It's difficult to work out exactly what Apple will announce this Thursday... which is, no doubt, exactly what their publicists want.  However, let's put a few pieces of the jigsaw together.

Issacson's book stated that Jobs believed that textbook publishing was an "$8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction." Destruction? Well, yes.  That is exactly what the internet is best at doing.  Consider what Craig's List has done to the newspaper classified ad sector... and hence, to newspapers themselves.  It's no stretch of the imagination to assume that this what Jobs wanted to do to the admittedly plump textbook publishing market: to destroy it.

If so, Apple's announcement on Thursday will have implications far beyond the insular world of textbook publishing. Many major publishers use their highly-profitable educational divisions to effectively subsidize trade publishing... which means authors like you.  Sucking money out of the wider publishing ecosphere will impact everyone, not just textbook publishers.

The other thing, of course, that Apple are threatening to do is to launch a set of software tools that will be the "GarageBand for e-books".  Again, if so - this could have a revolutionary impact on every author: midlist, toplist or nolist.

As you know, I'm pretty cynical about most "game changing" internet announcements.  However, in this case, my Spider Sense is tingling. My instinct is that this might be Jobs's "One Last Thing" legacy that could, indeed, change our publishing world.

Join me on Thursday from 2:30pm onwards (UK) for live internet coverage.  I'll be looking for streams, chat, tweets and other comments from the event itself that may give us an indication of the future.  The chatroom will be open  - of  course - so you can fully participate with your thoughts.  That's 2:30pm UK, 9:30am East coast, 6:30am Pacific.

Then, later the same day, I'm hoping to do a live special edition of LITOPIA AFTER DARK, featuring publishing's leading experts to tell us exactly what's happened - and what opportunities it may create for us.  Don't miss it.  More on this very soon...

Posted on January 17 2012