[nekokami]

Originally Posted by bingle

I agree that writers need editors. But do they need publishers? I wonder if the future sees more freelance editors on hire for a few authors in order to produce ebooks... Sort of the way music publishing on the internet was going to take off (although it hasn't yet...).

Maybe. I could see that. I could also see some other new structures being developed, such as groups of editors forming a "virtual publisher" because their tastes are similar, or something. I think the publishing process is going to change dramatically over the next decade, but I think a lot of pieces of the process still have value and need to be carried forward into whatever new models are developed. And most of those pieces involve professional effort that should be compensated. Ebooks will be more efficient and should lower costs some, but I don't think there's as much "fat" in the system as some would like to believe.

Originally Posted by Alan

That is what you think. But you forget about the big difference between paper books and ebooks: Paper books cannot be copied (technically they can, but you know what I mean). Ebooks without copy protection can be copied within seconds and in unlimited numbers. They can be read simultaneously by many people. A paper book can be read by only one person at a time. So a paper book has a built in copy protection: it wears off over time and cannot be copied. That copy protection needs to be adopted on ebooks.

Many of us think that even though ebooks without copy protection can be copied within seconds and in unlimited numbers, in practice the actual number of copies of commercial ebooks distributed to readers who actually read the books and who would have bought the book if it were only available to them for a price is not much larger than the number of people who currently read a paper book-- maybe even about the same. I'd like to see a real study on this, rather than a lot of us making claims based on our best guesses. The only studies so far that we have to draw on were done in the music industry, and those studies have failed to find evidence that music piracy is actually cutting into sales of music. This is part of the basis for my optimistic belief that despite what some loud voices have said here, most people will, in fact, pay for the content they want, provided that prices are reasonable and an easy system exists for finding and purchasing the content.

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

The comparisons between doctors and writers is misleading because anyone literate can write (maybe not that well, that takes practice, but...) while to be a doctor takes a lot of hard work and learning today, about 11-12 years at least of formal training; no Eragon here (or maybe that's the equivalent of the "psychic healers" ).

I'll grant you that the comparison between doctors and writers is probably too extreme, but good writing is at least skilled labor. Would you prefer a comparison to plumbers or carpenters? I'm pretty picky about who I let work on our house.

I see your point about writers who pay the bills by writing volume xyz of a franchise. The writers I know have mixed feelings about this, too. I think it still helps exercise the craft, even if it's not sparkling original prose. Even fan fiction can help a writer start to improve dialogue, plot structure, etc. Granted that a good writer is paying attention wherever they are, and can draw on their life experiences in their writing, I think I'd still argue that writing franchise novels is more helpful to writers polishing their skills than delivering packages or managing databases.