Baby steps toward publishing future

Neither over-optimistic nor fatalistic, Jason Epstein's "Publishing: the Revolutionary Future" has given us a lot to think about. Here, he lays out a detailed vision of the digital future of books, and I walk away feeling...mixed. I think about his idea that, one day, when all books are digital, libraries and bookstores will not be needed, technically neither will books. We will go to websites for our digital libraries and retailers and instantly download our selections from a infinite backlist, some server out there somewhere that contains all the books ever written. A digital Library of Babel.

Maybe I'm just old-school, but I have trouble imaging not being able to wander around a bookstore or waiting at the counter of its cafe for the appearance of some kid whose sobriety I question. But Jason goes on and points out what many others have said. Bookstores aren't really what they used to be. With the onslaught of corporate retail presence combined with a thirst for high-risk, typically low-quality, bestsellers, the diversity inside bookstores has greatly diminished. When we browse there, we find less good, quirky, new and more okay, predictable, same. Perhaps, without the high cost of physical presentation in a storefront, we book-shoppers will find more to browse through, books we never knew existed because, previously, we could only view the tip of the iceberg.