Hello and welcome to DuncanWritingEditingPublishing (DWEP?), a blog named not just for its overall theme, but for the process that goes towards it appearing before your very eyes! Incredible!

In keeping with this theme (or at least the P part), I’ve been pretty interested in where publishing is going, especially seeing as how it’s a field I’m looking to work in. But in the world of digital/online/‘new’ media, it seems most of us with access to the interwebs are already into it via self-publishing: uploading music to MySpace, tortured poetry onto LiveJournal or, hey!, blogs like this.

Anyway, as far as traditional book publishing goes, I’ve been exploring the issues surrounding the, well, not-so-traditional ebooks and the future of books in general. In particular, one of the main players at the moment seems to be Amazon’s Kindle.

From a few of the articles and blog posts that I’ve been reading, there are both  potential benefits and downsides to reading books on the Kindle, but even the more thoughtful articles seem to have skepticism mixed with enthusiasm. The Kindle may be more environmentally friendly, but it can be creepy in a doubly Orwellian way. Many say to forget the Kindle, using the iPhone is far superior for reading many ebooks.

I’m really keen to try out both the Kindle and the iPhone’s ebook capabilities for myself. But I have the feeling that neither of the devices have got it quite right yet. Maybe in the next round of fancy-schmancy electronic devices, something will come along that really makes ebooks work and brings them into the mainstream.

For now, I’m happy exploring blogs on my big old desktop computer, reading scribbles on smooshed up tree pulp and watching the latest round of The Book vs. The Kindle.