Don't Fear the Challenge

Popular consensus seems to be that Amazon and the possibility of it's dominance in the bookselling, publishing, and printing industries is all in all a really bad thing. There is a part of me that agrees. When one company can control pricing, distribution, supply, etc., etc., etc,. in the long-run it's bad for the consumer and the economy in general. Having said that, what Amazon is doing is using technology and ingenuity to help create a new buisness model in the publishning and bookselling industires. It behooves everyone involved in publishing to begin to really make changes in the way books are published, distributed, priced, and sold.

Is it the reponsibility of consumers to choose supporting a local biusness rather than buying a product at a better price? Isn't that sort of a privelage for those that can afford to make that choice? If someone only makes 30k a year and support a family of four shold they pay $4 for a gallon of milk at the local gracery store rather than $2.50 at Walmart? Don't get me wrong, I don't always like the way these large corporations do buisness, but change is inevitable. Smaller companies (and large corporations for that matter) must divise ways to compete. Perhaps, it's not a matter of cheaper prices, maybe it's better service or a unique selection.

The music industry has seen a great deal of change in the way music is sold, distributed, and priced in the last few years and now the publishing industry is dealing with this as well. Like the iPod there will be more and more consumers using devices like Kindle to do their reading, it is inevitable. So, now the rest of the industry needs to catch up with Amazon and for new companies to emerge into the market. I think this is a very exciting time to be entering the publishing industry. So much change is at hand, and I for one look forward to participating in the creation of a new publishing model.