My summary: Publishers do a lot of things authors need. They're like companies that "hire" programmers in a way - they give programmers a more direct route from

My summary: Publishers do a lot of things authors need. They're like companies that "hire" programmers in a way - they give programmers a more direct route from "writing code" to "making money". Sure, some programmers could go and create a startup, but the vast majority prefer working for someone else. In a similar way, publishers provide authors with a few important things: * Editors * Fact-checkers * Marketing * A filter for the public against bad books * Legal help and protection * Most importantly, an advance. This means guaranteed money for the author, regardless of the book being a success. Publishers can afford this by "funding" lots of authors. Without this, a lot of authors could probably never keep working long enough to make a decent living. My biggest takeaway is that there are a lot of problems going from the old world of publishers, to the perhaps-inevitable future. Startups which attack any of the things above which publishers provide authors, but do so in an innovative way, could become huge and successful, and help define the future.