Richard Nash on the Democratization of Publishing

Richard Nash does a good deal of thinking about the future of books. Unquestionably, this "serial entrepreneur," has been at the forefront of exploring what the digital revolution will mean for the culture of reading and publishing, starting from his days running the New York-based indie publisher Soft Skull Press, and continuing through his work as founder of open-source publishing project Cursor, and as advisor to various digital media companies. In talking with Nash, it soon becomes clear that his thinking about the future of publishing is deeply informed by its past - a history that often gets overlooked in breathless reports on the brave new world of digital media. "In the West, the Industrial Revolution begins with book," Nash says. "It was almost the first thing that humans were able to reproduce in perfect facsimile on a vast scale. It allowed various kinds of scientific information to be shared, which in turn allowed for the sharing of even more technology."