The real new publishing: how interconnected ‘outsiders’ are setting the trends

Some of the most exciting, innovative publishing is currently being developed outside the traditional publishing ecosystem. New entrants are publishing and sharing ideas, stories and images across multiple platforms, from beautifully designed hardback print books, to personalised titles, ebooks, magazines, video, web, merchandise, podcasts, events and social media. In this setting, a book becomes one option among many, chosen when it is the most appropriate form: whether to display images and text in a tactile object, or because a book can so effectively mark a pause, a milestone reached. Sometimes, because a book can help these publishers reach different audiences and amplify different voices. For these emerging post-digital publishers, there is no ‘print versus digital’; no either/or – the two are companions and interconnected. This chapter investigates these emerging publishers, focusing on the ‘outsiders’. The primary research underpinning it comes from a study of more than 50 organisations and includes material from responses to an online survey and semi-structured interviews. Through case studies, it identifies and examines four emerging publishing trends: magazine publishers that also create books; spoken word and live events generating book operations (in a reversal of the book festival model); social enterprise and charitable publishing; and tech-enabled businesses. While there is a growing body of expertise and books analysing the indie magazine sector (Leslie, 2013; Jamieson, 2015; MagCulture, 2019), these do not focus on its move into book publishing. For the other trends, this is the first systematic consideration of these publishing phenomena.