Comments | blackflame2180: Future of the publishing industry

blackflame2180

Future of the publishing industry

Jan 27, 2011 19:19

I originally wrote this as a comment for another site, but it was too long for short-comment. But, I know enough people who like books to be interested in this, what with live-journal and crossposting to facebook.

In the future of e-publishing, electronic publication of long-form fiction will be as easy as blogging-- point, click, and port your ( Read more... )

Comments 2

greymaiden January 28 2011, 02:13:48 UTC

By "future" you mean "a hundred years after the final death throes of the publishing industry that fought until their dying breath to prevent this from happening," right?

blackflame2180 January 28 2011, 04:55:21 UTC

Except that this isn't something that can be prevented now.

You can already publish with Amazon for free. Publishing with Google is likely to be free. Publishing with Apple is free.
Really, all that's missing is good software to read this material with, and decent hardware. That will be addressed by tablets, especially when the tablet market starts making offerings below $200 bucks.

The POD machine is also here, and will only get cheaper (google the Espresso Book Machine). The EBM prints for a penny a page-- and that's first gen technology on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Seriously-- that can and will be improved upon.

Effectively, the assertion I'm making is that the technology will drive the market, not the other way around. We're on the verge of a singularity in the publishing of the written word-- technically, we're in the middle of it. It's just a natural extension of electronic text and printing.