What I’m Writing Today, Is That What We’ll Be Studying Tomorrow?

by Joel Friedlander on April 1, 2011 · 5 comments

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Wouldn’t it be great if authors and bloggers could write today about what’s going to happen tomorrow? Talk about a competitive advantage! Then we wouldn’t have to settle for reacting to sudden changes by slapping ourselves on the head and thinking, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that!”

But is the future a complete mystery, or can we make some educated guesses about where things are heading?

Yes, I think we can. Here are some surprising news items that—I predict—will soon rock your world:

  1. Publishers decide that they owe everything to authors, and immediately reverse normal royalties so authors now make 90% instead of 10%.
  2. Consortium of Google, BISG and Nintendo announce a new ebook format, Oh!Pub, that allows you to format your ebook quickly and easily, incorporating all types of fonts, layouts, runarounds, ghosted images, full color and multi-media executed through a 3 button interface that your 9-year old daughter can teach you in about 10 minutes. Plus, you can now self-publish from your Nintendo DS!
  3. Paper prices plummet precipitously, profiting publishers pandemically!
  4. Adobe slashes prices on CreativeSuite to $49.99, saying “It’s time we paid back all those creative professionals we’ve been making money from all these years. And you know what? If you can’t afford $49.99, we’re going to give it to you for free.”
  5. Smashwords founder Mark Coker, after choking on a stray bit of pork shoulder, goes vegan, changes the name of his ePub conversion engine to “The Juicerator” and announces, “The era of the $35 ebook cover is over.”
  6. Mike Shatzkin attends an event by Seth Godin and decides from now on to keep his blog posts to 250 words at the most, and his blog traffic soars.
  7. Chris Brogan takes a week off from blogging, and is found at a local airport disheveled and disoriented, mumbling into a Starbucks cup. Luckily, a maintenance man loans him an old Dell laptop, and Chris seems to be coming around nicely.
  8. Lightning Source announces a breakthrough in digital color printing, pricing its full-color books 40% below black and white. In another blockbuster move, LSI announces that all books will now come with covers that match the contents.
  9. Seth Godin attends an event by Mike Shatzkin, and decides he really needs to go into much more detail in his posts, and his blog promptly dives to an Alexa ranking of 1,456,923.
  10. RR Bowker, declaring an end to the war on self-publishers, drops the price of single ISBNs to $.99, saying, “Now that our cash on hand has reached $4.3 billion, we decided it’s time to give back to the people who made it possible.” Fine print on the announcement, however, indicates the discount will only last until midnight, April 1, 2011.

Happy April 1!

Photo by hbp_pix

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    { 5 comments… read them below or add one }

    Michael N. Marcus April 1, 2011 at 3:37 am

    Here’s my big 4/1 news: http://www.free-press-release.com/news–wally-cleaver-s-grandson-to-star-in-comedy-movie-aimed-at-baby-boomers-1301653682.html

    In other news (no foolin’), I start on Medicare today, and my funny book just became available in Kindle and Nook versions. The conversions were produced by http://www.iBookit.com — and I highly recommend the company. The company is good, fast, responsive, and reasonably priced.

    Michael N. Marcus
    http://www.BookMakingBlog.blogspot.com
    http://www.Self-Pub.info
    –Create Better Books, with the Silver Sands Publishing Series: http://www.silversandsbooks.com/booksaboutpublishing.html
    –”Stories I’d Tell My Children (but maybe not until they’re adults),” http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981661750

    Reply

    Michael N. Marcus April 1, 2011 at 5:59 am

    OOOOPS. Sorry. The ebook conversion company is at http://www.ebookit.com

    Reply

    Allan Douglas April 1, 2011 at 11:17 am

    Very entertaining predictions… Thanks for the chuckle. I especially liked the book publishers deciding to reverse the royalty structure.

    Thanks!

    Reply

    Joel Friedlander April 1, 2011 at 11:20 am

    Allan, a guy can dream, can’t he?

    Reply

    Robby G April 1, 2011 at 4:14 pm

    That was a fun read, I must admit. Particularly about Seth Godin and Mike Shatzkin. Only if some of those came true… :)

    Reply

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