Decently put together piece from Jeffery A. Trachtenberg. I’m not sold on all his points, but as a general survey it makes a good starting point:
Not everyone believes that the shift to digital publishing is necessarily bad for writers. Novelist E.L. Doctorow, who has taught creative writing for 23 years at the NYU Creative Writing Program, says the industry may be transforming away from big corporate-owned publishers back to a cottage industry like it was many years ago. The shakeout could help prune an overcrowded market.
“Writers come up from nowhere, from the ground up, and nobody is looking for them or asking for them, but there they are,” says Mr. Doctorow. “If there is a weeding out that’s going to occur because of such difficulties, it may be all to the good.”
Eoin Purcell's Blog 