So I've signed up for PubIt (or however it's capitalized & punctuated)

and in the course of perusing around the B&N website, where I've had an account for practically as long as there's been a B&N website, I see that it's changed a great deal in the last year or two. Maybe it's been longer since I've been there but I don't think so, really. But my point is that B&N have jumped with both feet (all four feet?) into the digitalization of literature. Between eBooks, and their proprietary e-Reader "Nook" and the free Nook apps for all sorts of devices including PC, they are wholeheartedly embracing where words are going, and making it very clear that they intend to be a presence there (wherever "there" is when it comes to digitalized literature). What strikes me is the proliferation of "meta-literature" that's aggregating on the relevant site/portals/whatever-they-are. All the author chat that used to take place face-to-face in one bookstore at a time is now - more or less - available on demand. You can click to get access to anything from Billy Collins reading his stuff accompanied by cute animations, to Jeff Foxworthy yakking about why he likes writing poetry for kids. And with the advent of "PubIt" B&N is inviting everyone into the game. A brilliant recognition of the so-called "democratization" of writing (if not literature - yet) that's been going on for a few years with blogs and comments from the plain folk on new stories and columns/blogs. Now folks who used to holler at the idiots on their TVs can have their golden opinions immortalized in the digital ether by appending a comment to the words of anyone from Henry Louis Gates to Sgt. Crowley. The frightening thing though is that there are actually folks who think all opinions are equal. But I digress.

So Barnes & Noble has opened the gates to the riffraff & hoi-polloi, and I suspect that sooner rather than later I will publish an e-book "just because I can." God only knows what I'll do if anyone actually coughs up cash for a copy.