Monday, January 27, 2014

Dr. OZ Magazine Launch Set for Feb. 4


Dr. Oz magazine launch set for Feb. 4


January 27, 2014


Hearst's joint-venture magazine with Dr. Mehmet Oz , one of the biggest magazine launches of 2014, will debut on newsstands Feb. 4 with a respectable 66 ad pages in a 148-page issue.

The popular syndicated talk show host, sometimes dubbed America's Doctor, is the cover boy, as The Post first reported.

With the industry only slowly coming out of its long malaise, it may be the only big bet from a major publisher this year.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Amazon Launches Christian Imprint


Amazon Publishing launches Christian imprint

Amazon Publishing today announced the launch of Waterfall Press, a new Christian fiction and nonfiction imprint.

Waterfall Press nonfiction will aim to provide spiritual refreshment and inspiration to today's Christian reader, while the imprint's fiction will include stories in the romance, mystery and suspense genres.

2:19PM EST 1/23/2014


Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Facebook Losing Its Edge Among College-Aged Adults

From Digiday.com. Does this square with your experience?


Facebook Losing its Edge Among College-Aged Adults

John McDermott | January 21, 2014

You know that the “Facebook isn’t cool anymore” storyline has hit its pinnacle once the leader of the free world starts talking about it.

“It seems like they don’t use Facebook anymore,” President Obama recently told a group of millennials over coffee, according to The Atlantic . The “they” in question? Young adults.

New data obtained exclusively by Digiday shows that the president was not entirely wrong. Facebook’s penetration among U.S. college-aged adults (age 18 to 24) decreased by three percentage points to 88.6 percent in Nov. 2013 from Feb. 2013. Facebook — which initially became popular by solely catering to college students – remained the most widely used social network on campus, but it’s cool factor among college-aged adults has indeed diminished. Facebook did not immediately return calls for a comment.

The numbers, which are part of a larger comScore report to be released later this week, also point to which platforms have increased their traction with younger users. Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat and Vine all gained users over this time period. Snapchat’s reach among 18- to 24-year-olds increased eightfold, to 25.9 percent in Nov. 2013 from 3.2 percent in Feb. 2013. Vine — which was launched in late Jan. 2013 — grew like a weed over that nine-month period; its reach went from not even registering with comScore in Feb. 2013 to 25 percent penetration that November.

And there are plenty of other contenders vying for the social throne. Blend, a new social networking app entirely focused on serving college students, has attracted 75,000 daily active users just three months after launch, co-founders Matt Geiger and Akash Nigam told Digiday. Some of that growth can be attributed to the company’s promotional video of a University of Colorado party so debauched that it drew the ire of Bill O’Reilly.

What follows is a Digiday breakdown of social utilities that examines how popular they are among this age group and why:

Facebook (used by 88.6 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in Nov. 2013, down from 91.5 in Feb. 2013)
“’Young adults aren’t using Facebook’ is a fun story that some lazy people like to tell,” Jason Stein, president of social media agency Laundry Service, said. Still, there’s a difference between utility and appeal. Stein added that Facebook certainly isn’t cool anymore, but it has transformed into a useful Internet service like Google. Dave Marsey, evp at digital agency DigitasLBi, echoed Stein’s sentiments, saying that the popularity of Facebook’s photo features and Facebook Connect — an authentication system that allows people to use their Facebook information to create profiles on other websites — will keep young users locked in. “The degree and depth of their engagement, however, will continue to soften,” he said.

Instagram (51.5 percent in Nov. 2013, 44 percent in Feb. 2013)
Stein attributed Instagram’s success among young adults to the relative ease with which it allows them to express themselves. “It’s the visual version of Twitter. In particular for that age group, Twitter may be a little more uncomfortable,” he said. “Instagram is just photos, so it’s easier to express yourself than through copy.” Marsey said Instagram has tapped into millennials’ endless need to assert their individuality. “You can have two photos snapped from the same vantage point, but they’re different because of the filters and the blurring effects,” he said. Facebook owns Instagram of course, so its popularity ultimately benefits Facebook.

Twitter (43.7 percent in Nov. 2013, 40.1 percent in Feb. 2013)
Marsey said Twitter has caught on with college-aged adults because it allows them to comment on shows, concerts, parties and sporting events in real time. Stein said it’s popular, but used differently from adults and tech and media junkies. “Using it as a way to consume information but not necessarily outside of their peer groups,” he said. “There’s a lot of back and forth at messaging.”

Tumblr (35.5 percent in Nov. 2013, 31 percent in Feb. 2013)
Tumblr is slightly less popular than Instagram and Twitter because it’s a more laborious medium, Stein said. Rather than being solely for photos (like Instagram) or mostly text (like Twitter), Tumblr’s combination of text, GIFs, photos, links, audio and video makes it harder to master. “Instagram is lightweight in many ways,” Marsey said. “With Tumblr, you register and you have more possibilities, but you have to think a little bit deeper about.”

Snapchat (25.9 percent in Nov. 2013, 3.2 percent in Feb. 2013)
On the other hand, college-aged students in the U.S. are nearly four times more likely to be on Snapchat than the general populace, according to comScore, and that meteoric rise is almost entirely due to its emphasis on ephemerality. You Snapchat your friend, and then it’s (hopefully) scrubbed from the Internet. “The allure is the sense that it’s private and fleeting,” Marsey said. That kind of value proposition makes Snapchat’s recent security breach all the more glaring, however.

Vine (25 percent in Nov. 2013, NA in Feb. 2013)
Vine has quietly become popular in its short existence by appealing to college-aged adults’ creative drives and short attention spans, Stein said. (By comparison, only 9.7 percent of the total digital population uses it.) “Six seconds is just perfect in terms of the amount of time. It’s the 140-character version of video,” Marsey said about Vine’s popularity among young adults. “It’s the same thing I’d say about Instagram; it’s lightweight. It’s very easy and quick to do.”

Thursday, January 16, 2014

E-Books Not Replacing Print Reading

Here is a short excerpt from an article Pew published on the relative growth of e-books. To read the entire article, click here.


Most American adults read a print book in the past year, even as e-reading continues to grow


The proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions.

The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012. At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14% of adults listened to an audiobook.

Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits. Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% of readers are “e-book only.” Audiobook listeners have the most diverse reading habits overall, while fewer print readers consume books in other formats.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

2013 A Growth Year For Magazine Media Across Platforms

2013 A Growth Year For Magazine Media Across Platforms


January 9, 2014

2013 A GROWTH YEAR FOR MAGAZINE MEDIA ACROSS PLATFORMS

New York, NY (January 9, 2014) - The final numbers for 2013 indicate it was a growth year for magazine media across platforms. The preliminary 2013 results, reported by MPA- The Association of Magazine Media on December 30, 2013, have now been corroborated by the year-end magazine print ad page and iPad magazine edition unit results. An exclusive analysis conducted by MPA, using Kantar Media’s PIB data for magazine ad pages and their tablet edition ad unit data base, shows a 5% increase in the magazine media advertising “footprint” of print pages and tablet units.

For the full year 2013, tablet magazine advertising units increased 16% with print pages essentially flat at -0.2%. The total footprint of print pages and tablet edition units’ healthy 5% increase reflects a marked uptick. This data*, which analyzed the 69 magazine media titles that measure both print ad page and iPad unit advertising, affirms that 2013 was a successful year, with magazine media strongly resonating with consumers and advertisers.

Mary G. Berner, MPA’s president and CEO noted, “It’s gratifying to see these positive trends in magazine media. We look forward to lots of good news in the year ahead.”

A look at all PIB-measured magazines for print versions only reveals print ad revenue of $19.7 billion dollars, a 1% increase for 2013 over 2012. Print ad pages were slightly down (-4%) for the full year, however, it is important to note that this is an improvement over 2012 YTD, which showed an 8% decline in ad pages and ad revenue loss of 3% versus the prior year. Analyzing print magazines with full year information for both periods, a more accurate picture emerges. Print magazines’ full year data for both periods shows ad revenue climbed 3%, with ad pages flat at -0.7%.**

Print category gainers for 2013 include: “Food and Food Products” up in revenue (+6.7%) and up in pages (+1.2%), “Drugs and Remedies” up in revenue (+6.0%) and up in pages (+2.1%), “Home Furnishings and Supplies” up in revenue (+5.6%) and up in pages (+1.9%) and “Toiletries and Cosmetics” up in revenue (+5.5%) and up in pages (+1.2%).

The positive advertising trend was also supported by SMI Dataminer which reports agency spending on print magazines was up 9% through November 2013 – more than television (3%), newspapers (3%), radio (2%) and out-of-home (2%).

Additionally, the latest Fall MRI 2013 release shows print audiences up 1% and magazine media (print plus tablet) up 2% versus the Fall MRI 2012 study, with 5% growth among 18-24-year-olds. Tablet edition audiences increased an impressive 49% during the same time period. Circulation data also shows dramatic tablet edition increases, with the AAM reporting 85% growth for digital magazine editions in the first half of 2013 versus the first half of last year.

________________________________________

* Jan.-Dec. 2013 versus 2012. Tablet ad units are based on a study conducted by PIB using data collected by Kantar Media of the 69 magazine media titles that measure both print and iPad advertising.

**Note: An “apples-to-apples” comparison of 2013 versus 2012 will exclude publications with partial information for either year.
- See more at: http://www.magazine.org/industry-news/press-releases/mpa-press-releases/mpa/2013-growth-year-magazine-media-across-platforms#sthash.Z9kk0tjp.wpiss6so.dpuf

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Salem Communications Purchases Eagle Publishing

Salem Communications Corp. today announced the acquisition of the assets of Eagle Publishing, including Regnery Publishing, HumanEvents.com and Redstate.com, as well as sister companies Eagle Financial Publications and Eagle Wellness. The acquisition allows Salem to strengthen and deepen its presence in the conservative market.

"Eagle is one of the most influential companies in the conservative media space," said Edward G. Atsinger III, president and CEO of Salem. "Its addition to Salem brings together a unique portfolio of conservative media properties and fits with our strategy of integrating traditional media and new media assets all serving the same target audience. The opportunity we like most about this acquisition is that each of Eagle's businesses matches up so well with Salem's extensive media platform. With 102 radio stations and a dozen major national websites all targeting the conservative community, this provides a perfect marketing platform to promote Eagle's products to a wider audience."

"It is hard to believe more than 20 years have passed since I started Eagle Publishing," said Tom Phillips, owner and chairman of Eagle Publishing. "Our dedicated employees can be proud they built Eagle Publishing into a company that has helped shape American public discourse through hard-hitting news, dozens of best-selling books, popular political websites, profitable investment advice and leading-edge health solutions."

Salem's syndicated programming, radio stations and websites reach millions of listeners and readers across the country, while Regnery Publishing, RedState.com and Human Events provide conservative content to millions online and in print. Salem is known in the Christian market as the owner of self-publisher Xulon Press and several magazines, including Homecoming, The Singing News and Preaching. Salem also owns such sites as Crosswalk.com, Christianity.com and GodTube.com.

Regnery has published best-selling books by leading authors, including Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, David Limbaugh and Dinesh D'Souza.

Hardcover Sales Better than Softcover in October

Faith-based publishers reported a modest bump in hardcover sales for October, though net paperback sales fell by 32% compared to the previous October, according to the latest figures available from the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

Net paperback sales from religious presses fell from $10.7 million in October 2012 to $7.3 million in October a year later. That drop resulted in the total net paperback sales for the first 10 months of 2013 declining 4% over the same period in 2012—$106.9 million and $111.3 million, respectively.

Meanwhile, net hardcover sales from religious presses grew by 8.3% in October, with sales of $36.4 million surpassing October 2012’s $33.6 million. This growth helped to somewhat offset an overall downward slump in hardcover sales for the first 10 months of 2013, with year-to-date hardcover sales at the end of October down 6.6% versus the same period in 2012—$235.1 million, from $251.7 million a year before.

Religious presses’ net sales of all titles, including ebooks, shrank from $60 million in October 2012 to $59.7 million in October 2013, a 0.4% decrease. Total net sales from the first 10 months of 2013 fell by 3.7% compared to the same period in 2012—$462.5 million versus $480.4 million, respectively.

Religious presses’ e-books continue to show slight gains—$5 million in October 2013 versus $4.9 million in October 2012, a 1.8% increase, helping to boost e-book sales for first 10 months of 2013 to $52.4 million, a 2.5% increase over the $51.1 million sold in the same period of 2012.

With nearly 1,200 publishers reporting, AAP's Monthly StatShot report includes data from Crossway, Gospel Light, Moody Publishers, David C Cook, Thomas Nelson and Tyndale House Publishers, among others represented by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

Writing for Impact

Here is a nice testimony posted by a local author, Dr. Larry McCall, pastor of Christ's Covenant Church in Winona Lake and a BMH author.

Larry McCall

Jerry Bridges had a huge impact on me years ago when he encouraged me to use my word gifts by writing books. He said, "Larry, you'll have the privilege of being able to serve people who you haven't even met." I've heard a couple of stories in the last day or two that have been confirming Jerry's counsel. I thank the Lord for giving me friends like Mr. Bridges to encourage me along the way. And, I thank God for using these feeble efforts of mine in helping others reflect Christ in their lives and marriages.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Print Starts to Settle Into Its Niches

Here's a fascinating piece from the New York Times. This is a short excerpt -- to read the entire article click here.

Kevin Kelly is not a dumb guy — far from it actually. As the founding executive editor of Wired and one of the people who helped build The Well, among the earliest online communities, he has done a good job of seeing what is coming next for decades.

But last year, he had what sounded to me like a dumb idea. Mr. Kelly edits and owns Cool Tools, a website that writes about neat stuff and makes small money off referral revenue from Amazon when people proceed to buy some of those things. He decided to edit the thousands of reviews that had accrued over the last 10 years into a self-published print catalog — also called “Cool Tools” — which he would then sell for $39.99.

So, to review, his idea was to manufacture a floppy 472-page catalog that would weigh 4.5 pounds, full of buying advice that had already appeared free on the web, essentially turning weightless pixels into bulky bundles of atoms. To make it happen, he crowdsourced designs from all over the world, found a printer in China and then arranged for shipping and distribution. It all seemed a little quixotic and, well, beside the point.

Kevin Kelly self-published a collection of reviews accrued from a website over the years, and it sold extremely well.
Except the first printing of 10,000 copies, just in time for Christmas, sold out immediately, a second printing of 12,000 will go on sale at Amazon next week and a third printing of 20,000 copies is underway. So, not so dumb after all. . . At a time when e-book sales seem to be flattening, there is something to be learned from Mr. Kelly’s self-published curio. Print continues to be a remarkable technology, if not as lucrative as it used to be, with its own durable glories.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Recent Panic Has Calmed in Publishing

Recent panic has calmed in publishing

By DAVID L. ULIN Los Angeles Times

Toward the end of September, I found myself in a meeting room at Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York with planners from a variety of book fairs (Miami, Trinidad, Texas, Australia) discussing audience and cooperation and outreach. It was the morning after the Brooklyn Book Festival, which had drawn tens of thousands, and the atmosphere was upbeat, marked by excitement, even relief.

Economics remained an issue (how to attract and pay for writers, how to advertise and promote) but there was no lamenting, no sense that things might be shutting down. Rather, with a number of new festivals represented, the conversation was expansive, peppered with optimism about the future of reading and books.

This is the story, for me, of 2013: that there is no story, or more accurately, that the panic that’s defined publishing for the last several years has calmed. Yes, uncertainties linger — about the relationship between print and electronics, about how writers get paid in an increasingly digital economy — but there is also the sense that we are settling into a tenuous new balance.

In December, Matt Pearce wrote in the Los Angeles Times about online outlets (Pitchfork, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Inquiry) that have begun to turn to print; in November, the British market research firm Voxburner conducted a survey in which more than 60 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 preferred reading print on paper to pixels on screen.

Considered alongside information that e-book sales appear to have flattened, as Nicholas Carr has reported, at “a bit less than 25 percent of total book sales,” this suggests a more complicated story, in which it is diversity rather than dominance that resonates, and publishing starts to look more like an ecosystem than merely an industry.

What’s most compelling about such an ecosystem is that it is not generally top-heavy but bottom-up. It begins with independent bookstores, which have seen a renaissance of sorts. According to the American Booksellers Association, sales rose by 8 percent in 2012, and similar numbers are expected in 2013.

This may seem surprising in a landscape where Amazon’s recent announcement that it intends to use delivery drones qualifies as a buzzy story, but then Amazon has never been about book culture. Sure, it offers a way to get books fast when you know what you’re after or to buy a bestseller at a cut-rate price.

Most readers, though, want more than cheap books; we want conversation, community. Hence, Amazon’s purchase of Good Reads, for $150 million or so, at the end of March. And yet, this is where independent bookstores excel organically, in their relationship to neighborhood clientele.

“This bookstore was kind of a steppingstone to … integrate myself into the local community,” a customer named Jessica Brown told NPR in November, describing Seattle’s Mockingbird Books. There’s something touching about the interaction she describes.

Call it local, call it artisanal, call it slow reading: I call it a mechanism by which we are enlarged. That, in turn, goes back to why we read in the first place: not to be entertained or distracted but to be connected, to experience a world, a life, a set of emotions we might not otherwise get to know.

At the heart of this is, again, diversity — of voices, venues, points of view. That’s the promise of a digital universe, although a recent report from Digital Book World offers sobering perspective, noting that 19 percent of self-published authors “reported no annual income from their writing” and that as a group they “earned a median writing income of $1 to $4,999” — lower than their traditionally published counterparts, who “had a median writing income of $5,000 to $9,999.”

The good news is that, in a bottom-up infrastructure, independent publishers are increasingly able to break through. I think of D.A. Powell and Mary Szybist, both published by Minneapolis’ Graywolf Press, who won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award in poetry, respectively. I think of Pulitzer finalist Lore Segal publishing her new novel, “Half the Kingdom,” with Brooklyn’s Melville House, or Hilton Als, whose magnificent “White Girls” came out from McSweeney’s in the fall.

That’s not a new development; indies have taken advantage of territory ceded by the majors for nearly two decades, and this has really exploded in the last five years.

But in the context of 2013, with its relative (dare we say it?) stability, it feels like a bit of reassurance, the whisper of a new normal, in which there may be room for everything, after all.

Why Tablets Won't Replace PCs Anytime Soon

From Mashable.com:

The tablet has had a remarkable run the past few years. But it is important to note that in the majority of use cases tablet are not replacing PCs but rather are extending the life of PCs.

We know from our data as well as a number of other firms' research that over 90% of tablets sold today have been sold to existing PC owners. And in nearly every supporting data point I have, those tablets are being used to accompany the PC not to replace it. (By PC, I generally mean notebooks).

So it begs the question whether the PC-killing tablet is a valid narrative or not. I'd contend that this is not a valid narrative and, more importantly, it could affect tablet sales to a degree in 2014.

A key point about tablet sales is that the vast majority sold are 8" or smaller. Which means that the vast number of tablets bought by consumers are not even contenders to replace the PC. In fact, when you look at tablet usage data you notice that they are used heavier during the evening hours while PCs are used heavier during the day time/work hours.

Think of it this way: PC by day, tablet by night. Oh sure, lots of people use their tablets during the day for both entertainment and business reasons (e.g. sales people and other road warriors), but I think this sums up the use case for most tablet owners.

Now, if we acknowledge the point that the vast majority of tablets on the market are used in conjunction with PCs, then we acknowledge that the PC is still used and valued by a large number of consumers. If this is true, those PCs will still need to replaced. So the question then becomes: When will this happen and could it have an effect on the tablet market?

The evidence is clear that 2013 was the lost year for the PC. One of the steepest declines on record, as it has been a stable growth market since the early 2000s. We believe that 2014 could mark a turnaround for the PC sector and catch many by surprise.

Part of the logic for this is the number of PCs in the market being used that are 4 years or older. Depending on whose estimates you use, the number is around 300-350 million. A good percentage of these customers got away with not refreshing their PCs due to their tablet purchases. Those who have not refreshed their PC for school, work, home, etc., simply can't wait much longer. A PC refresh is coming and it could impact tablet sales.
The tablet/PC hybrid

A caveat to this thinking is that consumers will find the idea of a tablet and PC combined together as an attractive option. Perhaps when a consumer looks to replace their PC they will find something like Microsoft's Surface an attractive offering. Many in the PC ecosystem are hoping this is the case but I am still skeptical.

I think what corporate employees, small business workers, and even consumers want is the best PC for their needs and the best tablet for their needs. This means they will continue to buy two separate devices that are each best for all the things they want.

While I applaud the efforts of Microsoft, Intel, and others in the PC ecosystem to work to build 2-in-1 PCs and tablets, I'm not optimistic that they will appeal to the masses. I believe some segments of both business and consumer customers will gravitate to these form factors but I don't believe they will make up the majority of sales of either PCs or tablets.

I believe the market for PCs and tablets will swing like a pendulum. The years that PCs aren't being refreshed as much tablets sales will boom higher and vice-versa. For everyone who cares about hardware, from IT to the OEMs who make the devices, managing refresh rates and building products that take advantage of refresh years will be critical.

But of course truly innovative products and lower price points could produce a hot seller in either camp regardless of refresh cycles. Given the product maturity on the PC side, I think another breakout tablet is far more likely.

Ben Bajarin is Director of the Consumer Technology Practice at Creative Strategies, a strategy consulting firm in Silicon Valley.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Steve Laube Acquires Marcher Lord

Steve Laube, president of The Steve Laube Agency, has agreed to purchase Marcher Lord Press, the premier publisher of science fiction and fantasy for the Christian market. The sale was finalized Jan. 1.

A champion of the genre going back to his days as an acquisition editor at Bethany House Publishers, Laube said: “The plan is to continue with what Jeff started and release between four and eight new titles in 2014. I have long believed that this genre has been underserved in our industry despite its inherent ability to tell ‘Fantastic’ stories of philosophical and theological depth.”

Jeff Gerke is founder of Marcher Lord Press, which has a backlist of about 40 titles with many of them nominated or winning Christy and Carol Awards.

“I could not have found a better person to buy the company I started in 2008,” said Gerke, who will now focus on his own writing and his freelance editorial and publishing service business.

Laube will run the new Marcher Lord Press as a separate company from his literary agency. Founded in 2004, the agency (www.stevelaube.com) has four agents and more than 150 active authors with contracts for nearly 1,000 new books.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Crowdsourcing and Book Publishing

From BookBusiness:

The Learning Curve
By Ellen Harvey

Today readers have more power than ever. Not only are publishers turning to their audiences to fund major projects, but they also look to consumers for feedback and help in creating the next bestseller. It's called crowdsourcing, and it has been growing in popularity as social publishing sites continue to thrive. For example, on Scribd, readers discover and discuss books from a massive digital library of bestsellers and self-published works, while on Medium, shorter articles are published by users, collaboratively edited, and ranked by popularity. Both platforms allow users to make comments on the work. Crowdsourcing gives readers a voice, but it also creates a buzz for the author's work and an audience ready to receive it.

The latest crowdsourced project generating buzz is Walter Isaacson 's latest book on the origins of the personal-computing era. Over the weekend, Isaacson posted excerpts of his book on LiveJournal, Scribd, and Medium to gather reader feedback. Quoted in BloomsbergBusinessweekOpens in a new window, the Steve Jobs biographer says, "I got to the point of the book where people started using the internet to collaborate. It didn't take a genius to say, 'why don't I use the Internet to collaborate?'" So far the experiment has been a success with over 18,000 readers and 125 comments on Medium alone. Some of those comments are from individuals actually mentioned in the work, fact checking Isaacson's accountOpens in a new window.

A similarly ambitious project is Macmillan 's Swoon Reads, which has created a platform for users to post their manuscripts. In turn, readers and Macmillan editors can critique the works and vote for their favorites. And in 2013, Harlequin partnered with WattpadOpens in a new window to help host it's New Adult Contest, and selected six winners this December from over 600 manuscripts submitted via Wattpad.

Beyond the book, crowdsourcing and user-generated content is influencing mainstream media in important ways. Newsrooms look to Twitter for breaking news, magazines create discussions around hashtags that morph into print content, and cell phone videos bring us dangerous stories when a camera crew cannot.

Crowdsourcing is thriving, but when it comes to the book, most often one individual creates the content alone and then shares it for public critique. Few authors seek chapter submissions from their readers or even plot suggestions. But I suspect that with consumers' growing expectation of participation, this will begin to change.

Projects like J.K. Rowling's PottermoreOpens in a new window, an interactive online community that allows users to embark on their own wizarding adventures, and Sourcebooks' Put Me In The Story product, which personalizes bestselling children's books, are early steps in this evolution.

Considering it is New Year's Eve, I think it's fair that I make one prediction for the future. Although I think there will always be a place for the traditional novel, one that is written alone and read alone, user-generated content will begin influencing the format and content of books. Consumers are getting used to having their say, and I don't think that expectation will stop at the book.

Chip MacGregor's Biggest Publishing Stories of 2013

What were the biggest publishing stories of 2013?

December 31, 2013 | Written by Chip MacGregor

So we’re in a state of revolution in publishing — a season where everything about books is changing. The writing, the editing, the production, the marketing, the sales channels, even the way we read books is different from the way we did five years ago. In the midst of all that change, there has been a lot of debate over the state of the industry, with some people decrying the changes and other embracing them. Some folks (see the letter from Richard Russo that I shared on the blog last week) are worried about the decline of bookstores and the takeover by a handful of conglomerates. Others (see Konrath’s harangue via the comments section) are celebrating that power has begun to move from publishers and bookstores to writers. There are strong feelings on each side, and no doubt some truth to be gleaned from several sources.

In the midst of all the noise, I thought it would be good to review some of the biggest publishing stories of the last year (before we all start making predictions about what will happen in 2014).

Before I offer my thoughts, let me just state that I’m of the opinion there’s never been a better time to be a writer. There are more readers than ever before. There’s moire training available than ever before. The industry is producing more books than ever before. And the web has created more opportunities for writers than ever before. So consider me an optimist when it comes to the publishing future. With that in mind, here are what I consider the ten biggest publishing stories of 2013:

1. Flat sales for ebooks. While it’s true we’ve watched ebooks capture a huge percentage of the market over the past five years, the expected rise to a 50/50 split between print books and ebooks hasn’t materialized. Instead, ebooks make up about 20 to 23% of all books sales… and that number is pretty flat, and has been flat all year. I don’t see this as either good nor bad — it’s simply the market revealing itself. Ebooks have basically replaced the mass market book section.

2. The resolution of the DOJ court case with publishers. The publishers all capitulated and gave up on agency pricing, settling before the government’s case could go to court. Apple stayed in there and fought, but lost in a big way. This is significant because it lead to…

3. The dropping price of ebooks. One of the biggest stories for everyone in publishing has been the drop in ebook prices. It’s clear there’s roughly a $5 price point that is hard to exceed except for bestselling authors and in-demand titles. That has meant less earned income for authors and publishers. So while there’s more opportunity than ever before, the chance to make a good living at art is as hard as it ever was. And that’s significant because…

4. Advances continued to drop. The days of an author living from one advance check to the next came to a screeching halt for all but A-level authors. Everybody is saying, “Twenty is the new Forty,” and soon we’ll see “Ten is the new Twenty.” Because of this we’ve seen…

5. A huge change in the role of agents. There are fewer agents than there used to be, and that’s largely because the industry has given more freedom to authors to take their works directly to readers. Of course, most successful authors continue to rely on an agent for introductions, contract negotiations, book sense, and career advice, but few new agents are succeeding, and most of the old-time agents have radically changed they way they do business. One area where they are focusing is…

6. The rise of hybrid authors. Authors are finding they need to self-publish some titles, work with a small press for others, and work with a big publishing house for still other titles. The fact is, successful self-published authors are moving to traditional publishers. This is one of the most under-reported bits of news in the industry, probably because indies rule the blogosphere and tend to be negative toward legacy publishers. However, take a look around and you’ll see the most successful self-published authors are all finding the marketing and reach of a traditional publisher will make them more money. This is particularly true as we’ve seen…

7. The incredible growth of genre fiction in ebooks. It used to be that category fiction took a backseat to literary fiction with most readers. But a quick look at any ebook bestseller list will reveal that genre fiction is where all the money is being made digitally. That has been fueled by…

8. The rise of tablets. Dedicated e-readers are in trouble (the Nook is a wonderful device, but it looks like its days are numbered, and the Kobe reader never had any days to number), as the iPad and other tablets offer computing, games, and videos, as well as serving as an e-reader. Of course, the good news is that means the base of readership is broadening, as more and more tablet owners download books to read. And there will be more books to read than ever due to….

9. Google Books defeating the Author’s Guild in court. Love it or hate it, Google’s victory in court was a smack in the face to the Guild. After years of hearing how Google over-reached and authors everywhere were being cheated, the courts came down firmly on the side of Google, declaring it fair use. And I have no idea how that leads into my last point…

10. The merger of publishing houses. Penguin and Random House are becoming “the Random Penguin.” (Okay, not really, but that’s better than “Penguin Random House,” which doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.) Rumors have HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster merging, possibly in 2014, and numerous mid-sized houses being gobbled up by the former Big Six.

Oh — and the one big publishing story that I couldn’t fit in here, because it doesn’t seem like a publishing story, but I think every writer needs to consider, is the implementation of Obamacare. You may like it or hate it, but the fact is it has finally opened the door for writers to purchase their own health care, without having to rely on a spouse to provide it, or risk going without insurance. I think this is going to lead to a bunch of new writers taking the plunge, and will be a boon to artists around the country. So while my fellow Republicans are right now crossing me off their Christmas card lists, I’m happy to see this change come about. No, it ain’t perfect… but it’s a heck of a lot better than the “nothing” we had in place for writers before.
- See more at: http://www.chipmacgregor.com/blog/the-business-of-writing/what-were-the-biggest-publishing-stories-of-2013/#sthash.dKTvlEwM.RZO0vp1c.dpuf