Posts

Showing posts from June 5, 2006

Comment: The Future of Bookselling: This I (and You) Believe

(Reader beware: this is a really long one.) Before I get to what you've said, I want to mention what's being said elsewhere. I promise I didn't plan this timing, but today's editions of The New York Times and Shelf Awareness both have pieces that pertain exactly to the subject(s) of today's posts. "Digital Publishing is Scrambling the Industry's Rules," trumpets the Times, but it's less about e-books than about first chapters posted online, reader talkback on author websites, and a couple of convergence projects combining print and digital mediums. There's the requisite acknowledgement that John Updike is horrified by all this (I missed his speech at BEA, and I can't say I'm terribly sorry), along with some other, more equivocal voices from authors and others in publishing about the potential implications. No booksellers or mention of the effect of this stuff on the means of distribution, but the article is relevant nonetheless. And alm