Guest Blog: Are the Books in the Stores?
Before leaving on vacation, RINOcracy.com had become concerned that the current controversy between a major publisher, Hatchette, and Amazon has serious implications for the industry and its customers. We asked for comment from an individual with a long and distinguished career in publishing and he generously responded with the guest blog below. We are delighted to relieve the vacation hiatus with its publication. Because the writer is still active in publishing, and reluctant to become a combatant in the current conflict, it is published under a pseudonym.
As previously indicated, regular postings on RINOcracy. com will resume in July.
Are the Books in the Stores?
“In this city I account [my book] as fallen on barren ground. I avoid all public places, so as not to meet the persons to whom I have sent it; and if I cannot avoid them, I greet them without stopping; for when I pause they give me not the faintest sign that they have received it, and thus they confirm my belief that it has gone forth into a desert.”
This might be the lament of a contemporary novelist, but instead it is Giambattista Vico, writing in 1725 upon the publication of his book New Science, which was destined to become a classic. Ah, if only the publisher’s job ended when the book came out of the bindery. But in 2014 as well as 1725, there remains the damnable problem of “getting the book out there” so that people might buy it. This, despite all the agonizing details of contracts, royalties, manuscript editing, proofreading, jacket design, and the hand-holding of authors, is the real bane of the book publishing business: distribution.Read More »Guest Blog: Are the Books in the Stores?