I've been a self-publisher for a couple of years now. (My current e-book is about backlogs, or to-do lists. Shameless plug: http://tiny-giant-books.com/backlogs

I've been a self-publisher for a couple of years now. (My current e-book is about backlogs, or to-do lists. Shameless plug: http://tiny-giant-books.com/backlogs.htm http://tiny-giant-books.com/backlogs.htm ) I've also been a freelance writer since my teens, having been published in books, magazines, newspapers, and weeklies. And I read like heck. So I know this arena. There are a few more problems the author does not mention. The number #1 problem on the internet is that everybody wants to be an author, but nobody wants to be an editor. You can click a button and poof! You're published. Back when you had to send it to somebody, and get sometimes biting criticism, you tended to think more carefully about what you wrote. As a self-publisher, you have to be extremely paranoid about quality. And even then, what you don't see, you don't see. It's hard/impossible to replace a good professional editorial staff. The second problem is that the physicality of books is different from e-books. Don't get me wrong: I love e-books. But for certain things, like learning a new complex skill, I want to have physical books scattered around the office opened to certain passages with other passages dog-eared or bookmarked. E-books just ain't the same. I also wonder if we're not selling a shitload of e-books that nobody is ever getting around to reading. A lot of people buy books (or e-books) for their imagined experience -- not for the real one. When you have physical books, you can see when your stack is growing large. With e-books, it's very easy to over-consume. Not sure a book club would help with that, but it would solve the problems the writer mentions. Perhaps some other features could be added to the group? (I also need to mention that years ago I started a website for startups/hackers to recommend and share books. The idea was something like a social network, but instead of posting or sharing links or status updates, you posted new book titles and shared them. http://hn-books.com http://hn-books.com)