Quote:
Originally Posted by Phogg
Ultimately (as with music) I generally don't want to buy local - because the internet makes it possible to buy directly from the author.
This assumes the author is still living - but I have watched this model work from the early MP3.com days, and the internet makes it viable. How many fewer readers does an author need to support a writing career when the author collects all the money?
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It's not that simple with publishing. Authors require editing and publicity services that currently are provided and paid for by the publishers. Trust me, for the most part you wouldn't want to pay to read someone's unedited manuscript. And it's really hard to get buzz about your work without the publicity provided by publishers. Their publicity folks have connections--they can get a book reviewed, get it in front of booksellers, get the author on TV or radio or in the papers. These are all really important to making a book sell. Just setting up a website and hoping people will find you doesn't work. That's why the self-publishing model has failed except for a very few cases. And an author needs time to write, not do his or her own publicity.
I do think the publishing paradigm as it currently exists needs work, and ebooks becoming popular might be both an opportunity and an excuse for such a reworking. But you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.