I checked out your website. Wonderful work you're engaged in! I do think small houses will rise to take the place of the crashing corporate conglomerates, and I do think that is a very good thing.

Here's a question I have as a reader: In order to find fiction titles on your site, it seems that what I need to do on your site is search for fiction publishers, then click on each one of their sites, then click on each one of their titles to find out about them? I would love to have the time to do this, but I don't, really. Maybe I need to spend more time on your site to find a feature that might give a short blurb about all the fiction titles your members publish? Or is that kind of thing to be found somewhere else? I totally support indie publishing (in fact, I am one, sort of moving into hybrid art/literature projects, actually, so I'm out of the mainstream loop now, even of indie publishing), but I do find it hard, with so many titles on the market, to find good, centralized info that will help direct me to titles I might enjoy reading and buying.

Hmm, well, I, for one, am a little disappointed by the unstimulating responses to what I thought was an extremely stimulating article (my opinion, obviously). Some people found it overdramatic and pretentious. That's fine. Not everyone has the same writing style, nor--again, in my opinion--should they have. I like words. I like encountering new ones. I even enjoy looking them up. Not everyone does. But that doesn't mean that Mr. Brin has to stop writing the way he writes. As I was reading, I was thinking that one of the things I like about what Brin brings to the table is a very broad and big picture, along with a prodigious possession of details and very specific information. I feel that one of his gifts as a writer about technological topics, which is quite rare, is that he not only possesses intellectual insight, he also has excellent intuitive insights, many of which have been well borne out--as his older works of fiction demonstrate. I appreciate your analysis, Mr. Brin, and the fun words, and your taking the time to share your well-informed opinion with those who enjoy it, like me.

Very well-articulated and discerning remarks about the current state of the "industry." As someone else said in this thread, just the fact that it's referred to as an "industry" is sort of oxymoronic and seems to signify something that's doomed to fail. I do think that corporate ownership of something that involves as much artistry, innovation, and eccentricity (ideally) kills the whole thing, ultimately. I've been watching conglomerates gobbling up the independent publishing houses since the eighties with a growing feeling of dread.

I used to spend hundreds of dollars on books a year, even when I didn't have a lot of money. I bought them new, too, because I love a beautiful new book and I wanted the authors to get the royalties, or at least the sales figures. I wanted to support the "industry." But once everything became so corporate, I found it harder and harder to find books that I really enjoyed and felt like spending my money on. I now probably buy a couple of fiction titles a year, and I write fiction and I love fiction. I would have thought that I was the kind of loyal reader that publishers would want to market to, but apparently not.

I still read, but I read more unpublished work or work online or work that's locally produced or that I know about through friends. I do hope that a new model emerges of how writers can get paid for their time and efforts, or the quality will begin to suffer overall, as someone else mentioned. Especially something like investigative journalism. But even writing a fantasy novel requires that you have the time to perfect your craft and the time to write that much and keep the flow going. So, if people are not paid for doing this, it may become much scarcer. And maybe then, other models for supporting literary artists will come into being, if people want them enough. And hopefully some of the current models mentioned by other posters will emerge as bearing long term fruit. There's the Field Reports model, too (though that promising experiment has run into some unforeseen problems--but they aren't insurmountable).

I think we who love reading and writing should think about what a new future of paid work might look like and how we can support it--not just think about how we can make money, but how we can give money, too. I'm not crazy about letting ad revenue drive content, and the corporate commercial model has not proven very successful. The Wikipedia model is exciting, I think. Maybe there is some way, as a collection of individuals, that we can keep the kinds of writing that sustain and inspire us, alive and thriving. I'm a terrible business person, but maybe some other, keener minds in that way have some ideas to share.

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your wife. You're right. There's loneliness and then there's something else that grief brings that is almost unbearable. I hope you find solace over time. I don't know what I would do if I lost my husband (which I very nearly did two years ago). My deepest sympathies.