5 Predictions for Trade Publishing in 2016 : Publishing Technology

2. More pressure on the midlist as big publishers pursue "winner-takes-all" publishing Another trend we've covered on this blog this year has been how major publishers are reconfiguring themselves as media companies. This move involves publishers tweaking their business model so that their success depends on them successfully exploiting IP across multiple media and formats, not just books. An example of this strategy in action would be Penguin Random House Children's in the UK, which has just appointed Richard Haines into a new role to head up the development of new TV series from its picture books. The potential rewards of creating content that travels across the media are substantial for publishers, but so are the risks. And in order for their investment to pay off, publishers may find themselves even more reliant than ever before on a few best-sellers. There are already indications that this is starting to happen in publishing, with a small number of authors and brands accounting for large proportions of individual publishers' sales. By becoming more reliant on hits, publishers may well become more effective in exploiting those hits across media types. The fall-out may be, however, that some publishers choose to publish fewer books. Next year we will probably see at least one big trade publisher cut their mid-list, and the definition of mid-list will move so that it includes some authors who were minor bestsellers just a few years ago. It's then very possible that these authors will then go on to join the parallel ebook-led publishing market we identified in our first prediction.