Technology and Business Book Publishing
OK, it had to happen. Sooner or later I had to address some of the issues related to technology and the world of publishing. If it sounds like I have given into this topic grudgingly, you’re right. I haven’t always been the greatest fan of technology. As a child, I preferred rotary phones to the new, fancy, “Pink Princess” push-button in my parents’ bedroom (having a second phone was a big deal in my neighborhood in the Bronx in the 70’s, but how do you show off a pink phone to your friends?).
Today, I have more several “antique” rotary phones in my home—including some vintage ones like my ”Dial M for Murder” phone—than any modern day phones. That explains why I was the last one on my block to own a cell phone.
But today, I am all up-to-date. We have three computers in the home and are pondering a fourth (one is my work computer). I have that cell phone, the latest digital and cordless AT&T phone creation, fax machine, a blackberry, and multiple printers—and cannot imagine doing business without any of them. But I am getting off-topic. Let’s get to the topic of publishing and technology.
My first real head-on experience with the subject of technology in publishing took place a month after I joined the profession. It was 1982, and I was at my first sales conference with a large publishing firm that will go unnamed. A very high ranking executive of that firm delivered a speech at that meeting which I will never forget. In 1982 microcomputers were all the rage. They were the new, new thing and as a result, this executive made a stunning prediction: he asserted that within five years there will be no books—computers would take their place. In five years books were bigger than ever but that executive was gone. There is an important lesson here, one that transcends the obvious irony.
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