Richard Nash, formerly of Soft Skull Press has written an interesting article for Publishing Perspectives this week, entitled, ‘Why Publishing Cannot Be Saved (As It Is)’. Nash pulls no punches here and his arguments remind me of the criticism of banking at the moment, that is, rather than pour money into a financial structure which has consistantly made poor business decisions – let it sink or swim.

“The question increasingly arises in today’s media: can publishing be saved? No. It cannot and should not. There are plenty of non-profit publishers that exist to create and distribute the un-economic content. For-profit publishing should not be saved — it should figure out new business models, ones that offer services that both readers and writers want and are happy to pay for. We cannot wait for a deus ex machina to descend. (In other words, neither MySpace, nor Twitter, nor price-fixing, nor some new piracy-inducing extension of copyright law will save publishing — we simply need to start doing business better.)”

You can read the full article here.

Richard Nash’s own website.