Remember that the Gutenberg Press has been around for 550+ years and so the publishing world has had many, many years to get to where it is now. I wonder what people said about the first copy of the Bible way back then?
This video predates Gutenberg a bit (handwritten book), but it may reflect the press's reception: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek> Seriously, though: it's going to take time to see which way it goes. The recording industry isn't really that good a comparison because it only had a few decades to get established before new technologies started coming around. Printing technology has a much deeper foothold as a result of its much greater age. David On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 11:53 PM, SteveC <[email protected]> wrote: > In terms of pure numbers, the argument that the publishing world has > changed is as flawed as the chart that started the thread. > > There is no question that authors do have an increasing ability to go > around the mainstream publishing filter. But the problem is again one > of base line. The base line against which we're comparing is close to > zero. (Not zero itself, because there have always been self-published > or tiny press books that caught on.) > > We've seen a huge increase in that number. But we're still at the > stage where every single instance of such a success gets noticed. > There may be hundreds total, but hundreds are still less than 1% of > all the books published by mainstream publishers in a single year. > They are probably a smaller proportion of books than hybrid cars are > of cars sold in a year. Both get undue attention because they are the > supposed vision of the future but the overall model has not really > changed at all. > > Steve > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
