published books being brought to actual book stores.

- Apple denies rumors it is building a competitive POD service, and releases a prototype of Kindle type hardware specifically used as an e-reader.

*December 2013*

- Apple has a major service crash that impacts e-book sales through the Christmas rush. Amazon becomes the king (or queen) of e-book sales forever more. Forever more.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> The lack of SW competitors is kind of surprising, though. Maybe it's harder to set up a Meatgrinder-like interface than we think. Will that stop me from complaining about it? No!


Actually, there have been a few potential SW competitors, but none of them have drawn the attention of SW, at least so far. I'm fairly certain Book Hatchery is dead (or at least the site wasn't working last time I checked). BookBaby charges $99, so that right there will knock out a lot of indie authors from using them.

Right now, SW still is king of its distribution niche, but as someone else pointed out, I think 2013 will be the make-or-break year for Smashwords. Either the company gets its act together, or someone else is going to come along and blow them out of the water, and/or SW will be made irrelevant. I'd love to see Coker's company succeed, but I'm not holding my breath.


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

Something in insert into your prediction algorithms, I just got back from Seattle and read an article in the Seattle Times that Amazon is expanding its downtown footprint and is expected to expand its workforce from 10k to 30k employees.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2019996116_amazonrealestate27.html


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Dalya said:


> Let's share our wild ideas!
> 
> *HOT for 2013:*
> 
> ...


You have a great sense of humor. And I like your use of the word "enormity" . . . and am sure that's exactly what you meant!


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Richardcrasta said:


> You have a great sense of humor. And I like your use of the word "enormity" . . . and am sure that's exactly what you meant!


ERRRRR that is a word I have been using incorrectly. I'd better to a word-search on my stories. 

I guess I meant enormousness, though the other term can also apply, depending on how you feel about the English language being completely destroyed. I wouldn't use the word enormity incorrectly if I hadn't been exposed to so much awful grammar thus far.


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## amishromanceauthor (Sep 27, 2012)

Shawn Inmon said:


> It's completely anecdotal, but my experience is exactly the opposite of this. Almost everyone I know with an iPad reads on it. And, although they have the Kindle app on it, they often get stuff from iTunes instead.


I like your anecdote more than mine. I do wish there was an easier way to get exposure for books on itunes though. There's over 100 million ipad's out there.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

Ty Johnston said:


> Right now, SW still is king of its distribution niche, but as someone else pointed out, I think 2013 will be the make-or-break year for Smashwords. Either the company gets its act together, or someone else is going to come along and blow them out of the water, and/or SW will be made irrelevant. I'd love to see Coker's company succeed, but I'm not holding my breath.


Xinxii is already better on a functional level, reaching more markets (I mean "real markets," not blio and deisel and all that other junk.) And it accepts epubs, PDFs, and mobi files. Smashwords is needlessly sticking to that stupid Meatgrinder for no reason, because all of their real markets want ePubs. (The library market wants mobi as well as epub, but SW doesn't even reach Amazon). I got interested in Xinxii mostly because of translated editions, but once I see reliable payments, I am off Smashwords.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Google books (play) will finally launch as a competitor to Amazon. You'll be able to easily add your books to Google and sell them just like Amazon. But the difference will be, your books, because they're in Google, will show up in search results. Remember how Amazon would always show up in search results on Google? Not so much anymore, and pretty soon, none at all. This is why.

This will create real, instant competition for Amazon, which is GREAT for us. They'll be forced to give us even more benefits to staying in select.

Of course, I hope this happens.


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Google Play need to stop slashing prices on books before most indies will use them.  As far as I'm aware, you can put your books up there now, though it's allegedly a bit of a faff.  The main issue is that their terms allow them to slash the sales price and they apparently do.  We all know what a nightmare that would cause with Amazon, etc.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Matthew Stewart said:


> - As the slush pile continues to grow, an increasing number of studies suggest that readers are experiencing a kind of sensory overload with the ocean of poor books they must wade through in order to find good ones from the indies. *Many readers return to traditional publishers*, while a smaller pocket of readers utilize "gate keeper" blogs to pick their indie reads.


(Emphasis mine.)

That is a scary thought. So far, it seems that most readers are publisher-agnostic, mainly because it never mattered much in the past and the publishers themselves haven't done much to promote their brand. If readers truly start to feel overwhelmed by "the ocean of poor books" and become publisher-aware, and publishers start positioning their brand name as a way to distinguish quality (whether that's true or not), indie publishers and self publishers could have a new promotional challenge to overcome.

It seems that some self-pubbed authors are anticipating this crisis of quality by doing things like advertising their books as having been edited and by creating cooperatives that claim to be "a symbol of quality and professionalism in publishing" (to quote one such group.)

But I'm not yet convinced readers really are overwhelmed by an ocean of poor books. How are they even finding them? Amazon appears to put only the top 80K or so into the recommendation lists with any regularity. The vast majority of books just sit in the background until something drives a sale to Amazon from off-site. Poor-selling books have poor discoverability. If anything, concerns about quality will force readers to rely *more* upon best seller lists, recommendation lists, and what has the highest ratings. They don't need gatekeepers: Amazon already has gatekeeping functions built into the site.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

DRMarvello said:


> That is a scary thought. So far, it seems that most readers are publisher-agnostic, mainly because it never mattered much in the past and the publishers themselves haven't done much to promote their brand.


Scary, yes, but likely.
Perhaps it's time for us to stop shouting "Look at me! I'm an indie!" 
Besides being of quality writing, if indies have quality cover images and comparable prices to trad pub, the publisher-agnostic folks aren't going to be able to tell the difference.
So, *if* readers begin to ignore indies, it'll be the freebies and lowbies that they'll most likely skip over.
(yes, I'm generalizing. There are still going to be the bargain hunters and readers who look for brand-name authors and manufactured bestsellers)


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> My husband has an iphone and doesn't read on it.


I have an iPhone and read on it all the time. It's actually replaced my Kindle to a great extent, simply because I always have it with me. I suspect that any serious reader who has an iPhone or an iPad probably does likewise. I could certainly be wrong, though.



> Besides being of quality writing, if indies have quality cover images and comparable prices to trad pub, the publisher-agnostic folks aren't going to be able to tell the difference.


I'm amazed by how far indie covers have come in a few years. When I started doing this, you could almost always pick out an indie by the cover. Even the bestsellers had a slightly amateurish cast to them. (This was true for small presses, too.) But now it's gotten quite difficult to tell an indie cover from the better small press books, or even big publisher books.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

George Berger said:


> No, but I can imagine what would happen if one of Krista's porn alter egos collaborated with David Adams, and it makes me giggle.












Benny? We should mate.
Yes, ma'am.










And thus:


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

In 2013 consumers will continue to ignore crap. Independent authors will continue to call attention to it.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Terrence OBrien said:


> In 2013 consumers will continue to ignore crap. Independent authors will continue to call attention to it.


Hah! Well, some will ignore it, and others will fill their bellies. And nobody will win by making fun of the other.


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

Dalya, I have to say that the unicorn farting rainbows cracks me up every time I see it.

"We crouched patiently in the bushes for the unicorn to appear. We knew he was close; a short blat of flatulence brought the unmistakable odor of Juicyfruit to our nostrils."


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

DRMarvello said:


> Dalya, I have to say that the unicorn farting rainbows cracks me up every time I see it.
> 
> "We crouched patiently in the bushes for the unicorn to appear. We knew he was close; a short blat of flatulence brought the unmistakable odor of Juicyfruit to our nostrils."


I'll never think of that Skittles _"Taste The Rainbow!"_ slogan the same way again.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

George Berger said:


> I'll never think of that Skittles _"Taste The Rainbow!"_ slogan the same way again.


Speaking of goats, I was shopping on Amazon for a 2013 wall calendar and guess what one of the most popular calendars was? A calendar consisting of photos of goats in trees!! I think this will be your year, George. Goats are in!!


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## DRMarvello (Dec 3, 2011)

George Berger said:


> I'll never think of that Skittles _"Taste The Rainbow!"_ slogan the same way again.


Thanks, George. Now, neither will I!


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Victoria Champion said:


> Speaking of goats, I was shopping on Amazon for a 2013 wall calendar and guess what one of the most popular calendars was? A calendar consisting of photos of goats in trees!! I think this will be your year, George. Goats are in!!


I love goats!

Why I have the unicorn-rainbow-fart in my banner: It was the #1 search term for people coming into my website, simply because I put one graphic on one post. Seriously, #1. Higher than my name.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

Dalya said:


> I love goats!
> 
> Why I have the unicorn-rainbow-fart in my banner: It was the #1 search term for people coming into my website, simply because I put one graphic on one post. Seriously, #1. Higher than my name.


Lol, ouch.


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## A. S. Warwick (Jan 14, 2011)

I'm hoping some of those come about - mostly the shorter forms one.  I enjoy reading and writing short stories, novelettes and novellas so lets hope they do really well.


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## scottnicholson (Jan 31, 2010)

Terrence OBrien said:


> One good reason is if the retailer thinks curtailing freebies will increase cash sales. That would be determined by his own data and judgement.
> 
> I'd love to see a scatter graph from Amazon with monthly fiction sales on the Y-axis and monthly freebie downloads on the X-axis. That would just be a start.


I like your thinking, Terence, but I still maintain that Amazon does not look at ebooks like this. They have lost money on paper books, they have lost money on Kindles and Kindle Fires, and they have lost money on ebooks (remember back when they were selling them for $9.99 and paying the publisher for $15?)

I don't believe you can isolate ebooks for Amazon and think they are trying to break even on them. Ebooks are just a drop in a very big bucket. What is their big goal right now besides becoming a one-stop digital-content destination? Same-day shipping. I'd venture that they are putting far more resource investment into that than ebooks--we here on KB just tend to look at the ebooks pool, but Amazon doesn't. Ebooks were just a way to get portable shopping devices into tens of millions of hands.

Obviously, I am not in the Amazon boardroom, but their strategy doesn't seem at all consistent with maxing ebook profits. (Indeed, right now in Germany they are blowing out their own imprint titles at 99 cents and seizing their own bestseller list...)


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Drama will be back, with humans instead of fairies, elves, werewolves, etc.  It has been awhile since in-depth drama about a character and his/her struggles/successes has been hugely popular, but it once was. I think people will be ready for that again.  A story that makes them think, pushes boundaries (I don't mean only sexual, although that could be part of it), and makes them feel. A character that lives on in their head for months. At least, I sure hope so. I love the drama genre and I write it.  

OH, and people will abruptly stop using "SQUEEEEE" here and other places on the internet. It grates on me like nothing else. Men using it sound like little girls and women using it? Well, SQUEEEEEE sounds like rodents getting their tails snapped off in a trap or that acid is being sprayed in their eyes.  Or, like a baby pi*sing their diaper. It does NOT sound excited or happy. Say it once. You''ll see what I mean.  Enough already with the SQUEEEEE!  I BEG YOU! Please, please, please.


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## David Kazzie (Sep 16, 2010)

I think self-publishing will continue to gain traction as a totally legitimate way for authors to fail. 

Seriously, I think you may see so many authors who struggle to make any headway self-publishing, that you see a segment swing back to try and pursue a traditional deal. Or give up writing completely. Had traditional publishing continued on its path in a world where KDP never happened, I suspect many writers (maybe some of you, I know I thought about it), would have given up. 

But then KDP came along, and those writers found a second wind. But for every Hugh or Bella or Courtney, there's a hundred or a thousand who didn't succeed with KDP either (and until Select saved my book, that's where I was headed), and where do they go now?

It scares the bejeezus out of me that I had to get SO lucky with KDP Select in January for my book to take off, despite even having a pretty solid "platform". I love the manuscript I'm writing now, and it scares me to think I could publish it and then look up a year from now to discover it crashed and burned the way The Jackpot did, but with no KDP Select white knight to come along to its rescue. 

If there's a path via traditional publishing (and admittedly, I do have an agent, so this may grease the skids for me a little), I may pursue that first. Not that I won't self-publish ever again, but as long as traditional publishing remains an option, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

MegHarris said:


> I have an iPhone and read on it all the time. It's actually replaced my Kindle to a great extent, simply because I always have it with me. I suspect that any serious reader who has an iPhone or an iPad probably does likewise. I could certainly be wrong, though.


My 72 year old mom is an RN who mostly looks after premature infants, which involves a lot of sitting around waiting for alarms to go off. She gets a kick out of reading on her iPhone on the job, on the sly.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

David Kazzie said:


> I think self-publishing will continue to gain traction as a totally legitimate way for authors to fail.


My concern with trad publishing deal even now David is where will they be pushing my books? Five years ago I could have said Waldenbooks, Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Chapter 11, Indies etc. Now most of those are gone, B&N is struggling more than it should with the competition wiped out and Indie Bookstores are drying up. What does that leave? Online venues most of which I can do myself. Though I would love to get my hands on a great publicist.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

Wansit said:


> My concern with trad publishing deal even now David is where will they be pushing my books? Five years ago I could have said Waldenbooks, Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Chapter 11, Indies etc. Now most of those are gone, B&N is struggling more than it should with the competition wiped out and Indie Bookstores are drying up. What does that leave? Online venues most of which I can do myself. Though I would love to get my hands on a great publicist.


Astute observation.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> My concern with trad publishing deal even now David is where will they be pushing my books? Five years ago I could have said Waldenbooks, Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Chapter 11, Indies etc. Now most of those are gone, B&N is struggling more than it should with the competition wiped out and Indie Bookstores are drying up. What does that leave? Online venues most of which I can do myself. Though I would love to get my hands on a great publicist.


Indeed.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Dalya said:


> I love goats!
> 
> Why I have the unicorn-rainbow-fart in my banner: It was the #1 search term for people coming into my website, simply because I put one graphic on one post. Seriously, #1. Higher than my name.


Don't feel bad about that. The No. 1 search term for my website is "Strunk White fanfiction sex" and several variations thereof.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

CoraBuhlert said:


> Don't feel bad about that. The No. 1 search term for my website is "Strunk White fanfiction sex" and several variations thereof.


That is incredible! Someone once searched for _breathing dead lizard parts_ and ended up at my blog.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

David Kazzie said:


> I think self-publishing will continue to gain traction as a totally legitimate way for authors to fail.
> ....


LOL!!!! The disillusionment comes within months rather than two years after acceptance of manuscript.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

> I don't believe you can isolate ebooks for Amazon and think they are trying to break even on them. Ebooks are just a drop in a very big bucket. What is their big goal right now besides becoming a one-stop digital-content destination? Same-day shipping. I'd venture that they are putting far more resource investment into that than ebooks--we here on KB just tend to look at the ebooks pool, but Amazon doesn't. Ebooks were just a way to get portable shopping devices into tens of millions of hands.
> 
> Obviously, I am not in the Amazon boardroom, but their strategy doesn't seem at all consistent with maxing ebook profits. (Indeed, right now in Germany they are blowing out their own imprint titles at 99 cents and seizing their own bestseller list...)


I don't think amazon is trying to break even on ebooks. I think they are trying to make a profit. I disagree with the idea that they don't make money with ebooks. If there is some documentation that they haven't made money on books or ebooks, I'd sure like to see it.

I agree ebooks are just one line of goods. That applies to everything they sell.

I agree they are putting resources into same day shopping. Ok. What does that have to do with ebooks? They are spending a lot developing one day shopping, so they have decided to lose money on books? What is the connection?

In terms of profit maximization, a firm tries to max total profit within a chosen set of risk parameters over a given period. Looking at one line of goods tells us little unless we look at the total operation and know the time frame selected for the profit model.

They don't call me either.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Shawn Inmon said:


> It's completely anecdotal, but my experience is exactly the opposite of this. Almost everyone I know with an iPad reads on it. And, although they have the Kindle app on it, they often get stuff from iTunes instead.
> 
> My only prediction is that Apple will be more appealing to authors in December '13 than it is now. That feels right to me.


I agree. The younger set also reads on their iPods.

I predict:

1) Kindle will lose more market share as other ereaders (and stores) pick up on ebooks in other countries. 
2) More publishers will offer contracts to self publishers and do less business with those trying to break in via the slushpile. As I've heard through the grapevine one publisher said, "We'd rather find cars that are up and running on the highway, give them more gas and a bigger engine."
3) The ebook business will need to be run like a business. Self-publishers will need to put out professionally edited, formatted, and designed books to keep building their fan bases. Those that don't build fan bases will sink, those that do will get some sales out the gate and have a better chance of being discovered. Either way, it will be a slow go and real work.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi Lisa,

I agree completely. I'm not sure whether it will be a quick thing or slow, but yes, the trad publishers will start making more inroads into self plishers' looking I suspect for authors who have some success but not enough, and that they think they can give a huge sales boost to. I suspect the ranks of self pubbers will become their new hunting grounds, instead of the piles of manuscripts they surely get from people who haven't taken the risk. So my prediction is that this trend will continue through 2013, and on.

Cheers, Greg.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Publishing houses will only get interested in us once we're at the point it would be a bad deal to sign on.

Still, it would be nice to be asked.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Publishing houses will only get interested in us once we're at the point it would be a bad deal to sign on.
> 
> Still, it would be nice to be asked.


This.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Dalya said:


> Publishing houses will only get interested in us once we're at the point it would be a bad deal to sign on.


I think that's pretty much already the case, isn't it?


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## ToniD (May 3, 2011)

Dalya said:


> Why I have the unicorn-rainbow-fart in my banner: It was the #1 search term for people coming into my website, simply because I put one graphic on one post. Seriously, #1. Higher than my name.


That's some branding, Dalya 

I have no predictions but my 2013 strategy is to find/join/hang out at more sites targeted to my readers' interests. That, and finish my two WIPs in a timely manner.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

At least people are visiting Dalya's website. I haven't had anyone visit either of my sites from a search engine since _October_, and 98% of my traffic in December was hackers.

I predict nobody's going to visit my websites in 2013, either.


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## Steve Vernon (Feb 18, 2011)

I wrote a whole blog on what I was aiming for in 2013.

http://stevevernonstoryteller.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/one-thousand-e-books-a-month/

As for predictions - I'm not even sure what I'm going to do next - let alone what the e-publishing industry is up to.

My final strategy?

A determined dog paddle towards deeper water...


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

George Berger said:


> At least people are visiting Dalya's website. I haven't had anyone visit either of my sites from a search engine since _October_, and 98% of my traffic in December was hackers.
> 
> I predict nobody's going to visit my websites in 2013, either.


It's all about the SEO (search engine optimization) and giving the people what they want. They want the unicorns farting rainbows. Put one on there, put the phrase in the Alt Tags, in the title of the post, and within the body of the page. Guaranteed traffic.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

Dalya said:


> It's all about the SEO (search engine optimization) and giving the people what they want. They want the unicorns farting rainbows. Put one on there, put the phrase in the Alt Tags, in the title of the post, and within the body of the page. Guaranteed traffic.


I actually just went looking for your website, George (I figured I'd give you a pity Google - goodness, that sounded worse than it should have) and I couldn't find your website after a couple pages of search results so I had to get back to editing. I did find a few interviews bloggers did with you, however.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Dalya, I have _spectacular_ SEO.

Don't believe me? I'm the #1 result in Google for...










"pathetic sales figures". And have been for almost a year, now. #win


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

George, I only found your blog when I entered your name plus "pathetic sales figures" into Google. I guess you're suffering from the curse of a common name.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2013)

So 2013 is almost over, and I figure it's worth going back over our predictions to see which ones were off and which ones were less off.  What do you guys think?


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Ha! My predictions were hilariously bad. Gosh, I hope nobody listens to anything I say, ever.

In retrospect, I do miss Dalyimi's hairless pussy avatar.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

George Berger said:


> At least people are visiting Dalya's website. I haven't had anyone visit either of my sites from a search engine since _October_, and 98% of my traffic in December was hackers.
> 
> I predict nobody's going to visit my websites in 2013, either.


Nice to see a post from you again.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

Okay this is great. So here's my post on page 3:



> a lot of indies who started in 2011 and 2012, but never seemed to gain sales traction, will give up - their books will remain stagnant in limbo on Amazon


Yes, this is happening and probably always will.


> there will be ads in ebooks, probably starting at Amazon


Yes, but in 2014 but not on Amazon (yet?), so I was a year too early with this prediction but it is happening.


> itunes will help us non mac users out (They need to fix their pen name transparency flaw though before I'll submit to them.)


No, draft2Digital solved this problem, but iTunes is as proprietary as ever and probably always will be.


> the bottom will fall out price-wise in book cover design and formatting, those providing those services will drop out, which will leave a lot of indie authors struggling to find book covers and formatters (which leaves an opportunity for draft2digital and similar services to succeed)


Yes, I have seen prices decline because of many newcomers in the field, and have seen a less visible posting presence from some of those who used to be the primary cover providers.


> horror will make a sales comeback once every single horror writer stops writing zombie books and apocalypse fiction and gets back to more traditional scenarios like monsters and mysterious happenings in small towns (come back we miss you!)


No! This is pure gold because I am now writing a zombie book, and horror in general is still not selling as well as it could.


> Amazon will tighten royalties to foster exclusivity and we will have to make hard choices


Yes and No. Amazon opened new territories with higher royalties for those gone exclusive, but I think the hard choices part hasn't come into play and may not.

I won't be making any 2014 predictions except one: my zombie novel will sell better than the rest of my inventory.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

Book apps will take off and become a legitimate way to deliver books direct and build a platform.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

Well here's my predictions from Page 3:

_I'll give you a slightly different prediction. My thought is that sometime in 2013 Free will go bye bye. Aunty Amy is a capitalist pig, let us never forget that. And the reason she's so happy to sell books for nada and take no royalties, is that she's hoping the freebies attract more buyers to the kindle. However E readers are becoming more common, so are tablets, and that market is getting squeezed. There is only so much more revenue to be gained from selling extra kindles, while the loss from not selling books on a royalty basis will keep growing. And don't forget its not just all the free books they sell and don't get commission for that hits them in the pocket. There are also the other not free books by other authors that don't get bought that hit the bottom line.

So expect them to start restricting free. Maybe limiting the number of days, or perhaps the number of books by each author, or even perhaps the number of free sales per book.

Likewise if the ebook market does tighten a little, expect the competition to get harder. There may be restrictions placed on authors, things like sign with Aunty Amy or sign with someone else, but not both.

Either way I expect it to be an interesting year._

And as if to prove me right they put out Countdown! So did I call it or what?!!!

Anyway, it maybe a day early but my prediction for 2014, more of the same. Free will be squeezed further.

To add to that Konrath is predicting a hard time for B and N and the big five. He's talking about bankruptcies. My view is that they won't go to the wall. They'll come out fighting. So expect a lot more competition from the trade publishers in 2014. They'll go for greater volume in terms of numbers of authors and numbers of books published, and they'll start really hitting the ebook scene. Authors will be back listing as well in greater numbers than ever before. If you imagine these guys are going to just roll over and die, think again!

Cheers, Greg.


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