Marcus Dohle Says This is The Best Time for Publishing

Just attended an Author’s Guild presentation called The Best Time For Publishing. The speaker, Marcus Dohle, CEO at Penguin Random House, is enthusiastic! He says that these are the top six reasons:

1) The global market — the revenue pool of this industry is growing every year. Every year people are spending more on reading stories in long-form.

2) We have stable, robust, good business models for digital books and printed books.

3) We have reached a healthy split between physical books and digital books — physical books are still 80 percent are physical and it’s stabilized the entire book ecosystem.

4) Our addressable audience is growing. Literary rates are growing. It brings more readers into the ecosystem, Amazon has made it possible.

5) Since Harry Potter, readers are starting earlier and staying in the publishing ecosystem.

6)The audio book business is gaining prominence because people can do other things, like driver or exercise, while reading.

THE BOOK BUSINESS IS THRIVING. READING IS IN!

Some thoughts he shared:

• The industry is growing.
• Newly published titles have grown by 1000 percent each year. It used
• “Failure is part of our business model. It’s a creative business. It’s a risky business.”
• The bestseller business is not the primary business. It’s more about the long term. That’s the bread and butter.
• The success of a book is it’s random. There is no formula.
• Every new book is a new, creative, entrepreneurial venture. Every book is new.
• Only a few will make it to the top. Only a few will live forever.
• He calls agents and publishers angels.
• More and more books and authors have been able to be published.
• Authors should now work on their own follower-ship and building their own platforms. Those are the loyal audience who have an interest in the author.
• He admits, “We are drowning in ISBN’s” and that this hurts individual authors who must compete in the pool.

Genre’s That Are Doing Better Right Now?

• All categories are growing: Fiction, Non Fiction, Kids
• “You want to write your best story. Your finest story. The one you are passionate about. Write the story that you have in you … the quality will decide how successful the book will do. (We are there to help you perfect, shape and sculpt the book).”
• Do You Have to Have an Agent: “The agent will be helpful to shape the book, and shape the book proposal, and submit it widely. They know the editors and can submit to the right person.
• We have two and half million ISBNs every year so it is not possible for publishers to circumvent an agent and read the manuscripts.
• “We are not the only gatekeepers. You have Amazon, you have self-publishing, and small publishers who are thriving. So you have more chances to be published.”
• “I am optimistic.”