[toyg]

But i think the point is that you have to outsource it. There is no space for you "outsourcing the outsourcing" to publishers, because there is not enough fat in the market for them to survive anymore (or so they say). Authors will increasingly have to take charge of managing their creations, like it happened with musicians.

[dilemma]

I used to think so, but in industries where supply is abundant, publishers provide not only "post-production", but distribution and more importantly marketing and branding - social proof. The biggest benefit may be setting oneself apart from the fray.

Source: I'm a smalltime author and publisher.

[toyg]

If publishers die, such social proof will simply come from other venues, be it dedicated marketing outfits or some sort of community (goodreads etc). In music, major labels are increasingly irrelevant.

[dilemma]

And then successful dedicated marketing outfits starts vertically integrate to beat out competition, offering editorial services, distribution, etc.... becoming a publisher.

What will happen is that some publishers fail to adapt to a digital economy and are replaced by upcomers who are perfectly adjusted to it. Publishing companies will not disappear because they fill a function in the industry.

[toyg]

A "publisher" in the digital world will be a very different beast and it will be hard to call it such. Most of it will likely be automated. Their core-competency might not even be book-publishing.

Are Amazon and Netflix "studios"? No, but they do produce high-quality video content. Is Louis CK a "studio"? No, but he's producing a TV series.

Publishers' functions (content editing, packaging, distribution, marketing and merchandising) are being split and reorganized in different ways. Verticals built on the new production chain will look very different from current publishers.

[ghaff]

>Are Amazon and Netflix "studios"?

They pretty much are in today's sense of "studio." The days of MGM having a bunch of actors under contract and cranking out movies on their backlots and sound stages is pretty much ancient history. Studios are mostly the moneymen for independent production companies--which is the case whether the studio's name is Fox or Netflix.

[mcguire]

Exactly.

[dilemma]

A computer can process text, it cannot read and it cannot write because it cant think. There is no automating taste.

Publishers' function will be close to exactly the same, just built on top of a digital infrastructure and organization.

Netflix and Amazon are studios when they do the same work as a studio.

[toyg]

> There is no automating taste.

Recommendation engines are real and are improving. Spellcheck fixes typos and some decent neural-network training can be pushed into literary land (already MS Word "dares" here and there, and that's not even centralized). Would a "digital editor" be foolproof, or particularly good? No, but it would likely do a lot of the grunt work fairly reliably, so you can shrink the workforce or increase output (more books, argh). When I hear of the "slush pile", I cringe. That's a job for a machine and not a very smart one at that.

> Netflix and Amazon are studios

No, they are content distributors who happen to produce content because of supply failures up the chain. The middlemen upstream are failing to see opportunities, so downstream is taking charge. The minute this changes, they will go back to being content distributors because that's what they do.

[dragonwriter]

Amazon and Netflix both operate studios. I think in both cases as distinct subsidiaries -- e.g., Amazon Studios.

[lmm]

Managing production and outsourcing is its own skillset. Division of labour between a specialist "producer" and the person who does the actual writing ought to make sense in terms of efficiency.

[toyg]

Yes, but nowhere is set in stone that such skillset cannot be automated (and hence more efficient, in aggregate). Webapps will appear that will manage such production, once demand emerges, not unlike they appeared in the music business.

[lmm]

Automating the production of a book might be as hard or harder than automating the writing though.