VISION OF THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING

I had a dream, a dream where people of all races, creeds, wallet size, could become published authors. It wasn't so much a Martin Luther King Jr. dream as it was an Ezekiel Saw the Wheel dream of a future where every literate (and many no-so-literate) persons, places, and things (think spambots) had an audience, a fan base bigger than Mel on Flight of the Conchords. The world wide web will become that world that I saw in my vision. The big publishing houses in New York, London and Superior Wisconsin will toss agents out 50th story windows because the "Internet" will vet all content in the future. If a "manuscript's" website gets more than 30,000 hits the publisher will take the electronic file and bring out the book, pitch it to Oprah if it is fiction all dressed up in non-fiction finery, and sell a hundred thousand copies. Eventually the author will receive a tiny, tiny, portion of the profit, which will be slim to none, because profit margins in publishing are slim, to microscopic. But, the author will have been discovered, the author will have been read, the author will have had the exposure and the deepest longing of any writer gets met. What is that need? The need to connect. That's the beauty of the "Internet," the world-wide-web, the old WWW, an author can sit in his nook and connect with thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even one or two, readers/fans without going to those pesky booksignings.