Douglas Rushkoff, a successful author, media and pop culture critic, and documentarian, is coming out with a new book. While this news is not in and of itself shocking, the way he’s doing it is – Rushkoff is forgoing the companies that have published his work in the past, and all the money, PR, and distribution that comes with them.

Rushkoff explains in his Arthur magazine column why he chose to leave his publisher behind:

Because it would make my book twice as expensive for you, half as profitable for me, less purposefully written, and unavailable until about two years from now. In short, the traditional publishing system is nearly dead. And publishing a book under its rules can mean the death of ideas within it, as well. Until it utterly reworks its method, gets rid of a majority of its corporate dead weight, releases its publishing houses from the conglomerates that own them, and embraces direct selling models, the publishing industry will remain rather useless to readers and writers alike.

Rushkoff’s new book, “Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age” will be released by the small, independent publisher OR Books on November 1st. It will only be available for sale on the OR Books website.

Rushkoff remains optimistic about the future of publishing. Read his full column here.