[ilrwbwrkhv]

Publishing is one industry which needs to be disrupted massively.

If someone has time, use AI to select from manuscripts and create multiple editions for them. I should be able to buy a book once and then get a version for the ipad, for the phone, a physical book and an audiobook (the whole set) with unique elements in each of them taking advantage of the medium and the device.

It's so dumb the way publishing and licensing is done right now.

And no, self publishing doesn't work because filters are important and quality control has to be maintained.

[toomuchtodo]

This is a copyright law issue, not a publishing industry issue. First sale doctrine applies to the physical book, you only have a license to the ebook. Even if you were to "disrupt" publishing, they could change their benevolence at any time and no longer transfer ownership of the ebook.

This is why the Internet Archive is fighting the Controlled Digital Lending issue in court; if all books are ebooks, libraries can no longer be libraries due to onerous publisher control, and culture is locked up in perpetuity (life+whatever in your country of copyright dystopia). You have to fix the delta between how the physical book and the ebook are treated legally.

TLDR Without physical media, there is no first sale doctrine. Everything is licensed, and locked up under license terms.

[ilrwbwrkhv]

I mean start a new publishing house which does all of that. Not use existing publishers.

[toomuchtodo]

Relying on the benevolence and lifecycle of a single org in an industry is not a systemic or meaningful fix.

[ilrwbwrkhv]

Well a single org needs to start. Thats how all change happens. Just look at Tesla. Now everyone is doing electric cars.

[gamblor956]

So you're demanding special features for every medium of the book? That sounds expensive to produce, especially if the publisher only has one sale to capture all of those costs.

Do you want paperback books to cost $100? Because that's basically what you're demanding if you want all that other stuff free with every purchase.

[ilrwbwrkhv]

I think it can be done far cheaper than you are imagining. The way LLMs are evolving now, I think they are great for exactly this thing.

Given text X = Create derivates of X.

The way people are using LLMs now is -> given limited number of words -> generate more words, which creates garbage.

But the compression idea is where LLMs really shine and should be explored to disrupt the industry.

And other pricing models can also be explored such as a netflix like subscription etc.

edit:

Just to further play with that idea, I think a big reason why https://standardebooks.org/ are quite popular is because they are simply making these books readable on devices. Just that much value is enough for the market.