2010/04/26

The Future of Book Publishing

Bob Edwards had a very interesting hour on his weekend program for April 24-35, devoted to the future of publishing.  His first guest, Richard Nash, made the perceptive observation that, unlike the open, MP3 standard for music, book publishing is still a long way from settling on a common distribution platform.

Musicians can retrench themselves as live performers, rather than studio artists, about which there is a fascinating article in today's NYT.  Novelists do not have that option.  They must be compensated for their texts, and I think that a proprietary format for copyrighted works will be unavoidable.  IMO Adobe is well-positioned with its PDF format, but Apple has set it's face against Adobe., with the new iPad being incompatible with Adobe's Flash.  Time will tell.

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