Your Medium Is Dying (No, Not That One)
Easiest way to get me talking bullshit: start a conversation about the economics of book publishing. This isn't the place to give my speech about the demise of the industry (YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE), but it's worth pointing to this random Forbes essay, How Amazon Could Change Publishing. I disagree with the conclusion -- I don't think Amazon is going to knock out the book publisher any more than iTunes knocked out the record label. But it does lay out some of the broken economics. (Short version of my rant: the internet age will catch up with book publishing, not in a technological sense, as this essay suggests, but in a philosophical sense. Publishing will be forced to adopt a more egalitarian meritocracy. Too many books lose money; authors aren't accurately rewarded on sales; this model can't continue.)