SOURCE: "Publishing's Electronic Future," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 240, No. 36, September 6, 1993, pp. 46-8, 50, 52.

[In the essay below, which is based on interviews with numerous people in the publishing industry, Robinson addresses questions regarding the future of publishing, including distribution, genres, media, copyright law, and marketing.]

The industrial world is in the throes of a technological revolution in which the rate of change has never been as fast or the boundaries that normally separate one industry from another as blurred. Communications, computing, entertainment and publishing industries are beginning to converge, creating new kinds of alliances. What does it all mean for publishing? Who are the visionaries in publishing today, and how will they take advantage of the opportunities that come with technological change?

To answer some of these questions, and to try to find out what the tradebook publishing industry thinks about the prospects for the millennium 2000, a diverse but...