Disruption has three parts I believe: 1. incumbent, customers, and an offering that is high quality along a dimension valued by the customers. The dimension mi

Disruption has three parts I believe: 1. incumbent, customers, and an offering that is high quality along a dimension valued by the customers. The dimension might be: how entertaining, how educational, how clever, how escapist, etc. 2. entrant, different customers, and an offering that is crap along the above dimension, but better than nothing for their customers. They can't attract the incument's customers, so they instead attract people who currently have nothing (and to whom "crap" is therefore delightful). It serve them, but the incumbent can't, because it is cheaper and/or more convenient/accessible/customizable. 3. over time, the entrant improves. The incumbent's customers don't actually want perfection along that dimension, just good enough (like a small meal, you want it bigger, but eventually it's big enough, you are satiated, and you don't want any more). The entrant doesn't need to beat the incumbent; it only needs to be good enough. But it's also cheaper/more convenient etc, so the incumbent's customers switch: disruption. notes: Disruption might not happen, e.g. if the customers aren't satiated; if the entrant can't improve enough. In considering the dimension, it's important to consider not just want the company provides, but what the customer is trying to achieve (benefit, not feature). For indy writer's, the product seems to be clearly inferior. But it's cheaper and more convenient (on a kindle - though many books are too). It seems to have already found an audience who doesn't mind that (who is that audience?). Dedicated, intelligent people get better at whatever they work at; so it's reasonable to assume that these indy writers will improve. Is there any reason to think they won't improve enough to meet the needs of readers of traditional books? One issue is that they have no editor, and an editor can help tremendously. Not just in proof-reading, but also in direction, even plot ideas, character issues - and marketability. It's hard for the one person to be both creator and objective appraiser. But perhaps there could arise a new "indy editor" position? Or writers can persuade their spouse to be their editor (osc does this). Or (who knows) crowd source it (webpage?)/mechanical turk it. [EDIT But I cannot edit properly myself. It's just not possible. - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tonya-plank/meet-mega-bestselling-ind_b_804685.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tonya-plank/meet-mega-bestsell...] But note that it doesn't need to be as good as traditional books - it just needs to be good enough for what the market wants. That's enough to disrupt the incumbent publishers. I will note here that many page-turners that sold very well were decried by critics. It seems almost a truism that popular books are "trash" - til the author's dead, anyway. (Though I note that these sometimes are based on savvy market reading - for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardy_Boys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardy_Boys) Therefore, it seems quite plausible that indy writers can eventually become good enough to disrupt traditional publishers.