It seems like an accepted truism that small publishers are more nimble and quicker to adapt to change than large publishing houses, probably on the basis of all the layers of bureaucracy that a large publishing house has to claw through in order to change the status quo. When analyzing a publishing house in terms of content, this is probably the case; a smaller editorial staff means that there are less people to object to an “experimental” book.
I would have to disagree, though, with all the people out there who say that the nimbleness of small publishers makes them ideally situated to take advantage of the possibilities of ebooks. The problem here is that we aren’t talking about new content–we’re talking about new delivery channels. These new delivery channels require some technical expertise to be able to work effectively with, let alone imaginatively. And that requires staff whose jobs are to check out new technologies and see how to do stuff with them; in short, it requires a research and development team. Read the rest of this entry »
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