Bob Young on the future of books

Comments

1. At 07:07 AM on 29 Nov 2007, Charlie wrote:

   A few points:
   

   
   
   • You don't really need bitTorrent for books. They're so small in terms of size that you can download them in seconds and email them around easily.
   
   
   • There's huge potential for publishers to monetize their out-of-print back catalogues.
   
   
   • Writers will be able to cut out the publisher altogether just as musicians are starting to now.
   
   
   • I suspect that literature will be less susceptible to piracy; the target audience is a bit more responsible
   
   
   • Unlike with music there is a huge body of out-of-copyright literature out there. I could read for the rest of my life and never need to go near any copyright material.
   
   

2. At 02:50 AM on 20 Dec 2007, Thomas P. Leahy wrote:

   I agree with Charlie, this belief that people do not want to support the creators of the material they are consuming mostly belongs to the paranoid companies sitting atop the content creators.

   Creators have more freedom to sell directly to their audience than ever before and that is a good thing, the fruits of which are finally being seen.

   The benefit with publishing services like Lulu on a local level is that you can very easily self-publish a respectable work that may not rocket to national or world-wide fame but serve a small and localised audience.