With e-books and eReaders on the rise, this decade may go down in tech history as the coming of age of the digital book platform. Barnes and Noble advanced this cause by announcing a new book publishing platform that targets the independent publisher and self-publishing writer. No longer required to sell your story to the major publishers, the Pubit! system will allow you to distribute your books via Barnes and Noble using the ePub format and B&N’s digital rights management technology. Published books will be distributed through B&N’s growing e-Book store and authors will be paid according to B&N’s yet-to-be disclosed royalty model and compensation process. With Amazon already entrenched in the independent publishing business and B&N now on its way, prospective writers should start penning typing their next novella as the world right now is your oyster.
(via BGR)
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I could go either way with my feelings about this. I think it's great that some of the red tape and bureaucracy is being lifted for self publishers and new authors. At the same time, will books and novels become as ubiquitous as blogs? Is this the final nail in the publishing coffin? My concern isn't that there is more content, but that content will be watered down. The publishing process is one with many quality controls. I know, IRL I'm an editor. Will the average layman be able to create a book that is worthy of publishing if he foregoes even a copy editor? And what about fact checking - publishers check and recheck every statement in their publications before they send it off to print. What will happen to out language if there is no standard, and what will happen to our collective knowledge if there is no accountability?
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