Leo Babauta discusses the future of books with Seth Godin

I’m bookmarking this here mainly so that I can go back and listen to the whole thing. Some of the topics discussed:

Whether the new world of publishing is scary or not
The clear, well-lit path that publishing has been taking for more than a decade
How lack of scarcity has changed publishing forever
The new role of publishing in the online world
How not to wait to be picked
How Seth’s Domino Project deals with unsolicited requests from authors
How the Domino Project planned to transform everything about publishing
How he eliminated cover images, shortened books, eliminated advances, and what he learned
Whether collectible editions of books work well
Spreading ideas through books, and how paid works vs. free
The growing problem of people hating reading
Whether you should publish how-to or cookbooks at all
What types of books will sell well in the new landscape
The problem of getting selected by the masses in the vast sea of millions of published books
Why you don’t need that many followers/friends as an author
Why the willingness to fail is so important, with so many options available to authors
A future where everything that happens is your fault — and whether that’s good or bad
The horror stories of Pulitzer Prize winning authors
Amazon’s vastly important information about readers
Deciding to publish your best ideas on your blog vs. your book
Why Seth doesn’t have comments on his blog
Giving up the goal of having everyone in the world like your stuff
The cycle of productivity, and having nothing next