via Forbes:

The process takes twelve to eighteen months to publish a book—Apple introduces new models of iPhones faster than that,” Kawasaki explains. In my interview with him, Kawasaki acknowledged that traditional publishers are behind, even detrimental to authors in some circumstances: “The issue is that they <publishers> are limited to the traditional way of making money: selling books printed on paper to customers who are willing to wait twelve months for a book and who use the publisher’s imprint as a proxy for quality. Those days are gone.