The publishing world is changing, but there is one big dog that has not yet barked - The Shatzkin Files The Shatzkin Files

The reduction in ebook sales of hot new titles could be starting to affect future deals - one agent told me unambiguously that it is visible - which would be the next step in the indie vision of how publishers disappear. Publishers base their advances on revenue expectations, which, for ebooks, might now be diminishing. If authors can't get the same big advance as they did before, might they prefer to go it alone and take the bigger share of ebook revenues they can (still) get with a do-it-yourself approach? Obviously, for some, as the equation shifts, that could happen. But, at the same time, we're seeing print book sales, and - at least for the moment - print book retail shelf space, holding their own. As long as that's true, publishers still have a vital role to play. As long as the proposition "we put books on shelves" has value, so do publishers.