But I think that the massive writing revolution began before eBooks. Blogs opened up platforms for public writing where before we had only print journalism. The hot new things is freelance writing and publishing via independent apps. There was a great conversation on the BoingBoing Gweek podcast where they talked with Joel Johnson from Kotaku about the iPad “app” “The Final Hours of Portal 2.” It’s basically a long form article, kind of what you used to find in magazines like Rolling Stone or The Atlantic.

Anything that gives people more of an opportunity to write, share that writing, and receive feedback is an opportunity that they didn’t have before. So, yeah, I think it will increase writing, and hopefully encourage better, more advanced writing.

As for the legacy publishing system, they stopped focusing on developing talent in-house over a decade ago; the push has been to find the next best seller, not create a stable of writers with dependable sales. It’s why decent writers with good books can’t get contracts renewed: if their second book did not sell more than their first, then they are simply dumped.

One aspect that will serve as a way to separate wheat from chaff is that now, because publishers are mostly sitting back to see who sells before they commit to them, writers are having to bear the bulk of marketing themselves. Some writers hate that, and I don’t blame them, but it certainly takes those who aren’t serious about writing out of the pool.

Whatever else that can be said or prognosticated, it is certainly an era of change. *sigh*

It will be a time of fine tuning as people have preconceived notions about the eBook market and what they will pay for value and what they may look to pirate.

Personally, to answer your question, I think it will be an easier time as people are able to feel like they can connect with the author through their websites and social media. It will create a bond that marketing can’t; it’s a matter of figuring out how these people break through and what works and what doesn’t.

I’m wondering if it will turn the literary pyramid into more of a literary speed bump; yes there will be more authors at the top, but a fatter midlist and an even larger bottom.

I think that though self publishing will increase something will happen to help filter out what should actually be published. What that filter is, other than lack of sales of each individual author, I do not know.

From the standpoint of an (as yet) little-published author, the ubiquity of ebooks is both encouraging and discouraging. There’s sooooo much crap being produced. You don’t want to be embarrassed by the competition that’s beating you out! At the same time, it’s a promising outlet. A short story of mine that’s available from an epublisher has an indefinite shelf life. The others languish on shelves, unread.

I found Libraryscene’s comment about ebooks’ affect on writing style very interesting. Yeah–writing is becoming ‘more cryptic, less elegant.’ So much for my well-polished sentences!

I left out the PL in this because I wanted to address it from the market viewpoint. As much as I love to relate it back to libraries (and I do a lot on here), I just wanted to leave it as an aside for now.