In 1995, a writer and a philosopher in London were discussing the state of book publishing, and they came to the conclusion that something had gone seriously wrong.
For centuries, editors at publishing houses had been the literary equivalents of art collectors. Each editor’s mission in life was to build an historically-important list of titles, whose merit was measured in cultural terms. Then in the 1980s many small publishers were purchased by bigger ones, and they in turn were bought up by international media corporations pursuing the integration of their content creation, production and distribution. It didn’t take long for the media bosses to impose on their new presses the same business disciplines that they routinely applied to glossy magazines and cable TV. Now every new book had to be (or aspire to be) a bestseller. No longer were editors free to discover and cultivate unconventional thinkers, nor bring to light original new talent, unless the financial return clearly outweighed the risk.
But the writer and philosopher felt that new thinking and literature were too important to be left entirely to bottom-line commercialism. When they looked for a way to help book publishing return to its nobler roots, the Internet provided a convenient answer. By cutting out printing, distribution, retailing and remainders, and the costs of handling paper submissions, an Internet-only publisher could again select works on the basis of their cultural rather than monetary value. And to put this theory into practice, they founded the first online-only publisher, Online Originals.
More ... The early years |
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