Ars Technica is reporting that Apple’s big announcement on Thursday will be for what’s being called a Garage Band application but for books instead of music. Garage Band is Apple’s popular music creating app that can let just about anyone create and record songs. It may be about textbooks for the moment but of course it will soon expand to all sorts of books, presumably. The path of the publishing industry often seems to be following in the footsteps of the recording industry. Used to be that bands needed a big record company to put out a new album but now with online digital distribution being so easy, the role of the mega-kingmaker record company is on the wane. Digital distribution of books may soon go the same way. You won’t need a big contract with a publisher to put out piles of hardcover volumes to get placed in bookstores around the country, you can just make your own digital file and sell it on online bookstores for Kindle, Nook, and iPad.

Does that mean the books will be good? Of course not! Many will be horrible! But some will be good and maybe the system will find its own meritocracy.