Last week, Seth Godin, released his new publishing vision called The Domino Project. Some months ago, Godin announced he was leaving his publisher and going his own way. At the time, I was skeptical about such an approach. Sure it could work for Godin, who is a popular speaker and writer, but how would it work for others with less recognition.

In a blog post, Godin outlined the problems he sees with current publishing methods, and how he thinks his new approach--a partnership with Amazon.com--would be better. He's careful to point out, by the way, that he sees this methodology is meant only for non-fiction books.

Under Godin's methodology, the reader bypasses the bookstore and has direct contact with the author. That sounds good as far as it goes, but it doesn't really provide unknown authors with a real launching pad any more than the old method did, and what's more, it confines the publication to a Kindle, a proprietary format. 

If Godin hopes to promote this type of publishing--and on its face, it's a good idea--he probably shouldn't have hitched his wagon to a proprietary vendor like Amazon. His whole philosophy, after all is about sharing and building tribes of like minded individuals. If that's the case, then it would make sense to use a format that you could share across eReader devices and not just something you can read on one device.

Godin's on the right track here, but selecting a proprietary vendor was not a smart move.

For more information:
- see Seth Godin's blog post announcing The Domino Project

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