Discussion

Explanation:

Option (a): We can tell from the passage that the author would likely agree with (A). In the last paragraph, the author argues that the elimination of costs associated with traditional publishing will means that authors are entitled to a bigger share of the revenue. “Large, established publishing houses, which are heavily invested in the infrastructure of traditional publishing, initially will be reluctant to accede” to the new digital model. But this means that “the opportunity to bid for new manuscripts will go first to upstart digital-publishing firms unfettered by traditional practices or infrastructure.” So, under this competitive pressure, the traditional publishers will be forced to pay authors more—or else they’ll lose their authors to these digital firms.

But if these publishers don’t embrace the new digital model, they won’t benefit from any of the savings associated with it, which is what offsets the higher cost of paying authors more. So how would they be able to offer competitive pay? We can infer that the author likely thinks they wouldn’t be able to—that they won’t be able to remain economically competitive unless they embrace the new digital model.

Option (b): The author would likely disagree with this statement; we are told as much in the first paragraph. We learn that the scenario in (B) is what is “widely assumed” will happen. But then the author says that “it is more likely, I believe, that most digital files of books will be printed and bound on demand at point of sale by machines...”

Option (c): We can’t infer that the author would agree with (C), as they only focus on the publishing business. Whether the book retail business is in need of “revitalization,” or if digital publishing will revitalize it, is beyond the scope of the passage.

Option (d): Whether books will sell more copies if published digitally than if published traditionally is beyond the scope of the passage, so we can’t infer that the author would agree with (D).

Hence, option (a).

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