In the constant quest for relevancy and timely reportage, the publishing cycle keeps getting contracted. Now books, especially in politics, are going from concept to print in as little as ten days. Aw! Ten days?! But I want it NOW!

For generations the publishing industry has worked on a fairly standard schedule, taking nine months to a year after an author delivered a manuscript to put finished books in stores. Now, enabled in part by e-book technology and fueled by a convergence of spectacularly dramatic news events, publishers are hitting the fast-forward button.

In December the FT Press released an e-book edition of “Barack, Inc: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign” a month after the authors delivered a manuscript. Last month Free Press, a unit of Simon & Schuster, published an e-book version of “Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation” just three weeks after Daniel Gross, a writer for Newsweek magazine, completed the book.

And as the financial crisis was deepening last March, George Soros submitted a manuscript to the publisher PublicAffairs. Ten days later the e-book of “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets” went on sale.

“People can’t wait a year to get timely information on critical subjects,” said Amy Neidlinger, associate publisher of FT Press. “Especially today it’s dated 10 minutes after you’ve just received the first installation.”

Of course many publishers and authors suggest that taking time to produce a reflective work is what books are about, and that they should not succumb to the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle.

We don’t need art here, people, we need information!! Now back in the salt mines, you dirtbag! You canll yourself an author!?