Predictions from Smashwords (they publish and distribute ebooks) via Galley Cat:
1. 95% of all reading will be on screens.
2. There will be fewer bookstores, though books will be more plentiful than ever before.
3. The entire book supply chain from author to customer will become atomized into its component bits. Value-adders will continue to find great success in publishing.
4. Most authors will be indie authors.
5. Successful publishing companies will be those that put the most net profit in the author’s pocket.
6. If the big six NY book publishers (the fat head) today publish 50% of what’s sold, and the long tail of thousands of indie publishers comprise the rest, then 10 years from now the fat head will shrink to 10% and the long tail will get both taller and longer.
6. There will be more published authors than ever before, and collectively they will earn record revenues, yet individually the average “published” author 10 years from now will earn less than the average “commercially published” author today.
7. 10 years from now, we will all be authors, publishers and booksellers
8. Digital books will most commonly be referred to as “books,” not ebooks.
9. For those who still call books ebooks, it’ll be spelled “ebook,” not E-Book or e-book. Who today still calls email E-Mail?
10. Authors will write for a global market.
Sigh…
While much of this may be plausible, #7 is the kind of absurd “everybody else is just like me” generalization that inclines me to dismiss the whole shebang. “We all” will not ever be authors and publishers and booksellers, because a healthy chunk of “we all” have better things to do. (I suspect this “industry insider”–I just love that term–thinks that “we all” write blogs, even though 95% of all blogs are abandoned shortly after they’re started.)
Regarding all predictions 10 years in the future
Where is my hovercar?