ePublish Unum

As a recent ebook adopter (I have the Barnes and Nobel ereader on my iPhone, and I now have a Kindle), I've been wondering about the future of print-and-paper. Is it doomed?

One of my favorite online (hmm, yes, I did say, "online") journals, TechRepublic, pointed to an interview with Paul Hawken, founder of home-and-garden supplier, Smith and Hawken, about his conviction that as concerns printed matter, "They’re going to go away completely. Pretty soon people won’t be able to start their fires because there won’t be any paper. I think paper is done."

Strong statement. But it certainly does answer one of the questions that must be asked about where the written word is headed. Among other issues raised by the proliferation of online and digital copy:

1. How can and will copyright be enforced? Already, blogs and other outlets (like this one!) borrow material freely from other websites and digital sources. While this battle was originally fought during the early days of copiers, it continues to be an issue. (The RIAA, by taking drastic and draconian action, has slowed music piracy significantly from its Napster heyday.)

2. As an extension of number one, how on earth are writers going to earn a living? People expect online content to be "free." (I notice that some of my favorite podcasts have gone to a pay-for-service model, and their listenership has fallen drastically.)

3. Can digital delivery really replace the printed page, and the look, smell, feel, heft of a book? So far, much as I like my Kindle, I can't say that the actual sensory experience of it comes anywhere close to the experience of an ink-and-paper book.

4. Will digital delivery outmode publishers altogether, or merely change their go-to-market model? Already the quality of editing - if there is indeed any editing going on at all, which I question - has fallen off markedly. Books are full of plain out grammatical errors, as well as stylistic and other flubs that, in times gone past, a good editor would have found.

5. As an extension of #4, will all attempts at style, grammar, construction, vocabulary - all the hallmarks of good writing - simply be forgotten in the rush to "go live?" And because, like texting, we "get" the message, and don't really care if the sentence is well written? I notice all sorts of neo-construction going on in people's communication these days. One of my least favorite it the tendency to hyphenate anything and everything. So the sentence, "Are you logged on?" becomes "Are you logged-on?" even though it makes no sense. (A "logon" or a "log-on" is a noun created out of a verb. But if you using the verb form, there is no need to hyphenate it.)

There are no doubt many more questions that will be raised as we plow forward into this brave, new, online world. Bill Gates was famous for having said that computers (he was specifically referring to desktop publishing) would level the playing field, allowing creativity to flourish at an individual level, effectively reducing the power of the gatekeepers. What remains to be seen is whether that was a threat, or a promise.

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