Rod Walker had a good writeup regarding the upcoming demise of traditional publishers and the continued irrelevance of the lone major bookstore still standing, Barnes & Noble. The problem that the big publishers and Barnes & Noble face is twofold. 1.) They can’t change. The amount of change required for them to survive in the new world is too painful to contemplate, so they’re not going to do it. 2.) They’re obsolete. The ebook has replaced the mass market paperback. Tradpub made most of its money off hardcovers, but now people only buy hardcovers of authors they really, really like, usually after they’ve read the author’s ebooks. Because of that, the future of publishing will probably look like a lot of indie authors and a lot of smaller, more agile publishers like Castalia House .So, if you’re a writer just starting out, Rod Walker thinks you should self-publish instead of attempting to go with a traditional publisher. From my perspective as a voracious reader (who is