ABSTRACT
As Katherine Hayles notes, virtually all literature is now digital – only the form of its output varies (Hayles 2008: 5). The form of a groundbreaking new-media anthology like the Electronic Literature Collection (Hayles, Montfort, Rettberg and Strickland 2006) – a mosaic of video, animation, sound, and text – is now mirrored in publications as common as the daily newspaper. Over twenty-million previously print-only books are now ready for reading on phones and computers, as well as in print, while e-readers like the Kindle or high-speed printers like the Espresso Book Machine (On Demand Books: 2008) are transforming publishing, and therefore literature, just as every revolution in print technology has before, from the invention of movable type to the cheap, mass-market paperbacks that helped usher in bestsellers, chain bookstores, celebrity authors, and all that comprises the literary mainstream today.
