I don't spend too much time thinking or writing about the over-arching, uber-problems facing publishing. I'm here to find advice for all the fledgling writers at the beginning of their careers.
But Ed Champion (fresh off a quality podcasted interview with one of the best craftspersons in the writing game, Francine Prose) just took a stab at big business prophecy.
"Google will buy a publisher before the end of 2007. And given certain Bertelsmann grumblings about profit, I have a feeling it may be Random House... [O]ne must consider the financial payoff of the Google Book Search feature. Surely, this is a company that cannot be conducting all this out of philanthropy. One stalwart way to recoup costs is through a print-on-demand feature, one publicly available in bookstores."
I think he's right on track, tracing a line from Google Book Search out to cheaper solutions to the suffering book industry. Bloggers are mixed. Jim Winter agrees. Max and Claire Cameron had some other ideas about what will happen. This is the future of our livelihood we are discussing. What do you think?
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Random House seems just too big! Really, buying a publishing house would mean that Google is getting into something completely new. They'll get the books all right but there's a lot of work involved and I don't think they'll take Random House only to get some scans right?
Posted by: Khalil A. | December 14, 2006 11:52 AM | Permalink to Comment