As CDs Were To Music

So are ebooks to publishing.

There's not much more to say about it.  There's of course an argument if you are on the side of legacy publishing.  What is it again?  Probably something like ebooks make up 8% of the books sold in the world today.  It's not a threat.  Okey Dokey. 

"Watch and learn, kid.  Watch and learn."--Geraldine Granger, the Vicar of Dibley.

This is the first episode, part 4.  You could watch it from the beginning, of course, as all the parts are there and it is wonderful.



I just read Steve Knopper's book "An Appetite For Self-Destruction"

"Knopper, a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, takes an inside look at the highs and lows of the record industry during the past 30 years. Beginning with the crash of the disco craze in the late 1970s, the industry revitalized itself numerous times over the years, beginning with Michael Jackson, MTV, and the boom in CD sales in the 1980s, through the teen pop of the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, and Britney Spears in the 1990s. The entrenched sense of entitlement and complacency was rocked to its foundation, however, with the ushering in of the digital age. Instead of embracing the new medium, the record companies insisted on clinging to the old model of forcing buyers to pay $18.95 for a CD just to get the one or two songs they really wanted. Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms for heated debates between high-flying record executives, and into the basements and garages of the computer geeks who brought them down. Although the record industry continues its uneasy relationship with digital music, he shows how independent artists are finding creative ways to use the medium to their advantage." --David Siegfried 

Some day soon someone will write a book like this but about publishing.  And the reaction to everyone outside the industry will be "Oh boo-hoo, bring on the whaaambulance."  It's hard to feel sorry for someone who is just so bloody self-destructive.