Indigo e-books

Indigo is launching a new e-books service.  Already controlling 65% of the book market in Canada, the new service will cater to the continental market.  Canadian books will only be a small part of the offerings.

Looking back, I can remember demonstrating in 1970 against the takeover of Ryerson Books by McGraw-Hill Inc.  We lost that fight and although there were years when it was possible to imagine a robust cultural book and magazine sector in Canada, those days seem long gone.  

I love the idea that books can be delivered to our iPods or computers with the click of a key, or that new or unpublished writers will find space on the Indigo site for about 99 cents. New writers deserve to find their own audience.  The book publishing industry has acted as literary gatekeeper for centuries.  The amazing metamorphosis of newspapers, magazines and books in just the last six months signals a huge change in reading habits. Not that people are reading less, but they are reading in new ways in different mediums.

The age of Gutenberg that drove intellectual thinking for the last five centuries is coming to a surprising end. Let me know if you think social networking is the new printing press.