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Case Study

Gutenberg’s last laugh?: Rethinking the book business

By Andrew C. Boynton, William A. Fischer and Michael Henderson-Cohen

21 pages

December 2005

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Reference: IMD-3-1550

Eighteen months after mega-star horror-fiction writer Stephen King had, in the summer of 2000, independently launched a new novel over the Internet, and asked his readers to become “big publishing’s worst nightmare,” by bypassing much of the existing industry value chain, book publishers breathed a collective sigh of relief. For a variety of reasons, King put the initiative on hold after four chapters. The question, however, remains: has normalcy returned? Is the nightmare over? Or, are we misinterpreting a death-rattle for laughter, and will things ever be the same again?

Keywords

Publishing, Media

Settings

Media, Printing and Publishing
n/a

Type

Published Sources

Available Languages

English

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