The New York Times will soon start to rank the sales of e-books in their Sunday Book Review section.

I've been keeping an eye on e-books, because of the potential for self-publishing. Self-published e-books could do to the publishing world what blogs did to the newspaper world.

Imagine putting your book on the Internet and not having to deal with agents and stuffy editors who let manuscripts pile up on the radiator in their office. Publishing houses haven't been properly marketing or editing books for years anyway. Authors are hiring their own publicity people, rather than relying on the overworked and underpaid publicity departments. Royalities are non-existent. Why bother with a publishing house at all?