Book Business Publishing: Past, Present, and Future

Jason Epstein has led arguably the most creative career in book publishing during the past half-century. He founded Anchor Books and launched the quality paperback revolution, cofounded the New York Review of Books, and created of the Library of America, the prestigious publisher of American classics, and The Reader's Catalog, the precursor of online bookselling. In this short book he discusses the severe crisis facing the book business todaya crisis that affects writers and readers as well as publishers and looks ahead to the radically transformed industry that will revolutionize the idea of the book as profoundly as the introduction of movable type did five centuries ago.


An assessment of the past and present of the book business, by one of its most experienced denizens. Details the current crisis in the book business and what must happen in the future for the book business to re-revolutionize the idea of the book.


Jason Epstein, former editorial director of Random House, was the first recipient of the National Book Award for Distinguished Service to American Letters.



Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (January 15, 2002)