No One Buys Books

It’s one thing to imagine people going for this new model of self-publishing (free or low cost, immediate, built-in access to a large market of readers, royalty upside) versus the vanity publishing model of yore (pseudo-hardcover, obscenely expensive, slow turnaround, and then author’s burden of marketing and sales, not to mention the requirement o

So why didn’t the Times include digital sales from the outset? Or at least from some point after digital sales became more than a niche. Why did they wait until Amazon was selling more digital books than paperbacks? Joe: Perhaps reporting the truth was somehow not aligned with what the NYT perceives as its interests.

Self-publishing is no longer growing explosively, but the potential remains for a “United Artists” attempt, whereby branded authors might band together to create their own publishing house.