Inside View from Ireland: Learned from Bookworm Daughter

ALL THREE of my daughters like to read, but Misty (at right) is the one most "excited for the future in the book industry." Misty is also the family member who is closest to the print-on-demand sector of pop culture. "Low initial costs in the POD world allow smaller publishers to print any title they believe in," she writes, while pointing to the sustainability inherent in more "hopeful print runs" than the overstock traditionally produced. I'm following Misty down the pathway of e-books, hoping for a 3G data SIM on my reader so I have truly international walk-around access to any book. If I had one of Misty's Nooks or one of my colleague's Kindles--and had truly low-cost data handling when updating my reader--I'd be an avid niche consumer.

Misty thinks "it will only be a matter of time before the big publishers notice the new, smaller ones gaining popularity" and that they will have to support niche publishers. So if Misty is correct, people all across the world will be able to purchase the rich media version of my lecture notes. And they will certainly be able to purchase the revised edition of Stephen Kinsella's newest view of post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

The changing world of publishing brings small town lecturers like myself closer to an imprint and that has major benefits to the advancement of culture. With an increase in niche titles, people who have electronic devices will read them more. And as Misty points out, "the more reading people do, the more cultured they get. People even learn things in fiction (like human interaction, social cues, cultural references, and some psychology). When a reader can sympathize with a character, he is more likely to apply that reaction to someone else in a similar situation."

I have 500 pounds of books sitting in a loading dock in the States that have to make their way across the Atlantic. That's one of my 2010 goals, along with getting into the lecture notes section of every Barnes & Noble shop.

Misty V'Marie -- "What will the future of book publishing look like?"