As technology disrupts the business model of traditional publishers, the industry must imagine new ways of capturing the value of a book. A business idea only has commercial value when the market” accepts it. The second principle of a successful business idea, therefore, is that it shows how large the market is for the product or service offered, for which target group(s) it is meant and how it differentiates itself from the competition.

Simultaneously the character of the retailers engaged in the business of retailing literature shifts away from ones where price and breadth of selection are central toward ones that function as a hybrid of culture hub, concierge, and gallery—that is, toward venues optimized to sell higher-end editions.

A business born out of the invention of mechanical reproduction transforms and transcends the very circumstances of its inception, and again has the potential to continue to transform and transcend itself—to …