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Henry Bevan explores the ethical dilema faced by those at the mercy of the technology giants.

A month ago at the Digital Book World in New York, New York University professor Scott Galloway said that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google were dragons disrupting the publishing world. They are knocking the ball so far out of the park, eventually they will knock it into another sport. He labelled the Big 4 “the Four Horsemen”.

Adult colouring books have been topping headlines as the latest craze in book publishing, but should we be surprised?

The current bestselling title at Amazon is Secret Garden, an Adult Colouring Book (no...not that kind of adult!). Illustrated by Johanna Basford, it is a beautiful compilation of pen-and-ink illustrations just begging to be coloured in. It even doubles as a treasure hunt, with hidden tiny creatures and even blank spaces to continue drawing!

Crowdsourcing seems to be the latest publishing trend, with two of the biggest giants, Amazon and Penguin launching new schemes to get readers more involved.

The two companies have within days of each other announced new projects that play on the idea of reader interaction in very different ways.

Amazon has taken its next big step in dominating the e-book market with its release of 'Kindle Unlimited', which allows subscribers unlimited access to e-books, for $9.99 a month.

Although currently limited to the US, Amazon's new service has the potential to dramatically alter the way books are consumed. The subscription model itself is not a new one; companies like Spotify are well-known for changing the way we listen to and purchase music. More recently, ventures like Readly, a subscription-based magazine service,  have taken steps to translate this into the Digital Publishing world.