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Totally Believable Publishing Predictions for 2011

My predictions are based on extensive eavesdropping at my local Starbucks. Additional data supplied by that one night when I might have accidentally taken too much cough medicine before bed.

1. Barnes & Noble and Borders will merge after all and call their new stores “Noble Borders.” This will result in the closing of nearly half of existing stores, leaving thousands of bookish employees out of work. In an unrelated story, there will be a significant rise in the literary quality of panhandlers’ signs.

2. Amazon will release a Kindle Reader app for Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii, Casio digital watches and the Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus Silver Edition graphing calculator.

3. J. K. Rowling will publish a writing craft book titled Hairy Plotter – The Challenges of Keeping Track of Everything You’ve Written Since There’s No Such Thing as Google Search for Your Pensieve, then accidentally sue herself for brand infringement when she discovers it while browsing for new books on her Nintendo Wii Kindle Reader.

4. The infinite monkeys/typewriters project will finally yield a Shakespearean play to surprisingly little fanfare. Probably because the play they come up with is Titus Andronicus.

5. James Cameron’s new book publishing subsidiary, King of the Written World, will introduce the first 3D e-reader, the Eye-3 (aka: the Eye, Eye, Eye). “The words literally pop off the page for a more interactive reading experience!” [Note: Early tests with the device will reveal that the words don’t literally pop off the page at all. It’s more of a figurative popping, though just as painful.]

6. The collaborative memoir, We’re Not the Same Person, by Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera will become a surprise bestseller, only to be knocked from the top spot by the release of their followup, Okay Fine. We Are.

7. The Internet will become self-aware and tell Google to “Go search yourself!”

8. James Patterson will finally admit that he’s actually triplets.

9. Sarah Palin will publish her first work of fiction. Wait, it’s just a re-release of her memoir. Never mind.

10. Bono, The Edge and Julie Taymor will announce their next Broadway collaboration – a musical adaptation of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. Unabridged. With acrobatics. And a new U2 song, “I’ve Lost My Place (In More Ways than One).”

11. James Franzen will self-publish a children’s picture book, a cautionary tale titled, Don’t Let Your Glasses Out of Your Sight.

12. I will write more than one post a month for this blog.

Trust me on these. Except maybe that last one.

6 Comments

    • Steve P., ND

      Thanks, Jaco. I’m looking forward to “Hairy Plotter” almost as much as Stephen King’s followup to “On Writing” – “I Was Just Kidding About the Adverbs.”

      • Jennwith2ns

        Completely great blog. H/t to your cousin JB. I feel the need, however, to mention, Mr. Fiction Editor, that it’s J.K. Rowling–without an “s.”

        Just saying.

        (I’m great at first impressions.)

        • Steve P., ND

          Yes. I knew this. That extra “s” is what we in the business call a typo. I always like to leave a few in the blog just so people have something to do if the narrative begins to bore them. This is my gift to you.

          Since you won this round of “Find the Typo” I’ve already fixed it. There can be only one winner. Prize? I hadn’t thought about that. I could send you the extra “s” if you like.

  • Lori

    I recently discovered you via Twitter, Stephen. Love this post, subscribed! “Go search yourself!”
    So funny, so on point, so smiling right now.
    Looking forward to your prediction for more posts in 2011. Thanks for the brain candy, yum.
    🙂