Author Andrew Keen has challenged book publishers to fight back against the “tyranny” of free content. Speaking at The Bookseller’s conference “Digitise or Die”, Keen warned that publishers and other intermediaries were being pushed out of the new economy by the prevailing “northern Californian libertarian mindset” that demanded everything for free.Jason Hanley, strategic development partner at Google Book Search, stressed that digital would most likely supplement rather than displace existing revenue models, with multiple rather than one dominant model developed. He referred to statistics which suggested that 80% of users searching on Google were looking for book content, adding, “publishers do see results”. Rather the “digitise or die”, Hanley said the conference should be titled, “digitise”.
Never before have so many avenues been available to content creators to reach the masses. It’s not the consumers or the creators who have much to fear; it’s the publishers.
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