ABSTRACT
One large clue is in the chilly reception Phillip K. Tompkins received in academic circles. Some senior scholars, feeling the known worlds of academic status slip away under the new systems of rewarding scholars who attain a public presence, resist and rebel. The future of scholarly publishing is where the public sphere and the entrepreneurial business model of academic culture meet. Increasingly, all of the available evidence suggests that regardless of scholars' academic area, attaining a public voice, supporting their research with websites, with blogs, with interactive media, and reaching the public through live appearances as well as digitally mediated ones will be the norm. Although academic culture struggles to cope with the changes, those of us who acquire the skill set will master the game. Unlike academic publishers who may increasingly find cover letters or queries to be less useful than the submission itself, agents and trade publishers often make decisions based solely on query letters and proposals.
