I was catching up on some TV viewing through the BBC's iPlayer recently, during my time off, and happened across 'Doctors To Be: Twenty Years On'. I only just remember (honest) the first programmes, I think (or repeats of them, perhaps). These follow-ups, charting 20 years of serious change in the National Health Service and looking at how the group of young med students ended up, got me wondering, idle... what will publishing look like, 20 years on... ?

So, I got thinking back to the TOC08 conference that I sent myself to, through Egg Box, as part of the Escalator Leadership Scheme run by Arts Council England, East... (and which I'll be off to again next year, because it was great)... and, to be honest, I'm not sure! I don't think anyone is. Many things are a-foot and a-changing... so, here's some wild speculation...

(And before I get going, here are some good places to look for what's going on, although many of you will know of them. And there are many more things to click through to from them...

future of the book
tools of change for publishing
publishing talk

now, onwards... )

With the decline in book reading, despite resilient sales figures for now, and the behaviours of the more screen-burned, less book-interested younger generation, what is likely to happen? And as the older business models start to crumble, or at least show their age, what will a future publishing house look like -- anything like they do today?

Well, I'm not an expert, but don't completely buy in to the doomsday 'complete death of the book as we know it' theory -- I doubt many do, deep down. Although forms of eBook do seem set to take over, or already have taken over, wherever convenience is a key factor in a purchase decision (e.g. one handy book reader device with multiple digital book files versus a sack full of a tonne of text books to take to school or court = no-brainer), I think there will always be a market for the 'traditional book'. Especially while the digital equipment set to replace it does not measure up in terms of reading pleasure...

But will it always be so? Will people always want to stock up their ever-smaller houses with piles and piles of old fashioned, pleasantly vellum-smelling books? Whether decorative, or as a testament (or reassurance for the less secure) of learning and accrued knowledge -- or aspirations towards it, at least -- will anyone see the point in bothering in the future... and what of environmental/waste concerns?

Perhaps books will become a more luxury, antique/decorative buy -- people may cling on to their very favourites, or bibles, say, as special purchases or lavish gifts, delicately put together for the mantlepiece, bookcase, other, but with newer purchases made digitally, as a tester? Or maybe books will feature more as commemorative purchases for content you enjoyed, or interacted with first, online... whichever way I look at it, a decline, in various ways, seems likely, but a retro 'real thing' fanbase seems likely to continue, as it has done elsewhere.

But will books be replaced by, say, the Kindle or Sony Reader? I actually think this is very unlikely. These devices seem attached to the, for me, rather quaint notion that there needs to be a 'separate' device through which to consume a digital version of the traditional 'book' -- that is, I see the Kindle and Sony Reader as rather too linear an idea; rather than a likely replacement, they feel like an almost nostalgic dead end.

What I mean is, in the long term, a barrier for these devices is the fact that they are 'one more device' -- it is far more likely that people are going to own more and more powerful, and smaller, portable PCs (or mobile 'phones?); single devices on which they will download and view all sorts of content: portable multi-media devices for journeying around with that will allow games, emailing, video phoning, music, books, films -- everything. Why, therefore, in the long run, would you want separate devices for each? So, the eBook as a digital software format, becoming more and more versatile and cross-media, yes, but hardware 'replacement' digital e-readers in their current imagining? No. They remind me of the older electronic word-processor machines: inevitably subsumed into a comparatively more versatile device -- the home computer. And look what is happening with mobile phones: the trend is towards further integrated single devices, not proliferation.

Is it more likely that digital book software -- rather than hardware -- will develop instead into some form of narrative gaming hybrid artform, with ARGs becoming the dominant form of entertainment and way of consuming narrative... something akin to the books imagined in the Harry Potter universe, and on from there... ? Could be, I think...

But what will publishers become in the meantime?

I'm still not sure. No doubt there will remain book-publishing departments, but they may begin to look a little like the vestigial wings on an ostrich, or perhaps decorative plumage, or ceremonial uniform; or penguin wings -- still useful (for swimming, balance...), maybe even relevant, but not in the ways they used to be. Either way, I think publishing houses will likely shift severely in their focus and emphasis. I can see a decline in simply 'book publishers'; a decline in companies selling solely, or predominantly, traditional 'books' as deliverers of content/narrative...

Instead, perhaps they may morph as producers, merging along the way with a new breed of literary agency, into variants of 'creative narrative content' companies (or departments within companies), or more general 'intellectual property' companies, or some such -- producers and providers, with writers/authors, of quality narrative/characters for cross-platform, genre-bending, cross-media delivery, with perhaps small, remnant book 'wings'... using and trading their historical legacies -- popular books, familiar stories, characters -- and strong brands -- and therefore good search ratings -- and positioning themselves as a beacon or stamp of authority and quality in an otherwise confusing, murky fog of web-based content...

That is, I can see publishers and agencies moving forever closer... and also computer games manufacturers, book publishers, film/TV production companies, perhaps even advertising agencies -- anything that requires narrative, believable characterisation, or creative words in some form -- merging; that demands for decent words, narrative, story-telling, what have you, will increase in ever-more web-focussed gaming, TV, film, publishing/production companies, while consumption of books as a form of entertainment declines.

Consider film -- more and more, authors don't get the big pay day until a book is made into one, and many are perhaps even writing with this as a hoped-for end product. I can see the 'book writing' phase of this process reducing and it simply becoming a matter of writers or authors, attached to, say, 'narrative production companies' or departments as a new form of staff writer, perhaps, producing the stoires and characters to feed a multi-media machine... but this is a long way down the line yet, I think...

But is this flight of fancy a positive or bleak outlook for writers/publishers? This is difficult to call, but, given that the web offers the opportunity to reach a huge number of people almost immediately, given the right idea -- one that captures the imagination in the right way -- then there's every likelihood of the former. There'll always be a demand for good content; for good, well-crafted literature, narrative, characters -- and in potentially many different new forms. And there'll likely always be a need for all the various tools in place at the moment in terms of crafting it. And, with demand, there will naturally be a lucrative way to supply. The trick will be not to get stuck in primordial delivery mud; the trick will be new ideas and experimentation; protectionism is likely to induce failure -- as many wise sorts have said.

So, what of us small independent publishers? Well, perhaps lapsing again into a hackneyed analogy might be OK, in the interests of keeping this 'readably' short... Consider the destruction of the big, old, and slow to adapt dinosaurs: after the metorite hit, it was the smaller, wiley, rat-like, warm-blooded mammals, or the birds, or the tiny insects or even single-celled life-forms -- those better suited to a new world -- that survived, adapted, diversified and now dominate... if we forget certain sea-dwellers... but, if they were in the depths of the dark sea, we could argue that this was a different environment -- say... law?

So, good news or bad news? Potentially both. But, 20 years down the line, it seems likely, even given our conservative tendencies in this country, that books, or consumption of what books currently offer, is likely, in large part, to have significantly altered... but I may be wrong.

Oh, and if we're to make the back to the future deadline, we need hoverboards and hovercars within the next 7 years... and we've missed time travel by 23 years...

Anyway, back to the telly-watching and time off...