Old School Publishing in the Age of Twitter

Peter Miller, the director of publicity for Bloomsbury and the proprietor of the bricks-and-mortar shop Freebird Books in Brooklyn, barely survived his panel discussion at SXSW. “New Think for Old Publishers” got lambasted by the audience through a simultaneous Twitter discussion, claiming (among other things), "complete existential jackoff, zero meat" as attendees waitied for the "new thinking" from New York publishing.

In a clearly wounded but also funny response for Publisher's Weekly, Miller created a "what not to do at SXSW" list for next year's panelists, which includes not allowing yourself to be seen without a laptop. More interesting though is Miller's post on the Freebird Books blog, which gives a more detailed play-by-play of the now infamous panel, and raises really interesting questions about the role and nature of publishing in a world that's becoming increasingly do-it-yourself.

As an aside, panel moderator and expert on new media, Clay Shirky, wrote this post on the fate of newspaper and magazine publishing the night before the panel. Also an interesting read.