How Books Will Survive Amazon ⇒

Joel Epstein published this excellent piece at the New York Review of Books yesterday. He manages to break down some of the more dubious dark corners of the Department of Justices suit against Apple and the major publishing houses without getting too deep into the weeds of legalese.

Here he describes what books will look like in the near future:

Independent editorial start-ups posting their books on appropriate web sites have already begun to emerge and more will follow. The cost of entry will be slight. The essential capital will be editorial talent and energy, as it had been in the glory days before conglomeration when editors were themselves de facto publishers, publicists, and marketers. Many start-ups will fail. Some will not. Specificity, reflecting the structure of the web, will matter: a guide to the cultivation of daffodils will more likely succeed than a more diffuse gardening title.

The digital revolution is having the same effect on movies. Keywords: talent and energy. That’s a future that doesn’t look to bleak to me.