Thursday, January 22, 2009

Print is Dead - post V

Chapter 10

Having set out the pressures on publishers with book printing machines offering another direct to customer model he then lists the reasons that publishers will survive:

1. find talent
2. support talent
3. edit talent
4. market talent
5. pay talent

He argues that content is finally becoming king and not the technology as that stage of the development of ebooks is being completed and it is now all about the words rather than they way they are presented.

But publishing needs to understand it is in the business of ideas.

“Publishing needs to come to a similar conclusion, realising that it’s not in the book business, but instead that it traffics in ideas, information and stories.” Pg 193


He ends the book talking about the fact that there is a much wider debate that rises above the arguments of digital or paper.

“If upcoming generations don’t read digitally there’s a good chance they won’t read at all – then through whatever mechanism it takes to get words in front of a pair of curious human eyes, or wherever those words end up, the important thing is that they are read.” Pg 203.