Today Chronicle of Higher Ed features an article on up-and-coming textbook piracy websites, Textbook Piracy Grows Online, Prompting a Counterattack From Publishers.
As I said earlier, I'm looking forward to seeing how some experiments in ebooks turn out. We can't follow the example of the RIAA, and I'm skeptical of Ithaka and their recommendations, even when I agree with them.
I wonder if the survivors of the "new economy" of print might be those who translate the services provided by old companies into a new format. What I mean is that we currently look at ourselves as book publishers. That's what we do. But part of what we do (as has been mentioned many places by others) is add value to academics' work--editors and reviewers, typesetters and designers, marketers and royalty experts. It might be that those who succeed are those that offer the value-added services, say, blind reviews, for a fee, through an easy-to-access web interface. And, if a manuscript passes the reviewers, the author might be offered an opportunity to purchase additional editing, and to choose how she or he wishes to make the book available. I know, there are plenty of self-publishing services, but I don't think there is anything like this model, yet. A Google search for academic self-publishing returned, first, Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials, available as a paperback for $32.95.
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