I think there's a great flurry of writing out there, published by traditional publishers and self-published. My real concern looking ahead is about reading and book buying. So many want to write and to publish books but do as many want to read. And buy books? Those who write need to be as willing to read and buy the beautiful writing of others.
I look ahead and I see: no more big box retailers: in Canada that means Chapters/Indigo. I do see savvy independent bookstores hanging on. Not so many but those that can manage to make a place for themselves in a niche market. In the present, I think it's crucial that indie booksellers let readers know that you can order online from them rather than Amazon. Everyone: you should do this! My local indie has started advertising this fact and has gotten even more obscure things to me in a week or less. That may not be quite Amazon speed but after reading about Amazon's treatment of its warehouse workers I won't buy from them. Lord knows, I'm tempted. By their prices and their speed. But every time I think about it, I imagine the desperate, overworked, possibly injured warehouse worker who is given x number of seconds to retrieve my order. Or else. Read George Packer's New Yorker piece about Amazon for details ...
My prediction: Amazon will still be around having knocked off the big-box store competition. Their prices will slowly rise because they have no competition. They will no longer use pesky humans who get tired and injured in their warehouses but drones and robots.
People will read on e-readers and pads but not always.
My hopeful prediction: that people will (re)train their brains to read in two ways: in the scattered, link-y way in which we read online, and in the deeper substantive, extended way that most longer form literature invites.
Here's an article about the difficulty of managing this. A researcher on reading practices who loses her ability to read long-form and deeply but gains it back.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...8028d2-b5d2-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html
Maybe there'll be not just writing conferences and retreats but reading retreats and readers' retreats. No online access. Somewhere beautiful and remote. Where you can reconnect to the world around you and the world you can recreate through reading a book.
(I'll try to get back on here but am in transit!)