I’m always going on about how the future existence of book publishing is guaranteed by the current ease of access to the business. You used to need a sizable pile of cash to finance your first books: now everything costs so much less (and happens so much more quickly), that these capital requirements have evaporated. The future publishing industry may not remain a business characterized by huge conglomerates: I suspect that the next decade may see them breaking up. Publishing is an inherently small-scale business, I contend. Here’s a perfect example of what I mean.
Publishers Weekly brings us an account of Tough Poets Press, a small press bringing back into print forgotten classics, using POD manufacturing and crowdfunding. Their books are available from Amazon.* They mention Kickstarter but I wasn’t able to find any Tough Poets books there, so I’m not sure how the deal works. Maybe you are promised a book in return for a certain level of support — which would make the whole thing even more analogous to subscription publishing.
It is, I have to confess, true that the publisher of Tough Poets Press does admit to not making huge profits, but as I keep saying people don’t get into this business because they are primarily motivated by money. And if they did they’d (mostly) be disappointed: there are lots of easier ways to make a buck. Few if any more satisfying though.
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* Though Amazon does have its own print-on-demand operation they are perfectly happy sourcing books from Lightning Source (part of the wholesaler Ingram) where the Tough Poets’ books are set up. Lightning Source print the book and package it in smiling Amazon cardboard, so that when you get the book it looks to you that it came direct from an Amazon warehouse.
Making Book 
One might compare the small publisher with the tabletop wargame industry. I am talking about, back in the day, Avalon Hill or SPI games, with mapboards and cardboard counters allowing you to invade Normandy or shove your panzers into Stalingrad. In the 1970s the hobby was popular enough that you could find these games in chain toy stores in the mall, and every largish city had one or two hobby stores with a better selection. The industry collapsed in the early 90s for reasons having mostly to do with distribution chains. The hobby hung on just barely. Then enthusiasts started pooling resources. You found groups of doctors and lawyers investing to found a small game development company, with the goal being to produce good games while hopefully not losing money, with the games distributed via the internet. Nowadays it is actually thriving, in a small-scale niche way. There are persons gainfully employed at a living wage doing this.
For book publishing, even if the wildest dreams of the self-published ebook crowd comes true, something like will continue. And this is the worst case scenario.
Good example. Nothing people want ever really goes away. I bet there exists a buggy whip manufacturer or two out there.
Given that buggies still exist, albeit as a niche product, one presumes that buggy whips are still being manufactured as well. Another example is detachable paper collars. You can still find those. Indeed, nowadays it is pretty easy, between the internet and the hobby of cosplaying. But I have a friend who has worn them, at least occasionally, for decades. Back in the day you had to know where to look, but they never stopped being manufactured.
Made of paper still? That is an impressive example of conservatism in product manufacture. I had to wear detachable collars at school, but that was a few years ago, and they were made of cotton.
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