An article in this mornings Times discusses digital publishing and web tie-ins to print novels. Mark Z. Danielewski's new work (see the eyeball note below), which apparently features a kind of Wikipediaesque reader comment aspect, gets special mention:

When Mark Z. Danielewski's second novel, "Only Revolutions," is published in September, it will include hundreds of margin notes listing moments in history suggested online by fans of his work.

I have long been in favor of things digital when it comes to publishing. Sure, I still have trouble reading longer things on my computer (and it was hilarious to try to read Waiting for Godot on my Palm Pilot -- though very cool to know it was there), but the technology is almost there (e-ink is coming) and once the platforms are more solidly in place, search engines will help redefine (in practice, not just in theory) what "books" are (are they, as some of us tend to think anyway, mega-conglomerates of all the books we've read or all the books, read or unread, we have on our shelves? or are they those discrete units? or something in between?).

There is, of course, a great deal of overlap in concern here with the transformation occurring in the music industry -- authors and publishers worried that the miniscule amounts of money they tend to make will be made even smaller by digital sampling (the google snippets one can have already). Maybe it's just because I don't make any money on my work, but this part of it doesn't bother me too much. No doubt though when the first indie publisher goes under because of some digital assault or other, I will change my mind on this. But until then, it's fascinating, not frightening times...