Ric Wasley - Blog

Here's an article that I recently did for a magazine that focused on digital publishing and I'd like to hear your ideas on this topic... (Note, due to space constraints the article will be published in 3 parts. Here's Part 1) E-publishing and the Future of Books By Ric Wasley   (Reprinted from the March/April issue of the: IDEAlliance Bulletin)   If we were to take a snapshot of the publishing world and communications, it would reveal that the way in which we communicate ideas is exploding far beyond the ability of any single source to have a monopoly or even a handle on it. It is a classic case of what you know is out of date in the moment that you know it.   This is true in every form of communication, from casual to the most structured, and anyone who does not accept and understand this new reality ignores it at his own peril. Nowhere are those changes more profound than in the way we disseminate the written word.   The tide of change in written communications is sweeping away the old ways in a print media revolution the likes of which the world has not seen since Gutenberg invented his press more than 500 years ago. Despite all of the advances in printing, production, photography, distribution and sales over the last half-millennium, the fundamental base of the technology has remained the same: printing a word or image in ink on a piece of paper. All this has changed so quickly that many of those who have shaped the information we see and the way in which we access it still have not quite grasped how profound this change truly is.   Let’s take an example of how a typical citizen of the world has received his information over the past 572 years since Johannes Gutenberg made it possible for the average person to own books. (Before that time, books had to be hand-copied and thus far beyond the reach of the masses.) With the advent of printing, books became affordable and the ideas they contained went from being the sole province of the rich and powerful to anyone who had the price of a day’s wages. Newspapers and periodicals made news and ideas from other places available to the general population, which gradually transformed society and gave rise to the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment.   Over the next 500 years, the dissemination of the printed word got faster, better and cheaper but didn’t fundamentally change until… Enter the Internet, World Wide Web, laptop computers, smart phones, tablets and e-readers—all within the past 10 years!   On the one hand, publishers and print media can’t be blamed for being tardy in recognizing this basic change and being slow to adapt. But as with many shifts in the past, the users of the technology have embraced it quicker than much of the media that purports to serve them. Yes, it is seldom easy or pleasant to give up the position of power and influence that those who have controlled what information the populace has had access to have enjoyed since the 15th century. And it is only within the past year or so that books, magazines and newspapers have begun to realize that they have lost their ability to remain the gatekeepers of information.   The genie is out of the bottle and it can never be put back in.   What has caused this amazing revolution?   Digital Publishing !   (... to be continued)   Check back next week for Part Two of this topic and by all means, please feel free to weigh in with you own thoughts and comments R.S.W.