Publishing has long had a reputation as stuffy and slow. It's a business where lunches are long, with short summer Fridays so New York editors can recharge on Hamptons beaches, a business where it takes months to respond to manuscripts and more than a year to publish a book.
But in the past year, publishers have made rapid changes. They have fought with authors and agents for digital rights, negotiated with Amazon and Apple over their sales commission and are fighting libraries on the number of times e-books can be loaned.
