Saturday, April 03, 2010

Changing book industry

iPad Could Help Self-Publishers Kick Open Doors : NPR:

"'The biggest thing that a publisher provides is the ability to put physical books on bookstore shelves,' Shatzkin says. 'And as that becomes a less important component of the overall commercial proposition, the leverage that the publisher has or the reason that an author would to go a publisher is seriously diminished.'

Self-publishing is even starting to draw established authors like John Edgar Wideman. Wideman, whose work deals with serious themes like race, class and alienation, has won the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award twice, and he was a recipient of a coveted MacArthur 'genius' grant.

When Wideman put together Briefs, a collection of what he calls 'microstories,' he decided to experiment with a release on Lulu.com. In part, Wideman says, he was just sick of the way that traditional publishers treated serious fiction."

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