Re: "The Elusive E-book"

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 6:34 AM, Mary E Tyler <[email protected]> wrote:

>  Result: We will have more dabblers, and when the rubber hits the road,
>  people will get out of writing books because there's no money in it.

Wasn't that one of Mark Twain's predictions when he argued in favor of
perpetual copyright a hundred-odd years ago? I strongly suspect that
every time there has been any kind of sea change in the publishing
industry, going all the way back to the invention of the printing
press, someone has argued that it will stop writers from writing
because there will be no money in it anymore for them.

I don't think it's come to pass just yet. Maybe if people keep
predicting it, sooner or later they'll be right. But it reminds me of
the old joke about the farmer selling watermelons for one million
dollars each. "You can't sell all your watermelons for a million
dollars each," a bystander said. The farmer replied, "I only have to
sell one."

-- 
Chris Meadows aka | WWW: http://www.terrania.us | Somebody help,
Robotech_Master | ICQ: 5477383 AIM: RoboMastr | I'm trapped in
[email protected] | Skype, Gizmo: Robotech_Master | a sig file!
[email protected] | Yahoo: robotech_master_2000 |

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