Will the Rise of Electronic Books Destroy Writing as a Profession?
By Dennis Kuba
September 7, 2011
September 7, 2011
- During his bleak forecast of the publishing industry at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, novelist Ewan Morrison suggested the rise of the e-book will mean the end of writers as a profession, as piracy and a demand for steep discounts take over the book industry as it has with music, newspapers, games, porn, photography, telecommunications and home video.
- Publishers will no longer be able to provide advances to enable writers to make a decent living and writers will increasingly depend on the “long tail” which cannot support them. Morrison adds that only established writers will prosper.
- In 10 to 15 years, he believes the largest “publishers” will be Google, Amazon and Apple.
- “The writer will become an entrepreneur with a short shelf life, in a world without publishers or even shelves,” predicts Morrison.
Topics: Amazon, Apple, E-Book, Edinburgh, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Google, Mobile, Publishing, Tablet
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