The Future of Publishing

We are at a watershed in human history. Computerization is changing the world not just as dramatically as did the Industrial Revolution, but much more so—probably as dramatically as the invention of writing. For the computer is a greater advance in the handling of information than anything since the invention of writing itself. Information is now cheap, permanent, and infinitely interconnected.

What does this mean? I cannot begin to guess. For comparison, the invention of writing gave us such innovations as civilization, monotheism, the state, settled agriculture, and the division of labour.

And now, as part of this process, comes the new Amazon Kindle, an improved ebook reader. Certainly, something like it is inevitable; and the Kindle may be the product that crosses the barrier. We need this: a computerized book reader, allowing electronic texts to be read comfortably wherever we go.

For the inefficiencies of traditional publishing are staggering: all the reams of paper, the massive, hanger-sized Heidelberg printers, the big heavy physical blocks of pressed wood needed to convey something essentially mental in nature, the distribution chain with its repeated 100% markups and remainders, the need to come up with and market a dozen or a hundred essentially new products every season, the three month delay between writing and distribution—for something as perishable as information.

All this is gone with electronic books. All we need is a convenient reader, and the case for going electronic, it seems to me, is overwhelming.

Look at it this way: classically, when a book is published, the author’s royalties are 10% of the retail price. The Kindle eliminates almost everything else that goes into manufacturing a book; meaning it should be possible now to deliver books at one fifth to one tenth the former price. This could, in turn, expand the market for published books substantially. Meaning not just lots more books for readers, but lots more money for writers. An information economy.

I think one fifth is more realistic than one tenth, mind—there still will be a need for one or more big retailers, on the lines of Amazon, to serve as bookstores. There will also still be a need for editing, illustrating, picture research, advertising and promotion, and I expect for publishers who will put together packages including all of these.

But gone will be the bookstores. Gone will be the printers. Gone will be the pulp and paper mills. For years, people have been scoffing at the old idea of “the paperless office.” But it really is happening. The demand for newsprint is already going down year by year. Old habits die hard, but they are dying. I myself no longer subscribe to the newspapers and magazines I read on paper; I get them over the web.

It will also become vastly easier to self-publish—this is important, because freedom of the press is important. And the press is freer when everyone can afford to own one. Even without government censorship, the concentration of presses in only a few hands can lead to significant censorship of unpopular views, if only for business reasons. As a former editor, and former president of the Editors’Association of Canada, I can vouch that every editor in the business is expected by publishers to censor authors’ opinions for political reasons, and most editors take this for granted as part of their job. Most will do it without prompting. Similarly, a concentration of media ownership in Canada for many years restricted political discussion; certain views, even common views, were simply never permitted in print.

Now those days are gone—we have already seen it, in Canada and in the US, with online blogs. A comfortable ebook reader, which can also accommodate web content, will multiply their influence. Our politics may be changed dramatically as a result. Just as the printing press, by expanding the ability to publish, led to parliamentary democracy and liberalism.

Ebooks can also add some nice features print books do not have: the ability to search, for example, on any given keyword—even across volumes. That’s a massive advantage for any researcher. Photos, an expensive item in print, can be inserted in an ebook at will and at no extra cost. So can hyperlinks to the web, so that any book opens up onto the whole world. Accordingly, Ebooks can also be automatically, continually updated—reference books need never become obsolete. There will no longer be anything musty about books.

Perhaps less crucially—except for a few--ebooks can easily include a zoom feature, so that the sight-impaired can adjust the type to whatever size is comfortable. It would not be much more difficult to build in an electronic reading voice, so that even the blind could use an ebook. With such sound capabilities on board, books could also imbed sound files in their text—for illustration, information, or for ambience.

So—when am I going to buy one? I’m not sure. Amazon is currently sold out—a good indication this is an idea whose time has genuinely come. And even if they were in stock, they are not selling them outside the USA yet.

When I can, I will. You bet I will.