This week got off to a bang with the announcement that Google is getting into ebook publishing. Its publishing arm, Google Editions, will jump right into the fray. Not only will Google Editions make ebooks available for an e-reader device to be developed, but its ebooks will be capable of being read on many devices, unlike Amazon's only-for-Kindle ebooks.
Here's an announcement on YouTube about this (taken from an Examiner article):
Now, what with Apple selling a million iPads, plus all the competition between Amazon's Kindle, B&N's Nook and the Sony e-reader, is it any wonder people are predicting things like this?
So publishing's going down in 2012? Isn't that when the world ends, anyway?
I'm not one to make exact predictions about such things. However, you really have to wonder how the publishing industry's going to survive the onslaught. What will publishers have to offer when authors can simply publish their own work online? Editing? No, you can hire a freelance editor for that. Formatting? Ditto. In fact, you can outsource pretty much any service a publisher could provide.
And distribution? No longer a problem. Online sales and distribution eliminates the one real benefit most publishers offer authors.
Reviews? A new breed of online reviewers is springing up to take the place of the old guard. (Mind you, we could use more of them.)
In any case, isn't good word of mouth better than a review, anyway?
Okay -- so is there any other reason for the traditional publishing industry to keep going? (Coffee table books, maybe?)
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