Things change

I’ve worked in the publishing realm for the past 10 years, recently with business book authors, which has connected me to companies like Penguin, Harvard Press, Wiley, etc.  For me, it’s been easy to adapt doing small press stuff from an office with a couple people, but what about these huge, old companies?  It’s sort of a mess.  As much as they have the power to change, it’s difficult because of the infrastructure.  Book publishers like Twelve are in a better position, but even they’ll have issues. I talked a bit about this scenario in the presentation below:

Jon Mueller: Three Channels of Publishing from rhythmplex on Vimeo.

There are certainly similarities between books and music – both industries are applying content to a format, and it’s interesting to watch people’s choices in this realm.  It’s not so much that the formats are changing – it’s that people are.  What’s driving this?  A book takes too long to read, vinyl is obsolete, magazines are finished, CDs are dead, etc.  These are all opinions, not necessarily fact, but they are driving a lot of the change we’re seeing in publishing.

This is not to say there should be a campaign against it, but rather, an attempt to come up with something that benefits people in some way – not necessarily something new, but something that will help.  Defending material for it’s own sake is sort of pointless, but connecting with people and creating an experience is positive. Imagine the many ways that can be accomplished with things that already exist.