So the news is, despite this thing called the Internet happening, and Wikipedia, and YouTube how-tos, and self-publishing becoming reputable and lo-capex, and most non-fiction on a slow downward trend, Penguin is going to reboot a non-fiction imprint, with conventional pricing and distribution, with books on the sort of topics one gets in TED Talks and free online university lectures. How does one pitch a business case for something like this?
Quite simple actually. These books contain big meaty subject matter. Not fucking glossed over topics like a ted talk or wiki entry.
The laws of thermodynamics cannot be condensed down into a 14 minute video.
The internet has cheapened both the access and depth of knowledge. There are a lot of internet commentators out there who barely grasp a briefly summarized topic yet assume an expert position.
So true. The amount of dross one has to wade through on the internet to find something worth the reading can be huge. Whilst being printed in paper format at the end of a chain of editors, proof-readers, financial outlay and vast amounts of effort on the part of the original author (generally quite qualified, and even then you can double check this yourself before you read) doesn't guarantee a good result, the odds are much better.
They picked some good authors to start with; Ha-Joon Chang's previous book for the general audience was a good read from a good writer.
Their proposed market is the original market for Pelican books: intellectually curious people with the attention span to read a non-trivial book. If you think that TED talks are anything like reading a serious in-depth non-fiction book then you don't understand enough to have an opinion on this topic.
