Part-time ‘Ninja and author Russell Smith argues that print publishing isn’t as behind the times as we all seem to think. I don’t disagree with much of this, but what really struck me as news here was that someone is getting invited to fundraising dinners. How do I get on that gravy train?

It is common for business folk to shake their heads at the print publishing industry and say we all have our heads in the sand, there’s no point in fighting change and we might as well embrace the immaterial, electronic world – but of course we are all stuffy elitists who probably won’t.

I have this conversation with some guy in black tie at every fundraising dinner. The issues seem quite simple to people who are not actually in the business.

In fact, two things: 1) The issues are not quite as simple as just turning every print book into an e-book, and; 2) far from having its head in the sand, the publishing industry is deeply preoccupied with these issues and conducting constant conferences and surveys to try to figure out the way to profit from the future.

So many articles on the future of publishing are sent to my inbox every day that I can’t read them all. So the image of the bespectacled fuddy-duddy in his dusty library is a straw man: I would hazard that print publishing experts are actually on the cutting edge of new media.