Christian V. pointed me to a New York Times story on Is This the Future of the Digital Book? (Brad Stone, April 4, 2009).
Wattpad, based in Toronto, is among several start-ups soliciting the work of unpublished authors, giving them a route around the big book companies and then distributing their writing on the Web and on mobile phones. Wattpad draws its revenue from advertising and, for now at least, does not pay the authors.
Smart phones now have larger and brighter screens so it is possible people will use them to read, but I’m not yet convinced. Will weaving multimedia into the book save it?