Richard Nash on the future of books and publishing

Book industry veteran Richard Nash recently delivered what some – like WIRED magazine’s Chris Anderson – are calling the best speech they’ve seen on the future of books and publishing.

Nash has uploaded the video, which I’ve embedded here. See what you think:

3 thoughts on “Richard Nash on the future of books and publishing

  1. It's interesting to say the least, but once it was over I was left thinking – not really – especially the bit about writers wanting to connect with their readers. Granted, I like hanging out and being social, but when it comes to what I write the book itself does a much better job communicating its own contents then I could ever do with thirty seconds of babbling over a beer. If I really wanted to do nothing but communicate with people, I'd hang out in chat rooms all day. Books for me are more about the chance to create or take in a monolith of thought, to entertain an intellectual construct that all the other forms of media are just too fast and shallow to handle.

    So far as supply and demand goes….

    As long as supply can be controlled, people will try to control it no matter how ugly it gets, case in point: Apple, Amazon and the draconian matters of DRM.

    Controlling demand – that's just plain creepy. It's like saying that the consumers are robots and the future lies with the matter of being the one who pumps the commands into their coprocessors. That instead of creating content we should be creating channels or herding readers or ugh.

    My recipe for the future? I think writers and publishers should stop caring so much about media tie-ins, should get away from the Twilight style juggernauts, and start thinking about what books can do which other forms of media cannot.

  2. Pingback: The Juggling Writer - The Future of Books and Publishing

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