This?:

This week, the rollout of the Amazon Kindle 2 provides fresh fodder for the debate over intellectual property, copyright infringement and digital business models in the book publishing industry. Although it was just two years ago when Professor James Boyle resigned electronic books to a sampling tool role as the hassle of reading books on a screen were too painful for most, the latest improvements in memory, battery life, e-Ink and e-Paper technology displays for the new Kindle may hold his feet to the fire.

Indeed, it was because books were more easily read on paper that Boyle claimed e-Books were fantastic ways for the small, marginal or up-and-coming author to gain exposure and scale, knowing that hooked readers would put down the sample and go out and purchase the hardcopy. On the other hand, classy and established writers like John Grisham and Danielle Steel would scorn free downloading, digital distribution, Creative Commons licenses and “copy-friendly” business models for fear of cannibalizing paper and hardback sales. But now, with the development of improved e-Book readers like the Kindle 2, the advantages and disadvantages of digital books have become fuzzier.

Kindle 2 books are not yet free. It costs $9.99 to download and store a full book on your Kindle account (your collection can be accessed from another kindle). Still, they are certainly cheaper than hardbacks, and with services like Google Book Search, which uses optical character recognition to scan and digitize written text, as well as copycats and existing P2P destinations, who knows how long it will be before users will find ways to upload free content onto Kindles or for cheaper, more accessible readers to make it to market.

The question that remains is how the obscure author and the famous author will be propelled or set back by digital books, and how they will adjust or maintain their strategies in the wake of this technology, if at all. First, will improved e-readers really revolutionize how people acquire and read texts? Right now, the high-priced ($359) Kindle has only managed to attract the early-adaptors, but eventually as prices come down and new competitors enter the market, I cannot see the common book reader ignoring the increasingly obvious benefits of portability, storage and instant download. Just the idea of skimming a few pages every time I’m bored at the bus stop, downloading a new bestseller instead of hitting up the nearest Barnes & Noble, or busting out my reader on a plane instead of carrying a sack full of books gives me the hibbie-jibbies.

Thus, my thoughts are that the obscure or up-and-coming author will continue to embrace digital books and the new Kindle as a means to gain exposure despite the decreased margins per book sale. Similarly, the established writer will stand to gain volume through an increased following of previous non-readers, seldom readers, international readers and new young readers. Additionally if successful, both types will learn to draw substantially more revenue from conferences, motivational speeches, deal signings with periodicals and regular publications, popular blogs and a web presence, consulting businesses or perhaps even posts in academia; note Tom Wolfe, Salmon Rushdie, Dave Eggers, Peter Drucker, Malcolm Gladwell, etc. And as for those whose works grace mainly the airport stands or express lines at grocery stores, would we really hate to see them “fade into oblivion” anyways?

Ultimately, it’s the publishing houses (especially textbook publishers!) that should be worried most, not the writers. It’s these middlemen, whose margins are based on “the restriction of copying,” and who must eventually face the demands of the “Next Billion” Internet users that will increasingly seek their content in a digital, mobile format instead of analog or print. The other question that remains is how books will learn to compete directly with other textual media, like newspapers, periodicals, blogs and regular publications for digital readership.

Or this?: