A Speculative Look at the Publishing Trends of the Future

For years now, the book industry has been bound by a set of unspoken guidelines about how you publish and publicize, novel. A formula of sorts, that until recently, hasn't been challenged or subverted. With the recent release of "Life and Death", Stephanie Meyers gender-swapped re-imagining of her own book, I thought it would be a good time to explore alternatives to the standard. Starting with...

1) Book Reboots
While this may sound terrible to book lovers who are supremely fed-up with unoriginal movie-reboots, hear me out! This represents an opportunity, to "update" a story, lets say The Martian, with new (scientific) knowledge that might be available in the future. I mean lets say that in 50 years time, we discover some groundbreaking new ideas on space-travel, like the wormholes In Interstellar? Wouldn't we want to insert that information into new copies of an old bestseller for current audiences?

2) Multiple Renditions of the same Story
This is something that is sort of being done with properties such as Sherlock Holmes, But I personally think it could be expanded to include more mainstream literature - like Divergent or Harry Potter. Am I really the only one who would like to see what Suzanne Collins would've done with something like The Fifth Wave? Perhaps it might've been terrible, but if a select few authors are willing to open up their work, so that other writers are able to use their characters, like one would Cinderella - I think the results would be wildly entertaining.


3) The same story from your favorite character's POV
This one only really applies to novels written in first person, but I thought the concept of experiencing a tale like The Hunger games, from the perspective of President Snow was interesting. It would allow you to explore much more darker territory, and perhaps shade in some background information from the original trilogy. Like what sparked the revolution that led to the first Hunger Games, and what exactly the reaction to it was.


4) Different Versions/Cuts of a novel for separate Age Groups
Game of Thrones looks like great book, but unfortunately, seems to be too gritty/scandalous for my tastes, which leads me to the solution. Having different versions of a novel or series for separate age groups. So for example you could have an Adult Hobbit Trilogy, full of explicit content and graphic violence. Or you could have something like A Darker Shade of Magic, as a children's middle grade novel. The story and "soul" of the book would still be the same for the most part, authors would just edit out, be more subtle or elaborate on some of the mature themes in their work.

-The Question-

Did I miss anything? What trends do you think the future holds for novel publishing?