How the industry meets this challenge will profoundly affect readers well into the 21st Century.
Publishing is a very strange business in which the publisher is everybody's security blanket.
The author gets an advance on the promise of sales sometime in the future. The designer and graphic artist, printer, paper manufacturer, bookbinder, warehouser, and shipper are paid for services rendered. The publisher's own payroll and overhead costs are met. If, in addition to all of the traditional risks of this business, a publisher has to deal with pirates at home and abroad who see no reason why they shouldn't profit from someone else's investment, and dreamers who believe that access to all products of the mind should be unlimited, unfettered and free , we're talking big trouble for publishers. And we're talking big trouble for readers , especially American readers who have come to expect virtually unlimited availability of high quality books reflecting the diversity and creativity of our society, at affordable prices.