Friday, June 19, 2009

Writing is Hard: The Future of Publishing

JA Konrath has an excellent post on possible futures of the publishing industry. According to him, it's all based on whether or not publishers learn anything from the music industry's failure to adapt to the Digital Age. Though I'm usually wary of comparing strategies from very different industries, Konrath knows way more about this stuff than I do and I don't see any point in his argument that doesn't make complete sense.

Boiled down, his main point is:
The rules of supply and demand don't work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don't fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience.

If there were a central hub, where you could easily search for ebooks and get them at a reasonable price, there would be no need to pirate books.
But there's a lot more to it than that. Required reading if you're interested in publishing at all.

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