This will be an ongoing series of posts, because it’s something I believe is about to demolish the traditional publishing industry — and who can sum up everything about an impending apocalypse within the scope of a single blog post?
Short version: Because they lend themselves more readily than books to digital form, music, movies, and television have been taking the lead in meeting the onrush of the Internet’s challenges to “old media.” All the controversy about digital rights management (DRM), purchasing vs. “renting” content, high-def vs. standard — that’s just the cowcatcher on the locomotive. But at least those industries are struggling to do something.
Publishing? Eh, not so much. “Books are different,” they say. “No one will ever read books in any form other than as printed matter. People like the feel of paper; they like the smell of it; they like the heft of the book in their hand.” And so on.
I bow to no one (as the cliché goes) in loving to read books. But I also have a clear sense of the wind rushing past the windows, and of publishing doing little to address the matter. (There are some significant exceptions, which I hope to cover later.)
For now, let me just plant the idea in your head. Don’t reject it without thought. Think about it. I’ll check in at some point over the next few days with a follow-up.
The year was 1990. I’d taken a leave of absence from work, and moved from New Jersey to Virginia, to 