Saturday, April 18, 2009

Writer David Hewson On Publishing's Future

Writer David Hewson: Parting thoughts: the state of publishing
I'm not qualified to offer advice to publishers or big book companies even if I had something useful to say. So let me focus on what I know and love: writing. Authors are, I think, on the brink of a new and exciting age. We will no longer be confined by the schedules and norms of the print industry. Those literary forms that once seemed so hard to get published - novellas and short stories - suddenly make sense because they match the instant release of digital. Backlists become resources to be revived, not lost titles that never again see the light of day. And there will, I'm sure, be new types of media and opportunities created in the years to come too.

Emphasis added by me.

There's much more there. I extracted, of course, the bit that agrees with my own view of things.

Hewson sees independent bookstores as helping to keep publishing -- read, I think, as printed books -- alive. I don't think so. Not if they don't become independent eBookstores too.

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