The History of Publishing – How Everything Changed
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Publishing is sharing of ideas and information.
Think of the town crier; the temple scribe; the playwright — these are all publishing, and they’ve all been around for thousands of years.
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Pre-1440, dissemination of ideas was necessarily limited. A scribe can only pen so many books, and many people couldn’t read. New ideas spread slowly, limited by distance and education. The printing press arrived in 1440, and mass production of writing emerged. Books, tracts, magazines and newspapers could be read and shared.
And nowadays, publishing can be virtual and/or physical: blogs, journals, blogs, newspapers, books, radio, television, film…all is production and dissemination of creative work. The computer, and how we use it, changed everything.
Talk Transcript
This post is a transcript of a talk I will be delivering next week. Because the talk is quite long, I’ve set it out over three posts. I’ll put the slides for the talk at the end of the final blog post.
I thought it would be of interest to you, the reader (plus, I’m lazy; it’s a lot easier to write a talk twice than invent a whole new blog post!). The talk is called Your Story, Your Way: Options for Publishing, and I’m delivering it as part of a workshop for the Ronald Hugh Morrieson Awards.
Now, before I begin: a disclaimer. I am not a publisher, an expert in the publishing industry or a lawyer. Think of me as a gifted amateur — all information offered here is my own opinion. That being said, I have an MBA and I’m continually analysing markets for the Day Job.
This post is mostly about fiction because that’s what I write 
