Brett Arends, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

On-Demand Book Publishing and the Slush Pile's Revenge

September 30, 2009 at 2:52 pm PT

Jason Epstein, the book publishing legend, had a warning on Tuesday for the rest of his industry.

You’re toast.

Not in so many words, of course. But 81-year old Mr. Epstein, who was the editorial director of Random House for many decades, warned that new technology risked making traditional publishers obsolete. Authors, he said, can now publish their books themselves, using the new standalone Espresso Book Machine built by Mr. Epstein’s company, On Demand Books.

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Tagged with: Brett Arends, digital, Digits, economy, Espresso Book Machine, frontpage, hardware, innovation, Jason Epstein, On Demand Books, Publishers, Random House, software, The Wall Street Journal

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