The Time of the Bloated Publishing Conglomerate is Nearing an End
So says Tom Engelhardt in his article, Reading in an Age of Depression (The Nation, December 18, 2008), lamenting the sorry state of publishing -- and the sacking of an editor he admired during the recent "Black Wednesday" industry meltdown. He begins: "Worlds shudder and collapse all the time. There's no news in that. Just ask the Assyrians, the last emperor of the Han Dynasty, the final Romanoff, Napoleon or that Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff. But when it seems to be happening to your world, well, that's a different kettle of fish. When you get the word, the call, the notice that you're a goner, or when your little world shudders, that's something else again."
More specifically, about his friend the editor: "His fault, the sap, was doing good books. The sort of books that might actually make a modest difference in the universe, but will be read by no less modest audiences -- too modest for flailing, failing publishing conglomerates. If you were talking in terms of cars, his books would have been the equivalent of those tiny 'smart cars' you see in increasing numbers, tucked into previously nonexistent parking spots on city streets, rather than the SUVs and pickups of the Big Three. It may be part of the future, but who cares? Not now -- and too bad for him."
The article goes on to describe very succinctly the pandemonium that dominated year-end publishing news and culminated on "Black Wednesday," the day the Simon & Schuster dumped 35 employees, Random House did a major reorganization, and Houghton Mifflin reduced staff after announcing a title acquisition "freeze."
Engelhardt continues his auto industry metaphor to describe the current sad state of bookselling and stock returns: "Think of it this way: those book versions of SUVs and pick-ups, all those Ford Explorer-type volumes, often so costly to put under contract but churned out so confidently for so long by the oversized giants of the publishing world, are now mostly sitting in their mall lots idling -- or, as you read this, they're winging their way back to publishers' warehouses."
He ends the piece with this dire assessment of our time, and the Time of the Book: "The book remains a techno-wonder that not even the Kindle has yet surpassed. But it's a wonder in a very crowded entertainment universe in which habits, reading and otherwise, are changing fast. Add to that a world plunging into the worst of times and you have a combustible combination. The chain bookstore, the bloated publishing house and the specific corporate way of publishing that goes with them are indeed in peril. This may no longer be their time. As for the Time of the Book, add on another century if you want, but in our ever-restless universe it does seem to be shortening."
Read the entire article online at The Nation or at Engelhardt's blog site, TomDispatch.com
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Much Ado About Publishing
No Soup For You!
I'm not gonna offer my condolences to the publishing industry.
To do so would be no different than offering my condolences to a serial killer on the occasion of his capture.
I will, however, offer my condolences to those few (and I mean few) people in the industry who have not only resisted the insane contemporary business model, but who have spoken out about it and, to paraphrase Gandhi, have been the change they want to see.
To the rest of you, I'll quote Seinfeld's Soup Nazi: "No soup for you!"
Your greed, your complete disrespect for books and their authors, your belief in ignoring talent and, instead, publishing garbage that you can brand, makes you not even worthy of actual soup in the soup lines you may soon find yourself in.
The global economic meltdown has forced publishing to finally confront the lunacy of the way it's been doing business for some decades. The idealist in me would like to think that the industry will wake up and ditch this disastrous model, but the realist in me isn't holding her breath.
That's because meaningful change -- in any endeavor -- never comes from the very people who believe in, rationalize, perpetuated, and benefit from the problem.
It only comes from those who aren't deluding themselves into believing (or haven't been brainwashed into believing) that the stupid underlying model is just swell and only needs to be tweaked, that it's the only way things can be, or that it serves its perpetrators.
As history has shown us, meaningful change only comes from dedicated, imaginative, non-delusional courageous, unselfish people of vision who desperately want the much-needed change and have worthwhile models to implement.
Short-sighted, greedy bastards who have no respect for the books they're selling, nor the people who create them, need not apply.
P.S. The insatiably hungry publishing conglomerates have been behaving like cannibals for many years now. When you're a cannibal, you can't be too surprised when, one day, somebody eats you, too.
My favorite publishing joke, which I first heard more than a dozen years ago, seems appropriate right about now.
Two cannibals are sitting around the fire eating. One cannibal says to the other, "I don't like your agent."
The other cannibal replies, "That's okay, just eat the noodles."
I'd like to add a postscript to that punchline: "Would you like some diced publisher in your Agent Soup?"
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Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.
Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction